Ambra Ferrari
@ambrafer.bsky.social
Assistant Professor at SISSA (Trieste, Italy) pondering how we (learn to) communicate before and beyond words. https://ambrafer.github.io/
I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student, funded by a new ERC grant. The grant focuses on the role of the hippocampus in visual perception, using 7T fMRI (hippocampal subfields, cortical layers) and MEG+iEEG. The intended start dates for both positions are in early 2027. 🧠🟦 1/3
My list on what to read about theory-driven cognitive science has now been updated to add a few more thoughts and references about the role of AI as 'in silico' models of human cognition. Your comments welcome - please add to the googledoc. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Theory: What to read
The role of theory in cognitive science Or: my guide to what to read if you really want to understand how to do good, robust , theory-driven cognitive science. (disclaimer: this is an aspirational gu...
docs.google.com
Our newest finding: tiny microsaccades are biased toward the location that is about to be attentionally suppressed. This suggests that attention briefly precedes suppression: before the system can suppress a location, it first appears to select it.
Learned statistical regularity modulates anticipatory micro-saccades toward suppressed distractor locations - Nature Communications
Statistical learning guide attention by shaping anticipatory oculomotor behavior. Here, the authors show that microsaccades are biased to expected distractor locations before stimulus onset and predic...
nature.com
The number of grant applications is rising sharply. Our capacity for their evaluation isn’t. ERC President Maria Leptin explains why stricter resubmission limits are being introduced for 2027 calls and what they mean for applicants. 🔗 link.europa.eu/xF7kjc
ERC President explains stricter application measures amid rising demand for funding
The text of an open letter sent by ERC President Maria Leptin to ERC panel members, grantees and other stakeholders on 16 April 2026.
link.europa.eu
JOB ALERT: PhD opening in my lab! @cimecunitrento.bsky.social in Italy, as part of an Italian FIS3 starting grant. The project will use advanced analysis methods of MEG data to investigate how our world's naturalistic hierarchical structure facilitates predictive neural processing.
You have 10 minutes of task fMRI to map functional brain regions in an individual. Three decisions matter: How do you localize regions? Which tasks do you include? How do you arrange tasks in your experiment? Here, we tackle all three! Preprint👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
A new Department of Cognitive Science is being created at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Here is the call for a cluster hire (for around 10 faculty) in all areas of cognitive science, at both junior and senior levels: www.unibocconi.it/en/faculty-a... Deadline: May 4th, 2026
Open Rank Faculty Cluster Hire Search for the New Department of Cognitive Science at Bocconi - Bocconi University
unibocconi.it
Very happy to share our review on Reinforcement Learning vs Statistical Learning, with @ambrafer.bsky.social and @predictivebrain.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... A nice summary: www.sainsburywellcome.org/blog/two-eng...
Where learning paths meet: Convergence and divergence of statistical and reinforcement learning
Learning enables organisms to adapt to a dynamic world by forming and updating internal representations of their environment. Statistical Learning (SL…
sciencedirect.com
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre@sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · 5mo agoNew review maps the convergence and divergence of statistical and reinforcement learning, from origins to neural implementation. @athenaakrami.bsky.social, @ambrafer.bsky.social & Floris de Lange Blog: www.sainsburywellcome.org/blog/two-eng... Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling (PLZ RT) What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD! mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-developmental-language @carorowland.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social
@plosbiology.org is formalizing its long‑standing practice of asking authors to share research code, introducing a mandatory #code‑sharing policy and clarifying what is meant by code sharing. Learn more and find guidance on best practice: plos.io/4reyX3v
PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · 5mo agoIn support of #OpenScience, we routinely ask authors to openly share their #research #code before publication. We are now formalizing this practice with a mandatory #code-sharing policy and clarifying what we mean by code sharing. May be nice to cut-out the box for reference plos.io/47dPeOW 🧪
📢 PhD position in the NeuroAI of Language Why can LLMs predict brain activity so well? We're hiring a PhD student to find out -- AI interpretability meets neuroimaging Deadline March 20 Please RT 🙏 👇 mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-neuroai-language
🌟 Big news 🌟 This May I’ll join SISSA (Trieste, Italy) as an Assistant Professor in cognitive neuroscience, leading the Multimodal Communication Lab. We will combine cognitive, computational and developmental methods to study how we communicate before and beyond words. 🧠🧪 #neuroskyence #neurojobs
After several years of work, my lab is starting to put out our first papers on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus). Here we show evidence for a form of associative learning in Stentor: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We've posted a new fMRI study of semantic relations (has-part, is-a, made-of, etc.), a key aspect of language. We find that relations are represented in the same brain regions as are other semantic concepts, though voxels tend to be selective for only one relation or another. doi.org/10.64898/202...
The "publish or perish" culture must perish. Scientists need time to think. We just published our Slow Science Manifesto, where we argue that huge changes are needed in the way we fund, publish, and evaluate science. Read more and sign here: www.slow-science.com
1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.
