Johannes Algermissen
@johalgermissen.bsky.social
Postdoc UniOxford with MKFlugge, past PhD
DondersInst, into decision-making, learning, ultrasound stimulation, improving psychology & neuroscience. he/him
DondersInst, into decision-making, learning, ultrasound stimulation, improving psychology & neuroscience. he/him
Pinned
I'm very happy to announce that I'll move to the Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics (ZNE) @econ.uzh.ch to work with @ccruff.bsky.social and many others in September, funded by personal postdoc grant by the @snsf.ch (Swiss version of Marie-Curie) and the UZH Research Priority Program URPP Adabd!
🎉⛰️🧀🍫🎉
🎉⛰️🧀🍫🎉
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Is WM a gateway to LTM? In this registered report we find that higher WM load rarely impairs LTM encoding - suggesting WM capacity is not a bottleneck for forming LTM traces. @as-souza.bsky.social @edamizrak.bsky.social @cognition-zurich.bsky.social psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... [1/3]
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
December 9, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Is WM a gateway to LTM? In this registered report we find that higher WM load rarely impairs LTM encoding - suggesting WM capacity is not a bottleneck for forming LTM traces. @as-souza.bsky.social @edamizrak.bsky.social @cognition-zurich.bsky.social psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... [1/3]
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Out now in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social 🚨.
Hunger often affects our mood, but is this a conscious or a subconscious process? Using continuous glucose monitoring, we show that differences in mood are driven by hunger ratings, not just glucose. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...
Hunger often affects our mood, but is this a conscious or a subconscious process? Using continuous glucose monitoring, we show that differences in mood are driven by hunger ratings, not just glucose. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...
December 8, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Out now in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social 🚨.
Hunger often affects our mood, but is this a conscious or a subconscious process? Using continuous glucose monitoring, we show that differences in mood are driven by hunger ratings, not just glucose. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...
Hunger often affects our mood, but is this a conscious or a subconscious process? Using continuous glucose monitoring, we show that differences in mood are driven by hunger ratings, not just glucose. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Putting the 'Spotlight' on a recent article by @fannycazettes.bsky.social et al. by discussing how “brain leakage” can expose cognitive computations in bodily movements – in turn opening new ways to track cognition. Now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social. authors.elsevier.com/a/1mDCZ4sIRv...
authors.elsevier.com
December 8, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Putting the 'Spotlight' on a recent article by @fannycazettes.bsky.social et al. by discussing how “brain leakage” can expose cognitive computations in bodily movements – in turn opening new ways to track cognition. Now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social. authors.elsevier.com/a/1mDCZ4sIRv...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Thoughtful review with some good recent historical perspective on the ongoing paradigm shift that is radically changing the way we think about what brain areas do.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How distributed is the brain-wide network that is recruited for cognition? - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Both localized and distributed views on the functional organization of the brain have been put forward. In this Perspective, Rosen and Freedman examine the degree to which these two views account for ...
www.nature.com
December 4, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Thoughtful review with some good recent historical perspective on the ongoing paradigm shift that is radically changing the way we think about what brain areas do.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
New preprint w/ Malin Styrnal & @martinhebart.bsky.social
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
December 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM
New preprint w/ Malin Styrnal & @martinhebart.bsky.social
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Joint modelling of brain and behaviour dynamics with artificial intelligence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Joint modelling of brain and behaviour dynamics with artificial intelligence - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing our mechanistic understanding of the shared structure between the brain and higher-order behaviours. In this Review, Mathis and Mathis synthesize state-of-...
www.nature.com
December 3, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Joint modelling of brain and behaviour dynamics with artificial intelligence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Diederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology.
However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.
The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.
retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.
The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.
retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching’
Hans Eysenck A “high and far reaching” number of papers and books by Hans Eysenck could be “unsafe,” according to an updated statement from King’s College London, where the psychologist was a profe…
retractionwatch.com
December 3, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Diederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology.
However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.
The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.
retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.
The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.
retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
new paper in TICS officially out today. great learning from and writing with Anastasia, and super cool cover art from Prof. Pinar Yoldas.
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Sensory reformatting for a working visual memory
A core function of visual working memory (WM) is to sustain mental representations
of recent visual inputs, thereby bridging moments of experience. This is thought to
occur in part by recruiting early...
www.cell.com
December 4, 2025 at 1:21 AM
new paper in TICS officially out today. great learning from and writing with Anastasia, and super cool cover art from Prof. Pinar Yoldas.
