🔭JOB ALERT🔬 Fully-funded PhD (+ soon postdoc) openings in my lab @cimecunitrento.bsky.social in Italy, as part of an Italian FIS3 starting grant. TOPIC: Investigating predictive neural representations in naturalistic settings using MEG-based dynamic RSA

And for our own contribution to the theme issue: Oliver Warrington and I show that the dentate gyrus encodes prediction errors during learning of perceptual predictions. This finding complements our previous work showing a transition from errors to predictions during learning (Aitken & Kok 2022). 🧠🟦

Dentate gyrus encodes prediction errors during learning of perceptual predictions

Abstract. The hippocampus is involved in learning predictive associations, responding to prediction errors as well as representing predictions of future in

royalsocietypublishing.org

Peter Kok@peterkok.bsky.social · 4w ago

The hippocampus sits at the interface of perception & memory, allowing us to link past, present, & future through its role in generating predictions. Excited to share this theme issue in @royalsociety.org's Philosophical Transactions B, co-edited with @barense.bsky.social & @mariamaly.bsky.social

The hippocampus sits at the interface of perception & memory, allowing us to link past, present, & future through its role in generating predictions. Excited to share this theme issue in @royalsociety.org's Philosophical Transactions B, co-edited with @barense.bsky.social & @mariamaly.bsky.social

Volume 381 Issue 1954 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | The Royal Society

Influential themed journal issues across the life sciences.

royalsocietypublishing.org

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

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

New paper out in JEP:HPP! psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/... Can we learn from things we're not paying attention to? We used a contextual cueing paradigm to pit selective attention against spatial prediction during visual search in 2 high-powered (N=104) experiments — and found they actively compete.

New preprint w/ @akalt.bsky.social, Juliane Schubert, Nathan Weisz, & @clarepress.bsky.social 🎉 Predictive-brain accounts treat "prediction error" as one signal. We find it's two jobs, in two dissociable systems. And one of them you can watch in the pupil, as people listen to a story. 🧵 (1/9)

An exciting MEG+pupillometry study by @quiringehmacher.bsky.social demonstrating coordination between mechanisms mediating perception and learning. Sensory cortex tracks prediction error continuously in a graded manner, while the brainstem only responds once crossing a threshold. Excellent summary👇

Quirin Gehmacher@quiringehmacher.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint w/ @akalt.bsky.social, Juliane Schubert, Nathan Weisz, & @clarepress.bsky.social 🎉 Predictive-brain accounts treat "prediction error" as one signal. We find it's two jobs, in two dissociable systems. And one of them you can watch in the pupil, as people listen to a story. 🧵 (1/9)

1/11 Happy to share our TICS paper on using the flexibility of one of the most basic cognitive functions, perception, to understand one of the most complex cognitive dysfunctions, psychiatric conditions (also my first formal work in computational psychiatry 🎉) 📄: www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🧵 : 👇

Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions

Perceptual multistability, observed across species and sensory modalities, offers valuable insights into numerous cognitive functions and dysfunctions. For instance, differences in temporal dynamics a...

cell.com

Trends in Cognitive Sciences@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Online Now: Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions

Natural behavior unfolds as a continuous stream of actions. Because these actions often occur in rapid succession, the brain must prepare multiple future actions while the current action is being executed. Our TICS piece explores how this works. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

So excited that this paper is finally out (while I'm on mat leave)! This is the culmination of three years of work during my @leverhulme.ac.uk and @newnhamcollege.bsky.social fellowships.

Matt Davis@drmattdavis.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I'm pleased to share this excellent paper from @abbiebradshawphd.bsky.social with @clarepress.bsky.social that presents an active inference account of speech motor control doi.org/10.3758/s134...

*** New paper from the lab in Nature Comms !! *** “Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map” by the amazing @reneecabbage.bsky.social in collab. w labs of Jill O’Reilly, Will Clarke, and modeling from Prakriti Parthasarathy and @tpvogels.bsky.social, see below!

Renée Koolschijn@reneecabbage.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Very pleased to share that our study “Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map” is out in @natcomms.nature.com (my final PhD paper, only 3.5 years post PhD! 🙃) Find the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨 I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p... Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling. Pls share!

