Freek van Ede
@freekvanede.bsky.social
Cognitive Neuroscientist in Amsterdam
proactivebrainlab.com
proactivebrainlab.com
Now out in #ScienceAdvances: @baiweiliu.bsky.social and I ask how internal (goal) and external (sensory) selection are coordinated during visual search. The key insight: internal and external selection are not inherently serial, but may develop in parallel in the human brain: doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Concurrent selection of internal goals and external sensations during visual search
Internal and external selection processes can codevelop in time to yield efficient search behavior.
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Now out in #ScienceAdvances: @baiweiliu.bsky.social and I ask how internal (goal) and external (sensory) selection are coordinated during visual search. The key insight: internal and external selection are not inherently serial, but may develop in parallel in the human brain: doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Disambiguating dimensions of 'external' and 'internal' brain processes. Check our article in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social on concepts and open question in this burgeoning area of research, with @danielagresch.bsky.social and Kia Nobre from @brognition.bsky.social. authors.elsevier.com/a/1lygsbotq7...
October 19, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Disambiguating dimensions of 'external' and 'internal' brain processes. Check our article in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social on concepts and open question in this burgeoning area of research, with @danielagresch.bsky.social and Kia Nobre from @brognition.bsky.social. authors.elsevier.com/a/1lygsbotq7...
Reposted by Freek van Ede
New position, new social media account. After 5 fantastic years in Tuebingen, I moved to @yale.edu and the @wutsaiyale.bsky.social this summer - which means that I’ll be recruiting PhD students and postdocs. Please help me to spread the word and see current opportunities below 👇
October 6, 2025 at 6:46 PM
New position, new social media account. After 5 fantastic years in Tuebingen, I moved to @yale.edu and the @wutsaiyale.bsky.social this summer - which means that I’ll be recruiting PhD students and postdocs. Please help me to spread the word and see current opportunities below 👇
The human-neuroscience N2pc marker of covert and internal attention co-occurs with spatial biases in microsaccades, 200-300 ms after prompted to shift attention. (How) are these empirical phenomena related? Check it out in the latest work led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Microsaccades strongly modulate but do not directly cause the EEG N2pc marker of spatial attention
Researchers often study human attention using microsaccades and the N2pc EEG marker, but it is unclear to what extent microsaccades contribute to N2pc. This study shows that microsaccades modulate N2p...
doi.org
October 7, 2025 at 6:59 AM
The human-neuroscience N2pc marker of covert and internal attention co-occurs with spatial biases in microsaccades, 200-300 ms after prompted to shift attention. (How) are these empirical phenomena related? Check it out in the latest work led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Our latest study showing how humans look into working memory to verify potential search targets - literally. Now out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social. Check out the article here:
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/3...
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/3...
Looking into Working Memory to Verify Potential Search Targets
Finding what you are looking for is a ubiquitous task in everyday life that relies on a two-way comparison between what is currently viewed and internal search goals held in memory. Despite a wealth o...
www.jneurosci.org
September 25, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Our latest study showing how humans look into working memory to verify potential search targets - literally. Now out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social. Check out the article here:
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/3...
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/3...
In 2023, I proposed that microsaccades may predominantly track shifting but not maintaining covert visual-spatial attention: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... In a project led by Anna van Harmelen, we now provide empirical support for this: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Microsaccades track shifting but not necessarily maintaining covert visual-spatial attention
Covert attention enables the brain to prioritise relevant visual information without directly looking at it. Ample studies have linked covert visual-spatial attention to the direction of small fixatio...