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Finally got the job ad—looking for 2 PhD students to start spring next year:
www.gao-unit.com/join-us/
If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!
I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮
www.gao-unit.com/join-us/
If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!
I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮
December 3, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Finally got the job ad—looking for 2 PhD students to start spring next year:
www.gao-unit.com/join-us/
If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!
I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮
www.gao-unit.com/join-us/
If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!
I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Our new paper, now published in @natcomms.nature.com , asks a simple question: when two tasks share a common structure, does the brain learn them more efficiently? Surprisingly, this was not the case. Thread below (1/7)
rdcu.be/eSwvU
rdcu.be/eSwvU
The effects of task similarity during representation learning in brains and neural networks
Nature Communications - Here, the authors show learning tasks with similar structures can initially cause interference and slow down learning, but both the brain and artificial networks gradually...
rdcu.be
December 2, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Our new paper, now published in @natcomms.nature.com , asks a simple question: when two tasks share a common structure, does the brain learn them more efficiently? Surprisingly, this was not the case. Thread below (1/7)
rdcu.be/eSwvU
rdcu.be/eSwvU
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
utter insanity
November 30, 2025 at 8:04 PM
utter insanity
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Out now in Translational Psychiatry! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Out now in Translational Psychiatry! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
New study out today in Nature Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41..., in which we set out to test whether ultrasound could influence the reward-related learning computations of the nucleus accumbens, building on decades of work on dopaminergic prediction error and reinforcement learning. And it did.
Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human nucleus accumbens impacts reward sensitivity - Nature Communications
This study shows that non-invasive ultrasound to the human nucleus accumbens can modulate deep brain activity and enhance reward-guided learning, offering a potential alternative to invasive neuromodu...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:26 PM
New study out today in Nature Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41..., in which we set out to test whether ultrasound could influence the reward-related learning computations of the nucleus accumbens, building on decades of work on dopaminergic prediction error and reinforcement learning. And it did.
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number.
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪
November 26, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number.
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
November 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Andy Conway and I are honored to serve as inaugural co-Editors of this new Psychonomics journal, focused on the rigorous study of individual differences in cognition. Please spread the word to potentially interested colleagues; we hope that you will send us your best relevant work!
PS is excited to announce the launch of "Individual Differences in Cognition” (IDIC), an open-access journal on research in cognitive psychology, science, and neuroscience. Co-Editors-in-Chief are Andrew R.A. Conway & Michael J. Kane. Manuscripts accepted this spring. More information coming soon!
November 24, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Andy Conway and I are honored to serve as inaugural co-Editors of this new Psychonomics journal, focused on the rigorous study of individual differences in cognition. Please spread the word to potentially interested colleagues; we hope that you will send us your best relevant work!
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
‼️Now published in @imagingneurosci.bsky.social‼️
(with @judithschepers.bsky.social & @benediktehinger.bsky.social)
Do you have RTs in your 🧠📈-data? Fixation durations?
How do event-durations affect your data? And how to deal with this?
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
🧵 ⤵ 1 / 7
🧪 #EEG #fMRI #neuroimage
(with @judithschepers.bsky.social & @benediktehinger.bsky.social)
Do you have RTs in your 🧠📈-data? Fixation durations?
How do event-durations affect your data? And how to deal with this?
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
🧵 ⤵ 1 / 7
🧪 #EEG #fMRI #neuroimage
November 25, 2025 at 8:44 AM
‼️Now published in @imagingneurosci.bsky.social‼️
(with @judithschepers.bsky.social & @benediktehinger.bsky.social)
Do you have RTs in your 🧠📈-data? Fixation durations?
How do event-durations affect your data? And how to deal with this?
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
🧵 ⤵ 1 / 7
🧪 #EEG #fMRI #neuroimage
(with @judithschepers.bsky.social & @benediktehinger.bsky.social)
Do you have RTs in your 🧠📈-data? Fixation durations?
How do event-durations affect your data? And how to deal with this?
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
🧵 ⤵ 1 / 7
🧪 #EEG #fMRI #neuroimage
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
So excited to see our latest paper out today in @natcomms.nature.com! Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41.... VTA GABA neurons have a unique role in economic decision making - they integrate reward seeking motivation and the current cost of seeking
Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons integrate positive and negative valence - Nature Communications
The role of ventral tegmental area GABA neurons in behavior is unclear. Here, authors show that VTA GABA but not dopamine neurons integrate positive and negative valence to encode motivational conflic...
www.nature.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:18 PM
So excited to see our latest paper out today in @natcomms.nature.com! Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41.... VTA GABA neurons have a unique role in economic decision making - they integrate reward seeking motivation and the current cost of seeking
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Another nail in the coffin for PCA?
