Helen Blank
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helenblank.bsky.social
Helen Blank
@helenblank.bsky.social
Professor of Predictive Cognition at Faculty of Psychology @ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Emmy Noether Research Group Leader
PI @sfb-trr-289.bsky.social @ UKE Hamburg
https://blanklab.eu/

Pinned
Keen on doing a PhD or Postdoc in predictive cognition at THINK? www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/think/index.... I'll be hiring for positions starting this summer/fall—reach out if you're interested!
Reposted by Helen Blank
We are advertising **11 new PhD positions** in the second cohort of our RTG on Curiosity (details on all 11 positions here: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/open+posi...). One of these positions is in my group looking at the role of curiosity in early word learning (www.uni-goettingen.de/en/644546.ht...)
Open Positions - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Webseiten der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
www.uni-goettingen.de
November 25, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Just published my "Programming for Psychologists" course! 👩‍💻 github.com/Naubody/prog...

Designed for Psychology & Cognitive Neuroscience Master's students starting their programming journey at @vuamsterdam.bsky.social.

Feel free to share! Feedback welcome!
November 24, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Excited to share that the main work of my PhD has been published!

We found that having control over pain makes expectations more precise, and changes pain perception. This is accompanied by activation changes in the PAG, SMA and ACC.

You can read the full version of the paper here: rdcu.be/eQy6X
Controllability changes pain perception by increasing the precision of expectations
Nature Communications - Control over pain changes how intense it is perceived. Here, the authors show that this effect results from increased expectation precision with control, which changes...
rdcu.be
November 22, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
proud to share this work, led by the brilliant @ilinabg.bsky.social, now out in Nature! Ilina finds that speech-sound neural processing is VERY similar in a language you know and one you don't. differences only emerge at the level of word boundaries and learnt statistical structure 🧠✨
The human brain responds to the sounds of both familiar and unfamiliar languages in a similar way, according to research in Nature. The findings might guide future approaches to language learning and rehabilitation. go.nature.com/4ppvsHb #Neuroskyence 🧪
November 20, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
🚀 BIDS Consultation Hours are back next week!

Need support converting your data to BIDS?
Bring your questions and get hands-on guidance from experienced BIDS users to make your data shareable and reproducible 🧠♻️

📅 Friday, Nov 28 | 12:00 PM CET
🔗 Info & materials: tinyurl.com/igor-bids
IGOR BIDS consultations hour
tinyurl.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
All in all, it was a fantastic retreat with lots of exchange at eye-level, between researchers of different fields and career stages, and the members of our Patient Advisory Board.

This is the research of the future! ♥️

@ulrikebingel.bsky.social
@sheddenmora.bsky.social
@helenahartmann.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
@dotproduct.bsky.social's first first author paper is finally out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! Her findings show that content-specific predictions fluctuate with alpha frequencies, suggesting a more specific role for alpha oscillations than we may have thought. With @jhaarsma.bsky.social. 🧠🟦 🧠🤖
Contents of visual predictions oscillate at alpha frequencies
Predictions of future events have a major impact on how we process sensory signals. However, it remains unclear how the brain keeps predictions online in anticipation of future inputs. Here, we combin...
www.jneurosci.org
October 21, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
🧠 Regularization, Action, and Attractors in the Dynamical “Bayesian” Brain

direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...

(still uncorrected proofs, but they should post the corrected one soon--also OA is forthcoming, for now PDF at brainandexperience.org/pdf/10.1162-...)
Regularization, Action, and Attractors in the Dynamical “Bayesian” Brain
Abstract. The idea that the brain is a probabilistic (Bayesian) inference machine, continuously trying to figure out the hidden causes of its inputs, has become very influential in cognitive (neuro)sc...
direct.mit.edu
October 22, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Delighted to share our new paper, now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"Hierarchical dynamic coding coordinates speech comprehension in the brain"

with dream team @alecmarantz.bsky.social, @davidpoeppel.bsky.social, @jeanremiking.bsky.social

Summary 👇

1/8
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Just came across this face image database that lists different databases from A-Z libguides.princeton.edu/facedatabases A very nice collection, thanks to
@mtesterman.bsky.social
Research Guides: Face Image Databases: Databases (A-Z)
An A-Z directory of databases of face stimulus images for use in behavioral research
libguides.princeton.edu
September 26, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
In meinem Team an der Universität Göttingen ist eine PhD Stelle (3 Jahre, 75%) ausgeschrieben – bitte gerne teilen bzw. bei Fragen melden!

www.uni-goettingen.de/de/644546.ht...
Stellenanzeigen - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Webseiten der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
www.uni-goettingen.de
September 22, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
For the laminauts. @layerfmri.bsky.social
August 30, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
🚨 We’re hiring! 🚨
The Social&Environmental Psychology Group @ruhr-uni-bochum.de is recruiting 2 PhDs and 1 Postdoc
as part of the ERC-funded SUSCON project on sustainable consumption.