doi.org
July 20, 2025 at 11:28 AM
In 2023, I proposed that microsaccades may predominantly track shifting but not maintaining covert visual-spatial attention: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... In a project led by Anna van Harmelen, we now provide empirical support for this: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Freek van Ede
Looking for a summer read? Look no further! ☀️
Our most recent paper with Sage Boettcher, @freekvanede.bsky.social and @kianobre.bsky.social is out @plosbiology.org! 🪩
Sensory and motor working-memory contents are both prioritised dynamically, but their prioritisation can be temporally decoupled 🧠
Our most recent paper with Sage Boettcher, @freekvanede.bsky.social and @kianobre.bsky.social is out @plosbiology.org! 🪩
Sensory and motor working-memory contents are both prioritised dynamically, but their prioritisation can be temporally decoupled 🧠
Sensory and motor contents are prioritized dynamically in working memory
Attention flexibly modulates sensory contents in working memory, but the dynamics of motor content modulation in working memory remain unclear. This study shows that brain representations of both sens...
journals.plos.org
July 15, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Looking for a summer read? Look no further! ☀️
Our most recent paper with Sage Boettcher, @freekvanede.bsky.social and @kianobre.bsky.social is out @plosbiology.org! 🪩
Sensory and motor working-memory contents are both prioritised dynamically, but their prioritisation can be temporally decoupled 🧠
Our most recent paper with Sage Boettcher, @freekvanede.bsky.social and @kianobre.bsky.social is out @plosbiology.org! 🪩
Sensory and motor working-memory contents are both prioritised dynamically, but their prioritisation can be temporally decoupled 🧠
Reposted by Freek van Ede
📢 New paper out in JoN [@sfnjournals.bsky.social]! With Larissa, Freek [@freekvanede.bsky.social], Kia [@brognition.bsky.social] and Sage [@dynacog-lab.bsky.social], we ask which and when WM contents get reselected after an interrupting external-attention task. 🧵 below (1|9) doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...
Neural Dynamics of Reselecting Visual and Motor Contents in Working Memory after External Interference
In everyday tasks, we must often shift our focus away from internal representations held in working memory to engage with perceptual events in the external world. Here, we investigated how our interna...
doi.org
May 2, 2025 at 2:28 PM
📢 New paper out in JoN [@sfnjournals.bsky.social]! With Larissa, Freek [@freekvanede.bsky.social], Kia [@brognition.bsky.social] and Sage [@dynacog-lab.bsky.social], we ask which and when WM contents get reselected after an interrupting external-attention task. 🧵 below (1|9) doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...
⏰Finally out in final form:
elifesciences.org/articles/100...
elifesciences.org/articles/100...
Re-focusing visual working memory during expected and unexpected memory tests
Memory tests evoke a second stage of internal attentional deployment following both expected and unexpected memory tests, extending attentional re-orienting to working memory.
elifesciences.org
April 23, 2025 at 12:39 PM
⏰Finally out in final form:
elifesciences.org/articles/100...
elifesciences.org/articles/100...
A huge honour to be among the 2025 Ammodo Science Awardees for Fundamental Research. Vital credit is due to my mentors and to the past and current members of my team. www.ammodo-science.org/story/ammodo...
Laureates Ammodo Science Award 2025 announced
Leila Akkari, Marvin Tanenbaum, Rik Peels, Jenneke van der Wal, Yoeri van de Burgt, Nathalie Katsonis, Janna Cousijn and Freek van Ede are the winners of the Ammodo Science Award 2025. The laureates w...
www.ammodo-science.org
April 16, 2025 at 6:28 AM
A huge honour to be among the 2025 Ammodo Science Awardees for Fundamental Research. Vital credit is due to my mentors and to the past and current members of my team. www.ammodo-science.org/story/ammodo...
Handing out this year's Young Investigator Awards at CNS2025, on behalf of the committee, was a true pleasure and honor - and such fantastic awardees and talks, as well as a truly stimulating meeting once again. Thanks @cogneuronews.bsky.social
@freekvanede.bsky.social presents the Young Investigator Award to @esfinn.bsky.social and @andrebastosof.bsky.social
Congratulations!
#CNS2025
Congratulations!