- doesn’t linearize, distorting similarity metrics
- is biased by temporal jitter across epochs
- may miss important dimensions for transient amplification
If you think there is a state space, use a state space model!
- doesn’t linearize, distorting similarity metrics
- is biased by temporal jitter across epochs
- may miss important dimensions for transient amplification
If you think there is a state space, use a state space model!
“Our findings challenge the conventional focus on low-dimensional coding subspaces as a sufficient framework for understanding neural computations, demonstrating that dimensions previously considered task-irrelevant and accounting for little variance can have a critical role in driving behavior.”
Neural dynamics outside task-coding dimensions drive decision trajectories through transient amplification
Most behaviors involve neural dynamics in high-dimensional activity spaces. A common approach is to extract dimensions that capture task-related variability, such as those separating stimuli or choice...
www.biorxiv.org
November 23, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Another nail in the coffin for PCA?
- doesn’t linearize, distorting similarity metrics
- is biased by temporal jitter across epochs
- may miss important dimensions for transient amplification
If you think there is a state space, use a state space model!
- doesn’t linearize, distorting similarity metrics
- is biased by temporal jitter across epochs
- may miss important dimensions for transient amplification
If you think there is a state space, use a state space model!
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
New paper in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social, where we show how attention impacts political choices. With an eye-tracking study, we find that people's votes aren't set in stone - they take longer to vote on divisive issues and can be swayed by gaze manipulations. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
authors.elsevier.com
November 21, 2025 at 6:21 PM
New paper in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social, where we show how attention impacts political choices. With an eye-tracking study, we find that people's votes aren't set in stone - they take longer to vote on divisive issues and can be swayed by gaze manipulations. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
November 20, 2025 at 3:44 AM
70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
It's out out. Saying that your favourite signal is an oscillation is not enough, it would be good to quantify to what extent.
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Siqi Zhang, James J. Bonaiuto, et al:
Multi-scale parameterization of neural rhythmicity with lagged Hilbert autocoherence
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
Multi-scale parameterization of neural rhythmicity with lagged Hilbert autocoherence
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
November 18, 2025 at 12:44 PM
It's out out. Saying that your favourite signal is an oscillation is not enough, it would be good to quantify to what extent.
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
Horror stories of sexual harassment from Oxford University
'Prof Hewstone turned up unannounced & dropped his trousers ... touched women inappropriately ... made comments about relationships with students'
Oxford will do nothing, betcha
Brutal from Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
'Prof Hewstone turned up unannounced & dropped his trousers ... touched women inappropriately ... made comments about relationships with students'
Oxford will do nothing, betcha
Brutal from Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say
The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.
www.bloomberg.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Horror stories of sexual harassment from Oxford University
'Prof Hewstone turned up unannounced & dropped his trousers ... touched women inappropriately ... made comments about relationships with students'
Oxford will do nothing, betcha
Brutal from Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
'Prof Hewstone turned up unannounced & dropped his trousers ... touched women inappropriately ... made comments about relationships with students'
Oxford will do nothing, betcha
Brutal from Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
🚨New publication!
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Traveling waves across scales: Different mechanisms but same canonical computation?
The review proposes a novel mechanistic distinction between first- and second-order traveling waves that subserves a same canonical computation by ordering neuronal processing to impose a computationa...
elifesciences.org
November 19, 2025 at 3:54 PM
🚨New publication!
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
I am extremely happy to share this new review article in elife on #Traveling_Waves!
@erc.europa.eu
@upcite.bsky.social
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Reposted by Johannes Algermissen
New pontification piece with @awestbrook.bsky.social and Jean Daunizeau, just out in TICS:
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
A widespread observation is that people avoid mentally effortful courses of action,
and much recent work examining cognitive effort has explained subjective effort evaluation
– and, consequently, pref...
www.cell.com
November 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
New pontification piece with @awestbrook.bsky.social and Jean Daunizeau, just out in TICS:
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience
Why is cognitive effort experienced as costly?
(or why does it hurt to think)
never written a review paper before in my life, that was a new and unusual experience