🚨NEW PREPRINT🚨 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... w/ Giulio Degano and Uta Noppeney In this work, we use music to investigate how the brain extracts and integrates multisensory information in real-world environments. 🧠🧪 #psychscisky #neuroskyence TL;DR 🧵👇
Feeling the music: Audiotactile encoding of temporal structure in the human brain
In everyday situations, like a rock party or an organ concert, we feel music vibrating through our bodies. How do these vibrotactile signals influence music processing? How do they aid auditory scene analysis? Combining psychophysics, fMRI and time-resolved EEG decoding, this work reveals how the brain encodes the temporal structure of music (beat and envelope) across audition and touch and uses this information to guide multisensory integration and segregation in simple and more complex perceptual scenes. Participants experienced monophonic and polyphonic piano pieces through auditory, vibrotactile and audiotactile stimulation. Vibrotactile signals improved the detection of a brief target embedded in music, establishing the functional relevance of audiotactile integration in naturalistic settings. fMRI and EEG multivariate decoding revealed that auditory and tactile beat information converged in planum temporale and parietal operculum, albeit through distinct neural dynamics and representations. Superior temporal cortices reliably encoded envelope information from audition, but only weakly from touch. Nevertheless, vibrotactile signals significantly enhanced neural encoding of auditory beat as early as 100 ms, and envelope representations from 250 ms onward. These encoding benefits were associated with superadditive interactions in primary auditory cortex, where tactile signals sharpen and amplify auditory envelope representations. In complex polyphonic music, touch further amplified the segregation and encoding of temporally coherent auditory streams. Our findings highlight the important, yet largely unexplored influence of touch on auditory processing, enriching music perception and supporting auditory scene analysis in real-world environments. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, 309349, 101096659
biorxiv.org
🚨NEW PREPRINT🚨 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... w/ Giulio Degano and Uta Noppeney In this work, we use music to investigate how the brain extracts and integrates multisensory information in real-world environments. 🧠🧪 #psychscisky #neuroskyence TL;DR 🧵👇
Feeling the music: Audiotactile encoding of temporal structure in the human brain
In everyday situations, like a rock party or an organ concert, we feel music vibrating through our bodies. How do these vibrotactile signals influence music processing? How do they aid auditory scene analysis? Combining psychophysics, fMRI and time-resolved EEG decoding, this work reveals how the brain encodes the temporal structure of music (beat and envelope) across audition and touch and uses this information to guide multisensory integration and segregation in simple and more complex perceptual scenes. Participants experienced monophonic and polyphonic piano pieces through auditory, vibrotactile and audiotactile stimulation. Vibrotactile signals improved the detection of a brief target embedded in music, establishing the functional relevance of audiotactile integration in naturalistic settings. fMRI and EEG multivariate decoding revealed that auditory and tactile beat information converged in planum temporale and parietal operculum, albeit through distinct neural dynamics and representations. Superior temporal cortices reliably encoded envelope information from audition, but only weakly from touch. Nevertheless, vibrotactile signals significantly enhanced neural encoding of auditory beat as early as 100 ms, and envelope representations from 250 ms onward. These encoding benefits were associated with superadditive interactions in primary auditory cortex, where tactile signals sharpen and amplify auditory envelope representations. In complex polyphonic music, touch further amplified the segregation and encoding of temporally coherent auditory streams. Our findings highlight the important, yet largely unexplored influence of touch on auditory processing, enriching music perception and supporting auditory scene analysis in real-world environments. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, 309349, 101096659
biorxiv.org
Paper out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com: 1) those groups (women, African Americans, lower SES, rural) that are underrepresented in science have been less trusting of science. 2) If you improve representation in science, you improve trust among those groups. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Representation in science and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour
Druckman et al. document gaps in trust in scientists in the USA. People from groups less represented among scientists (for example, women and those with lower economic status) are less trusting. Incre...
nature.com
We’re happy to share that the website for the 24th International Multisensory Research Forum, which will take place in Genoa, Italy, from 24 to 27 June 2026, is now live: imrf2026.sciencesconf.org Save and share the key dates, and stay tuned for more updates. #IMRF2026
Well this is exciting! The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) invites applications for a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Cognitive Psychology, in any area and at any rank! Application + more info: apply.interfolio.com/178146
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
High-level visual surprise is rapidly integrated during perceptual inference! 🚨 New paper 🚨 out now in @cp-iscience.bsky.social with @paulapena.bsky.social and @mruz.bsky.social www.cell.com/iscience/ful... Summary 🧵 below 👇
Rapid computation of high-level visual surprise
Health sciences
cell.com
I’m happy to share a short opinion piece I’ve just finished, where I revisit the famous Skinner vs. Chomsky exchange on how language is learned through the lens of today’s large language models (before getting mad read the rest) 1/n osf.io/preprints/ps...
This is a great resource for setting (or improving) a lab culture rooted in awareness, fairness, and equity: 📌 Publication: elifesciences.org/articles/108... 📌 Website: safelabs.info
Research Culture: The SAFE Labs Handbook as a tool for improving lab culture
A survey of more than 200 researchers shows strong support for a new community-driven lab handbook that can be implemented by individual group leaders to reduce conflict and create more positive and e...
elifesciences.org
Asking informally: does anyone know someone who might be interested in a postdoc focused on understanding changes in memory representations driven by attention using EEG? ⚡️Thanks!
Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?
CogSci in Aarhus is hiring, open rank (assi, asso or full prof). We want somebody working on and teaching computational modelling of cognitive processes and/or social processes. Students are amazing, work/life balance very satisfactory, and colleagues are nice! international.au.dk/about/profil...
Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Full Professor of Cognitive Science - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at School of Communication and Culture - Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Dept. of, Aarhus University
international.au.dk
🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
By mapping connections among researchers, Neurotree makes it possible to trace how the field has evolved and to visualize how shifts in lab size, training and other factors can shape its direction, writes founder @stephenvdavid.bsky.social. bit.ly/4od0SiL #neuroskyence #StateOfNeuroscience
Tracing neuroscience’s family tree to track its growth
By mapping connections among researchers, Neurotree makes it possible to see how the field has evolved and what factors shape its direction.
thetransmitter.org