Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · 7d

"What if I showed you a way in which AI could not only suck up all societal resources and research funds in the sole service of enriching the dumbest, most annoying motherfuckers of all time, but it also made YOUR WORK specifically actively worse?"
Cool, yeah, I'd LOVE to know more.

Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · 7d

Sometimes I learn a new concept online - like "AI-generated participants in Psych experiments" - and I wonder whether the purpose of the whole internet is just is finding ever more bespoke pieces of information that make me specifically as angry as humanly possible.

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds

Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

www.science.org

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

Darcy Waller @darcywaller.bsky.social · 9d

If you’re a @cogneuronews.bsky.social member, check out and vote on the great lineup of symposia for 2026, and plz consider our symposium “Non-invasive meso-scale dynamics of perception and cognition”, organized by @adykstra.bsky.social including James Bonauito and @lonikefaes.bsky.social!

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · 13d

Big day in the household as my wife Kristi Hendrickson won the Dean's Scholar Award for outstanding tenure package, and I was named Clement T. and Sylvia H. Hanson Family Chair of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Many thanks to the University of Iowa for continuing to support both of us!

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

Decision, Action, and Neural Computation (DANC) lab @danclab.bsky.social · 20d

🚨Postdoc job offer🚨
Are you interested in beta bursts? Want to help drive methods for laminar inference with MEG? Now hiring a postdoc: run head-cast MEG experiments, help build our laMEG toolbox, and collaborate across Lyon–Marseille–Strasbourg. emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
Please repost! 🧠📈

Portail Emploi CNRS - Offre d'emploi - Post-doctorate - Beta bursts & laminar MEG (M/F)

emploi.cnrs.fr

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · 27d

The NoA of one of our R01s finally came through.
You know what they say: Better six months too late and cut by 25% than never.

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Aug 18

Back from vacay. Reading recommendations:

Harvey - Orbital (Deserves all accolades)
Akbar - Martyr! (Strong debut by an IC local)
Murakami - The City & Its Uncertain Walls (The boy is back on form)
Harp - The Fort Bragg Cartel (Amazing in-depth research)

Don't bother:
Stegner - Crossing to safety.

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Aug 11

I would stay in 1980s Beirut before I stayed in a Casino in Reno

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Aug 11

Love to field “Why would you live in Iowa?!” questions while paying 30 bucks for 3 coffees in America’s Shittiest City™, the 100 square mile strip mall parking lot that is Reno, Nevada.

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Jul 25

Currently trying to get a hold of literally anyone in a German lab and received out of office messages from
- the PI directing me to the postdoc
- the postdoc directing me to the grad student
- the grad student saying that they will not be reachable in any way under any circumstances at all.

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

Brad Postle @bradpostle.bsky.social · Jul 24

EEG Correlates of Active Removal from Working Memory
Jiangang Shan and Bradley R. Postle
Journal of Neuroscience 9 July 2025, 45 (28) e2414242025; doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...

EEG Correlates of Active Removal from Working Memory

The removal of no-longer-relevant information from visual working memory (WM) is important for the functioning of WM, given its severe capacity limitation. Previously, with an “ABC-retrocuing” WM task...

doi.org

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Jul 16

You should come and be our colleague!
The senior level search is open area FYI

Psychology at the University of Iowa @psychiowa.bsky.social · Jul 14

Heads up! We are doing two searches this year—for an assistant prof in Clinical Science, and an associate/full prof in any domain of psychology. Want to learn more? Contact the dept chair, Mark Blumberg, at [email protected].
Ads will be posted soon on our homepage: psychology.uiowa.edu

Psychological and Brain Sciences | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | The University of Iowa

Study the science behind behavior and cognition, learning and memory, and personality and emotion while developing research skills and preparing for success.

psychology.uiowa.edu

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

moin syed @syeducation.bsky.social · Jul 5

New post! "A Tale of Two Science Reform Movements," in which I compare the recent #Metascience2025 and #SIPS2025 conferences, and find that I am much more at home at one than the other. getsyeducated.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...

A Tale of Two Science Reform Movements

Reflections from meetings of Metascience 2025 and the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science

getsyeducated.substack.com

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

Simon Little @littleneuro.bsky.social · Jun 27

Happy to share our latest study led by Tanner Dixon and our team @ucsfhealth.bsky.social and @neurosurgucsf.bsky.social out today in Nature BME! Movement Responsive, AI programmed, BCI-aDBS improves naturalistic movements and reduces excessive movements at rest in PD.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Movement-responsive deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease using a remotely optimized neural decoder - Nature Biomedical Engineering

An adaptive deep brain stimulation algorithm delivers targeted stimulation increases during movement using brain motor signals.

www.nature.com

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Jun 20

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Reposted by Jan R. Wessel

Akira Miyake @amiyake.bsky.social · Jun 18

Earlier, I posted a 🧵 about the articles that students liked in my graduate course on executive function (EF)👇.

In this new 🧵 (the last one based on this class, I promise!), I thought I'd share some of the thoughts I had while teaching this course. If you’re interested in EF, read on. (1/12)

Akira Miyake @amiyake.bsky.social · Jun 7

I taught a graduate course on executive function (EF) in the spring. Before I forget, I thought I'd tell you about the readings students liked the best (at the end of the semester, I asked students to vote for their favorite papers, excl. any of mine). Here are the top vote getters. 🧵 (1/6)

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Jun 16

Official job ad is now live: jobs.uiowa.edu/postdoc/view...

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Jun 9

I will be looking to hire 2-3 post-docs over the course of the next few months to work on questions related to cognitive control in humans, using EEG, TMS, DBS, sEEG, fMRI, or related methods.

If you know anybody, please tell them to email me.

Formal ad to follow. Lab website: wessellab.org

Wessel Cognitive Neurology Lab | The University of Iowa

Thanks for visiting the Cognitive Neurology Lab at the University of Iowa. The lab is directed by Dr. Jan R. Wessel. We are affiliated with the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, the Depa...

wessel.lab.uiowa.edu

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · May 30

Happy Bday @bradpostle.bsky.social

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · May 22

The new NIH grant review template *.doc is even more bugged than the old one. A true achievement. Congratulations to everyone involved.

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · May 2

♩♩
Jealousy,
turning chop into the suey,
swimming through sick lullabies,
when angels deserve to die,
But it's just the price I pay,
why have you forsaken me,
open up my eager eyes,
self-righteous suicide
♩♩

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · May 2

Pretty sure mr brightside is the millennial mr brightside

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Apr 2

Had a great time at @cogneuronews.bsky.social
It's become my favorite meeting over the last few years.
Kudos to the organizers for another outstanding program!
Boston is quite lovely, too.
#CNS2025 #CCC #LotsOfMoneyAtIowa

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Mar 24

"Baked loaf" was my nickname in college. Oh wait, maybe it was "oaf" ..

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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · Mar 20

FWIW our 4% RO1 changed from "Pending Council Meeting" to just "Pending" today, but a new AC meeting has also been announced for 4/10/25 in the actual Commons Status page for that grant. This is NINDS btw.

Either way I'm treating this as good-ish news..

Thanks for all the updates and insights!

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