#CNS2025
April 2, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Handing out this year's Young Investigator Awards at CNS2025, on behalf of the committee, was a true pleasure and honor - and such fantastic awardees and talks, as well as a truly stimulating meeting once again. Thanks @cogneuronews.bsky.social
Bringing together our findings on microsaccade biases during rehearsal and selection in visual working memory, suggesting a 'silent spatial scaffold' for working memory whereby spatial organisation stays preserved even if active space-based rehearsal has ceased
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Microsaccades reveal preserved spatial organisation in visual working memory despite decay in location-based rehearsal
Space provides a foundational scaffold for retaining and selecting visual information in working memory. It remains unclear, however, whether and how …
www.sciencedirect.com
March 10, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Bringing together our findings on microsaccade biases during rehearsal and selection in visual working memory, suggesting a 'silent spatial scaffold' for working memory whereby spatial organisation stays preserved even if active space-based rehearsal has ceased
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Our latest findings showing how internal and external visual selection do not necessarily ‘take turns’ but can run in parallel, led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Concurrent selection of internal goals and external sensations during visual search
Flexible goal-directed behaviour relies on the selective processing of internal goal representations and external sensations. Yet, internal and external selection processes have classically been studi...
www.biorxiv.org
March 3, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Our latest findings showing how internal and external visual selection do not necessarily ‘take turns’ but can run in parallel, led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our latest insights into the important role of 'action' in the study of visual working memory: set-size effects driven by changes in action readiness, not visual accessibility. Work led by Rose Nasrawi now out in Progress in Neurobiology: doi.org/10.1016/j.pn...
Redirecting
doi.org
January 21, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Our latest insights into the important role of 'action' in the study of visual working memory: set-size effects driven by changes in action readiness, not visual accessibility. Work led by Rose Nasrawi now out in Progress in Neurobiology: doi.org/10.1016/j.pn...
Our latest findings help appreciate why microsaccades and attention shifts are often correlated but not obligatorily linked: attention shifts do not cause new microsaccades but exclusively bias the direction of microsaccades that happen to be made when shifting attention. rdcu.be/dXNoW
Attentional shifts bias microsaccade direction but do not cause new microsaccades
Communications Psychology - Microsaccades are eye-movements that are modulated by covert and internal shifts of attention. This work shows how shifts in attention bias microsaccade direction...
rdcu.be
October 23, 2024 at 11:11 AM
Our latest findings help appreciate why microsaccades and attention shifts are often correlated but not obligatorily linked: attention shifts do not cause new microsaccades but exclusively bias the direction of microsaccades that happen to be made when shifting attention. rdcu.be/dXNoW
📜Preprint alert: our latest EEG findings reveal the foreground role action-readiness plays in visual-memory-guided behaviour. Take-home-message: working-memory load affects memory readiness, not accessibility per se. Led by Rose Nasrawi: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Memory load influences our preparedness to act on visual representations in working memory without affecting their accessibility
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
www.biorxiv.org
February 26, 2024 at 5:02 PM
📜Preprint alert: our latest EEG findings reveal the foreground role action-readiness plays in visual-memory-guided behaviour. Take-home-message: working-memory load affects memory readiness, not accessibility per se. Led by Rose Nasrawi: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We are also thrilled this work made it to the Editor's pick at
@eNeuro: blog.eneuro.org/2024/01/edit...
@eNeuro: blog.eneuro.org/2024/01/edit...
January 25, 2024 at 9:23 AM
We are also thrilled this work made it to the Editor's pick at
@eNeuro: blog.eneuro.org/2024/01/edit...
@eNeuro: blog.eneuro.org/2024/01/edit...
Over the past years, we have repeatedly shown how microsaccades are a powerful index for selection in visual working memory. We now show that microsaccades also track multi-item rehearsal through memorised locations: doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
Microsaccades Track Location-Based Object Rehearsal in Visual Working Memory
Besides controlling eye movements, the brain's oculomotor system has been implicated in the control of covert spatial attention and the rehearsal of spatial information in working memory. We investiga...
doi.org
January 25, 2024 at 8:15 AM
Over the past years, we have repeatedly shown how microsaccades are a powerful index for selection in visual working memory. We now show that microsaccades also track multi-item rehearsal through memorised locations: doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...