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Giacomo Bignardi

@giacomobignardi.bsky.social

500 followers 330 following 89 posts

Max Planck School of Cognition PhD candidate MPI for Psycholinguistics, Language & Genetics PhDing in musicality, aesthetics and behavioural genetics Typos are my owl

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Giacomo Bignardi @giacomobignardi.bsky.social · Mar 26

Our study is now out in @naturecomms.bsky.social! Here, we integrate large-scale registry musicality data from twins to investigate the genetics of music enjoyment 🧬🎶🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · Mar 25

“What an odd thing“ wrote Oliver Sacks “to see an entire species playing with listening to meaningless tonal patterns, preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music’...“. Our new paper, led by ace student @giacomobignardi.bsky.social, unpacks this puzzle from a genetic perspective. 🧪

Twin modelling reveals partly distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment - Nature Communications

Here, Bignardi et al. report on a study of over 9,000 Swedish twins that indicates the ability to enjoy music is influenced by multiple partly distinct genetic factors.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Aenne Brielmann @aennebrielmann.bsky.social · 10h

I finally have some new work to share - some thoughts on how we perceive style with a sprinkle of aesthetics, Fechner, and most importantly: labradors 🐕

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How do we see style?

In a recent series of experiments, Boger and Firestone ask: How do we perceive style?’. Their findings suggest that style perception relies on basic p…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Michel Nivard @michelnivard.bsky.social · 9h

QUESTION 🚨: I wrote code that uses methods of moments too generate realistic synthetic data for a UKB trait from the showcase page. I might be able too add corelation between traits (have to find a source) to allow multivariate synth data, is this usefull enough to wrap in an R package??

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Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics @ae.mpg.de · 1d

📢 Call for Abstracts!

The 2nd Annual Conference on #AestheticDevelopment takes place on Nov 20, 2025, at the MPIEA. We invite submissions on how children engage with and develop through the arts.

🗓 Deadline: Oct 12, 2025
🔗 indico.ae.mpg.de/event/29/abstracts/
#Aesthetics #Conference

Visual with a Call for Papers for the 2nd Annual Conference on Aesthetic Development.

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 2d

Out today!

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Screenshot of the PDF of:

Boger, T., & Firestone, C. (2025). Visual anagrams reveal high-level effects with 'identical' stimuli. Current Biology, 35, PR910–R912.

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Dr Elsje van Bergen @drelsje.bsky.social · 2d

🧩Learning to talk & read isn’t just about effort or teaching—it’s shaped by biology, experience & context

🧠Our new review links genetics, neuroscience, psychology & education to show why some children find language or reading easier.

📖 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🖼️genes→brain→cognition→behaviour 🧵👇

Figure 2 in the review: Levels of analysis from genes and brain systems to cognition and behaviour.
The child both influences and is influenced by parents through genetically shaped interactions, and by the wider school and social environment.
Figure design by Neil Usher.
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Eivind Ystrom @eivindy.bsky.social · 3d

Two birds of a gene - catch Matt Keller's webinar at @uio.no on October 15th. Please share
www.sv.uio.no/promenta/eng...
@ispg.bsky.social @behaviorgenetic.bsky.social @unioslo-svfak.bsky.social @essgn.bsky.social @ibg.colorado.edu

Using structural equation models to estimate direct and indirect genetic effects and assortative mating in trio data - PROMENTA

Guest lecture by Matt Keller

www.sv.uio.no

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Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 3d

Now I know what you’re thinking: Did they make a video abstract for this important study? Reader,

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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 4d

Twenty-four years ago today, our paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” was published: www.nature.com/articles/350....
A personal thread about the ups & downs of the journey we took to get to that point....1/n
🗣️🧬🧪

Image shows the first two printed pages of the paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” by Cecilia Lai and colleagues, published in Nature in 2001 (volume 413, pages 519-523). The abstract reads as follows:
Individuals affected with developmental disorders of speech and language have substantial difficulty acquiring expressive and/or receptive language in the absence of any profound sensory or neurological impairment and despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Although studies of twins consistently indicate that a significant genetic component is involved, most families segregating speech and language deficits show complex patterns of inheritance, and a gene that predisposes individuals to such disorders has not been identified. We have studied a unique three-generation pedigree, KE, in which a severe speech and language disorder is transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. Our previous work mapped the locus responsible, SPCH1, to a 5.6-cM interval of region 7q31 on chromosome 7. We also identified an unrelated individual, CS, in whom speech and language impairment is associated with a chromosomal translocation involving the SPCH1 interval. Here we show that the gene FOXP2, which encodes a putative transcription factor containing a polyglutamine tract and a forkhead DNA-binding domain, is directly disrupted by the translocation breakpoint in CS. In addition, we identify a point mutation in affected members of the KE family that alters an invariant amino-acid residue in the forkhead domain. Our findings suggest that FOXP2 is involved in the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.

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Richard D. Morey @richarddmorey.bsky.social · 4d

Mathematical psychology uses simulation as well, to understand models that are too complex to understand completely without it. It can help uncover surprising behaviour or predictions. Crucially, the sims are helping understand models, not people. The *psychological* knowledge is gained elsewhere.

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econmaett @econmaett.github.io · 5d

The authors probably don’t understand the derivation either & asked a bot too 😉

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Hugo Spiers @hugospiers.bsky.social · 6d

New publication from our lab:

Brain Dynamics during Architectural Experience: Prefrontal and Hippocampal Regions Track Aesthetics and Spatial Complexity

1st author is Lara Gregorian, with collaborators @pfvelasco.bsky.social Zita Patai and Fiona Zisch

Stimuli:
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Giacomo Bignardi @bignardi.bsky.social · 7d

New preprint with @rogierk.bsky.social @paulbuerkner.com - we introduce "relative measurement uncertainty" - a reliability estimation method that's applicable across a broad class of Bayesian measurement models (e.g., generative-, computational- and item response theory-models osf.io/h54k8

OSF

osf.io

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Rosanne Rademaker @rademaker.bsky.social · 9d

We’re looking for a postdoc to join our Max Planck group in Germany some time in 2026. If you have computational and/or neuroimaging expertise, and are interested in questions intersecting perception and cognition, please reach out! I’ll also be happy to chat at the #Bernsteinconference this week.