Details here:

PhDs:👉 jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/7...

Postdoc:👉 jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/e...
Doctoral Researcher (m,f,x)
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
August 26, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Tenure-track job in audiology at Western's School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, in beautiful Ontario, Canada -- work with a great team, benefit from all the resources that a large research-intensive uni can supply -- and enjoy amazing quality of life!
August 28, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Looking Ahead: The New Science of the Predictive Mind. New book by @falkhuettig.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1017/9781....
Looking Ahead
Cambridge Core - Cognition - Looking Ahead
doi.org
August 31, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Layer-specific changes in sensory cortex across the lifespan in mice and humans - Big congratulations @estherkuehn.bsky.social‬ and team!!
Thanks to all (co)authors & reviewers for their contribution to this study on #layer specific changes in #sensory #cortex across the #lifespan in #humans & #mice now out in @natneuro.nature.com Here is a short summary of our findings 1/6
🧠 The human brain ages less than thought and in layers – at least in the area of the cortex responsible for the sense of touch. See study @natneuro.nature.com by @estherkuehn.bsky.social and colleagues at DZNE, @hih-tuebingen.bsky.social and @uni-magdeburg.de:

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM
How do speaker priors shape speech perception? Meet @fabianschneider.bsky.social @ #CCN2025! For a sneak peek at our new findings, see below👇
🚨 Fresh preprint w/ @helenblank.bsky.social!

How does the brain acquire expectations about a conversational partner, and how are priors integrated w/ sensory inputs?

Current evidence diverges. Is it prediction error? Sharpening?

Spoiler: It's both.👀

🧵1/16

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
August 11, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Fascinating sounding preprint by @fabianschneider.bsky.social and @helenblank.bsky.social on the role of predictions along the speech perception processing hierarchy. #neuroskyence
Sensory sharpening and semantic prediction errors unify competing models of predictive processing in communication https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.23.666354v1
July 29, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
🚨Great work led by @esterner.bsky.social showing that individuals with higher schizotypal or autistic traits produce less stable semantic predictions over time, potentially showing the impact of exaggerated belief updating!

Was a fun project und a fantastic team 🤩
⏳ How stable are semantic predictions over time? And how do autistic and schizotypal traits influence this stability?

Excited to see our new paper on the temporal stability of semantic predictions published - together with my supervisor @franziskaknolle.bsky.social and Andrea Greve: rdcu.be/ewV32
rdcu.be
July 23, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted by Helen Blank
Serious concerns about a new cortical biomarker for pain sensitivity

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

We (with @tspisak.bsky.social, @christianbuchel.bsky.social) published a commentary on Chowdhury, Bi et al. (2025, JAMA Neurology) raising serious concerns about their reported results.

👇 1/13
Concern About Predictive Performance of a Pain Sensitivity Biomarker
To the Editor Chowdhury et al1 evaluated a biomarker for pain sensitivity, combining peak alpha frequency and corticomotor excitability. The authors report outstanding performance (validation set area...
jamanetwork.com
July 22, 2025 at 3:24 PM
👀
In a study of professors, women got 378 new work requests over 4 weeks vs 118 for men. Women spent more time on service, advising & teaching; men on research. Orgs should track who is taking extra duties & ensure they are rewarded and distributed fairly. www.forbes.com/sites/kimels...
Being Too Helpful At Work Can Hurt Your Career—Here’s How To Say No
Women are more likely to take on behind-the-scenes duties at work—extra tasks like onboarding or event planning—and it's hurting their careers. Here's how to say no.
www.forbes.com
July 8, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Are you a specialist in the physics behind MRI and want to work at THINK @ruhr-uni-bochum.de? Apply: jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/4... Thanks for sharing with potential candidates!🧠🙏
MRI Physicist (m/f/x)
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
June 30, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Helen Blank
The beta release of SPM-Python is out now! Amazing work by Johan Medrano @johmedr.bsky.social , Yael Balbastre, Yulia Bezsudnova @ybezs.bsky.social and other members of their team. A new era for SPM! #OHBM2025
Drumroll... The SPM team will announce that SPM is now fully accessible from Python! 🐍 Learn more about SPM-Python at the SPM roundtable event (Friday, 1pm) and poster number 1841 at #OHBM2025. Try the beta for yourself at github.com/spm/spm-python [2/7]
GitHub - spm/spm-python: The Python interface to SPM
The Python interface to SPM. Contribute to spm/spm-python development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
June 23, 2025 at 8:22 AM