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL

Discover Postdoctoral Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

jobs.ac.uk

I'm pleased to share this excellent paper from @abbiebradshawphd.bsky.social with @clarepress.bsky.social that presents an active inference account of speech motor control doi.org/10.3758/s134...

Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

Temporally-precise sensory encoding of predicted content, entraining motor oscillations to derive time. @akalt.bsky.social's first study out @currentbiology.bsky.social, testing parts of this idea (tinyurl.com/TiCSKaltenma...). Huge thanks @leverhulme.ac.uk ac.uk @erc.europa.eu, great work Aaron!

Fixed and flexible perceptual rhythms

Our sensory inputs are never identical across time and contain temporal structure. Cognitive scientists have recently been fascinated by how these sensory rhythms interact with neural oscillatory rhyt...

tinyurl.com

Aaron Kaltenmaier@akalt.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Excited to share that our MEG project is now out in Current Biology! We show how visual content codes relate to motor oscillations in telling time. Huge thanks to Quirin Gehmacher, Peter Kok, Matt Davis and Clare Press (bsky links below).🧵 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Excited to share that our MEG project is now out in Current Biology! We show how visual content codes relate to motor oscillations in telling time. Huge thanks to Quirin Gehmacher, Peter Kok, Matt Davis and Clare Press (bsky links below).🧵 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

🚨Preprint! “Bayesian surprise tracks the strength of perceptual insight” - Work with @lindedomingo.bsky.social & @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social Ever wondered what factors influence the subjective experience of suddenly understanding a previously unclear input? Click below: doi.org/10.64898/202...

It’s out!

Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177... 🧵

📢 Workshop announcement. We are super excited to announce the workshop Perceptual Inferences, from philosophy to neuroscience, organized by Alexander Schütz and Daniel Kaiser. 📍 Rauischholzhausen Castle, near Marburg, Germany 🗓️ June 8 to 10, 2026. 1/4

Very proud that this is finally out! Come for the new auditory illusion, stay for the brain imaging and speech analysis…..

Nature Human Behaviour@nathumbehav.nature.com · 6mo ago

Humans can use positive and negative spectrotemporal correlations to detect rising and falling pitch

"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option. I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

The Self-Evidencing Agent

What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

mitpress.mit.edu

The CNRS (@cnrs.fr) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure/PSL University (@normalesup.bsky.social) is launching a 5-year International Research Project (IRP) with University College London (@ucl.ac.uk) on human perception and consciousness. www.ucl.ac.uk/global/news/...

UCL launches landmark European collaboration on perception science

UCL is working with top French partners CNRS and ENS – PSL on a major European research initiative to advance understanding of human perception and consciousness.

ucl.ac.uk

Ever wondered how the Dalmatian Dog effect works? The human brain can quickly learn from a single experience and generalize it to related experiences — an impressive feat so far not matched by AI. Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com reveals how this works. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Forward and backward prediction in learning and perception" @predictivebrain.bsky.social @clarepress.bsky.social nice to see our work situated within a broader research program on differences between learning & perceptual predictions www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Forward and backward prediction in learning and perception

Predictive processing frameworks have emphasized the role of forward prediction as a critical ingredient for learning and perceptual inference. We ant…

sciencedirect.com

Are episodic and semantic memory really that different? Using closely matched tasks, we found no substantial neural differences between recalling personal experiences and general knowledge: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02390-4

Here’s a thought that might make you tilt your head in curiosity: With every movement of your eyes, head, or body, the visual input to your eyes shifts! Nevertheless, it doesn't feel like the world does suddenly tilts sideways whenever you tilt your head. How can this be? TWEEPRINT ALERT! 🚨🧵 1/n

a husky puppy is laying on the floor with its tongue out and wearing a blue collar .

ALT: a husky puppy is laying on the floor with its tongue out and wearing a blue collar .

media.tenor.com

Cost of being female lead/corresponding author in biomedical sciences: "[T]he median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles" even in disciplines where women well-represented. #AcademicSky journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review

Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that f...

journals.plos.org

#BrainMeeting 🧠 Alert! 🎺 This Friday, January 16th, the Brain Meeting speaker will be Janneke Jehee giving a talk entitled "Uncertainty in perceptual decision-making" In person or online. For more information: www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/event