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Ruben C. Arslan @ruben.the100.ci · Jun 13

Our paper "A fragmented field" has just been accepted at AMPPS. We find it's not just you, psychology is really getting more confusing (construct and measure fragmentation is rising).
We updated the preprint with the (substantial) revision, please check it out.
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Treemap showing measurement fragmentation across subfields in psychology. Hill-Shannon Diversity 𝐷=1626.05

How often measures in the APA PsycTESTS database are (re)used according to the APA PsycInfo database: rarely, the majority are never reused.

Our fragmentation index (Hill-Shannon diversity) over time across subdisciplines shows fragmentation rising.

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 9d

Intervening on a central node in a network likely does little given that its connected neighbors will "flip it back" immediately. Happy to see this position supported now.

"Change is most likely [..] if it spreads first among relatively poorly connected nodes."

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Transformation starts at the periphery of networks where pushback is less - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Transformation starts at the periphery of networks where pushback is less

www.nature.com

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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 11d

The most universally agreed upon property that sets emotion/affect apart from everything else is valence: approach/avoid; pleasant/unpleasant. Here they target its computation in flies, where you can really figure out the biology. We know so little about how valence is computed by brains. Exciting!

Katrin Vogt @katrinvogt.bsky.social · 11d

How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A multisensory, bidirectional, valence encoder guides behavioral decisions

A key function of the brain is to categorize sensory cues as repulsive or attractive and respond accordingly. While we have some understanding of how sensory information is processed in the sensory pe...

www.biorxiv.org

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Emil Uffelmann @euffelmann.bsky.social · 11d

Our new paper is out, in which we developed an approach to transform Polygenic Scores (PGSs) into disorder probabilities (i.e., the absolute lifetime disorder risk).

Below a thread 👇

open access link: rdcu.be/eIjvC

Estimating disorder probability based on polygenic prediction using the BPC approach

Nature Communications - Here the authors present a method to transform polygenic scores into disorder probabilities using only GWAS summary statistics, genotype data and a prior - no tuning sample...

rdcu.be

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Reposted by Giacomo Bignardi

Robin Hofmeister @rjhfmstr.bsky.social · 12d

🚨 New preprint out!
We reconstructed parental haplotypes in >440k individuals (UK & Estonian biobanks) to estimate assortative mating directly in the parental generation.
This reveals intensified assortment in recent generations.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Genetics Network Amsterdam @geneamsterdam.bsky.social · 26d

Congratulations to one of #GENEAmsterdam's founding members, Wouter Peyrot, for receiving an ERC starting grant! www.amsterdamumc.org/en/research/...

Wouter Peyrot awarded ERC Starting Grant for personalized genetic risk profiles in psychiatry | Amsterdam UMC

Wouter Peyrot, Assistant Professor of Statistical Genetics at Amsterdam UMC, has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant worth €1.5 million for his research project PersonalRiskProfile. This ambitious project aims to develop advanced genetic methods to identify individuals at increased risk of serious mental illness (SMI).

www.amsterdamumc.org

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Shai Carmi @shaicarmi.bsky.social · 27d

Brilliant paper by Visscher et al.

Populations differ in traits/disease burden. Are these differences due to genetics?

Comparing single variants or polygenic scores between populations is biased due to environmental confounders correlated with the variants.

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www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Direct effect of genetic ancestry on complex traits in a Mexican population

Human populations differ in disease prevalences and in average values of phenotypes, but the extent to which differences are caused by genetic or environmental factors is unknown for most complex trai...

www.medrxiv.org

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Eline Van Geert @elinevg.bsky.social · 28d

It was a pleasure introducing PsyNet and its many applications at the Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology today! Thanks @felixhermans.bsky.social for the invitation and all PsyNet developers, incl. @pmcharrison.bsky.social and @norijacoby.bsky.social for creating such an amazing platform!

felixhermans.bsky.social @felixhermans.bsky.social · 28d

Tremendously grateful to @elinevg.bsky.social for providing an introduction to PsyNet (www.psynet.dev) at the Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology in KU Leuven today!

PsyNet is a new platform uniquely suited to crafting complex experimental designs in an efficient manner!

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Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Sep 8

Our genome-wide meta-regression of social behaviour is out as a preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Wonderful @eagle-genetics.bsky.social work with first author @luciadehoyos.bsky.social!
We model and predict genetic variation according to social context: outcomes, informants and age!

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Janis Keck @keckjanis.bsky.social · Sep 8

Andrej is a great scientist and teacher, highly recommended!

Andrej Bicanski @andrejbicanski.bsky.social · Sep 8

Dear colleagues, we have an open PhD position in computational neuroscience - spatial memory models and intracranial recordings - fully funded. Re-advertised, candidates are ideally available in the near future. A collab. with 4 labs. Apply here: tinyurl.com/yc84ctap

PhD position or a Doctoral Candidate in computational neuroscience. (m/f/d) | Karriereportal Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften

tinyurl.com

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Jarome Ali 🇹🇹 🏳️‍🌈 @jarome.bsky.social · Aug 13

Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci

Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’

Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage

www.science.org

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Giacomo Bignardi @giacomobignardi.bsky.social · Sep 4

Michele Nivardo

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