Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 1d

The world went and got itself small in a damn hurry

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 2d

I'm not a historian, but it seems social movements that advance humanity come from minority groups recognising injustice and coming together in collective grassroots action. So, it's rather telling that the fight over how (or whether) to embed AI in society is falling along very similar lines.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 3d

editor-in-chief, action editor, reviewer

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 4d

quantitative methods, qualitative methods, mixed methods

Photo of a Kansas City Chiefs press conference with Andy Reid, Travis Kelce, and Patrick Mahomes. Reid is wearing a gray suit and red tie with a lapel pin. Kelce is wearing a camp-style short-sleeved shirt with a bird print, along with a suede cap, and Mahomes is wearing a white collared shirt, a pink checkered double-breasted vest, and a pale pink tie.

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

ReproducibiliTea @reproducibilitea.org · 4d

📣 “Peer Review and its Diversification” Webinars
15-16 October 2025

👉 Register for the Zoom link: forms.gle/1R4Y3d33W8bQ...

📄 Full programme: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 5d

Can include a field for whether a README or data dictionary is available! I will be encouraging the data hub maintainers to reach out to authors to update their repos (but might be awkward for junior scientists, so optional for now). Already have a field for URL to any analysis code too 🗒️

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 5d

Thanks, that's very helpful! I do not want the template to be THAT detailed because I want it to be easy for anyone to add datasets.

(Did you want to join in on the project? This is in "alpha": williamngiam.github.io/OpenWMData. I am recruiting a maintainer team now to populate the data hub.)

OpenWMData

A collection of publicly available<br>working memory datasets

williamngiam.github.io

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 5d

Whom are you referring to in terms of the assessor? And which characteristics?

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 5d

Of course, happy to hear from #openscience folk too! If you ever work with other people's experimental data, what do you always wish they hard done? What frustrations do you wish could be remedied if people took care of their data a little bit better?

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 5d

What annotations / metadata do you wish was included with every #cogsci dataset (especially #workingmemory folks 👀)? My current list includes the experiment task, stimulus, level of data (trial-, subject-, or group-level), format, and whether analysis code is provided. Any more?

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 7d

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🧵 1/

Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 9d

Are you an early career scholar interested in learning more about peer review?

Join us for our virtual @reviewerzero.bsky.social workshop! We will help you understand how peer review works and give advice on responding to reviewer comments.

9-10:30am PT / 12-1:30pm ET on October 30th. Register👇🏼

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Peer Review 101. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

northwestern.zoom.us

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 8d

I'm thankful for the starting point! It will be a fun rabbit hole to head down in search.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 8d

I have a vague memory of reading a paper that was a passionate rebuke of academic capitalism, and proposing a solution that academic committees should use sortition – random allocation to different roles. It's entirely possible that I dreamt this but does anyone know of such an article?

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Science Vs @sciencevs.bsky.social · 10d

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Rosanne Rademaker @rademaker.bsky.social · 12d

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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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 13d

No declaration of LLM use by the authors, and the journal policy is a little flimsy (but does go against autonomous content generation). I will probably go with the PubPeer route!

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Matthieu Chidharom @matthieu-mx.bsky.social · 13d

1/ Why are we so easily distracted? 🧠 In our new EEG preprint w/ Henry Jones, @monicarosenb.bsky.social and @edvogel.bsky.social we show that distractibility is associated w/ reduced neural connectivity — and can be predicted from EEG with ~80% accuracy using machine learning.

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Evie Vergauwe @evievergauwe.bsky.social · 13d

Collaborate with us!! #workingmemory

Candice Morey @candicemorey.bsky.social · 15d

Call for collaborators! 🧵

The TL;DR: we seek collaborators on a #ManyLabs #RegisteredReport about what causes rapid forgetting.

In-principle accepted Stage 1: osf.io/ahjn5

Expressions of interest: cardiffunipsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Further details in the 🧵:

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 14d

Paywall: www.afr.com/policy/healt...

Reddit version:
www.reddit.com/r/Anu/commen...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #UKHE

Opaque, conflicted, overpaid: The shabby state of uni governance

A major senate report into the quality of governance at Australian universities has delivered a blistering attack on how they are run and overseen.

www.afr.com

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14d

I'm seeking some advice: I have just come across an article with a few incorrect references (wrong authors, bad DOIs), as well as nonsensical in-text citations to those references. What should I do about this? Should I pursue an expression of concern?

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14d

What are good ways that early-career researchers (say, graduate students to junior faculty) can contribute to the push against senseless adoption of AI at their institutions? How might you allay concerns that they will "lose out" to their peers who use AI tools to produce, produce, produce?

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14d

Thank you for sharing this – it's heartening to know that the past eminent scholars, that I continue to read and cite, did not simply stay within their silos; that I can follow their footsteps in terms of research and in terms of ideology as well.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14d

"Theoretical Grounds" – a no-phone café to encourage connection through philosophical conversations.

(I also considered Pore Over Coffee)

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 20d

I'm back to coming up with puns for my alternative career paths. Today, it's starting a restaurant titled "Wok this way, stock this way", which opens up to cheap-and-cheerful dishes on one side, and hot-pots on the other side.

a man singing into a microphone with the words " walk this way " above him

Alt: Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, singing at a concert with the caption "Walk this way" in reference to one of their songs.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 16d

A memory can be represented at different levels of granularity, from highly specific to generalized.

Different representational formats of a memory can be used at different times or in different contexts, and draw on different neural representations.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

OSF

doi.org

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Reposted by William Ngiam | 严祥全

Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 17d

I fear somebody in the Australian government may have misunderstood the meaning of pull requests

Jan Kabatek 🇺🇦 @jankabatek.com · 17d

The list of social media platforms that Australia is considering to ban (under the new restrictions for Aussie teenagers) includes—yes, you read that right—GitHub.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Not just 'big fish': eSafety reveals new platforms may be forced to ban teens

WhatsApp, Roblox, Reddit and Discord are among an expanded list of platforms which may be covered by the teen social media ban, the ABC can reveal.

www.abc.net.au

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