New paper in the Cortex Special Issue on Conceptual Knowledge! ✨ Erica Adezati, Daniel Mirman et al. show that different manipulations of evolving mental models of narratives recruit partly distinct neural systems that exhibit differential sensitivity to social vs non-social content 🧠 1/🧵

AI-driven peer review at Frontiers seems totally out of control

Michael Okun@michael-okun.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I emailed and met with the editorial office to ask for the AI assistant to be turned off. I was told this is not possible. Instead, I was treated to some vague promises of potential future improvements and a dose of gaslighting.

How do older adults combine familiar concepts to make sense of new ones? We ask this question about semantic composition in a new paper out now: www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... #psychscisky #cognition Here's a breakdown of the main findings👇 1/6

Frontiers | Mechanisms of semantic composition in older adults: control, semantic processing, and imagery

IntroductionSemantic composition is the ability to create meaningful novel concepts from familiar concepts. This can be achieved through a set of cognitive a...

frontiersin.org

I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics. It turns out I was wrong. Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Zhishun Wang, Jack Grinband, et al: MEPrep: A robust pipeline for multi-echo fMRI denoising and preprocessing doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

Very happy that this paper from our lab is now out in @pnas.org! What happens when the *same* person experiences the *same* information with a *different* interpretation? Nearly the whole 🧠—well, at least nearly all association cortex—changes how it represents that information! tinyurl.com/p8chj2j7

We have three lectureships available at York Psychology (@yorkpsychology.bsky.social) with a broad remit for research/teaching areas. Home and overseas applications are welcome. Deadline for applications is early April - enquiries welcome. Come and join us! jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...

The Cortex special issue on Conceptual Knowledge, co-edited by Emiko Muraki (@emij.bsky.social), Richard Binney (@rjbinney.bsky.social), Penny Pexman (@pennypexman.bsky.social) and myself is still accepting submissions. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

2026 big update to the psycholinguistic database page! If you know of corpora, lexical databases, or other resources that I've missed, please LMK. Trying to keep this thing relatively current and could use the help www.reilly-coglab.com/data

Psycholinguistic Databases, Stimuli, Utilities — Concepts & Cognition Laboratory

reilly-coglab.com

Great work by Roni Tibon (not on BlueSky) - surprising that negligible difference in fMRI correlates of semantic vs episodic retrieval?

School of Psychology, University of Nottingham@notts-psych.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Are episodic and semantic memory really that different? Using closely matched tasks, a new study found no substantial neural differences between recalling personal experiences and general knowledge: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Does our "semantic space" get stuck in the past as we age? New work by @ellscain.bsky.social uses historical embeddings + behavioral data to show we are truly lifelong learners. Older adults don't rely on historical meanings—they update them to match current language! 🧠✨ doi.org/10.1162/OPMI...

Semantic Representations Are Updated Across the Lifespan Reflecting Diachronic Language Change

Abstract. Humans learn the meanings of words from the contexts in which they are used. Patterns of language use change over time, suggesting that the contexts in which some words are experienced chang...

doi.org

Ellis Cain@ellscain.bsky.social · 7mo ago

New paper w/ @ryskin.bsky.social in Open Mind! Words change: “broadcast” once meant scattering seeds; “tweet” was just a bird sound. Do older adults keep earlier meanings, or update as language evolves? Our new paper investigates how semantic representations differ across age groups. 🧵👇

Two-year post-doc position in my department working on a cool project applying cognitive science (transmission chain experiments and natural language processing) to study cultural evolution: tinyurl.com/bdeju6kw

Hello @springernature.com - you’ve just published another bit of nonsense in Scientific Reports 🙁

Jack Ryan 🙏🧪@jacksonwryan.com · 8mo ago

Uhh,,, Figure 1 shows you... what exactly? Trying to understand Medical fryrmbial, runctitional features and mum's legs going through concrete. This whole article is a bit of a disaster. And it's very difficult to find other published work for the author. Strange! 🧪 (via @smutclyde.bsky.social)

Excellent paper. bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.tufts....

I want to extend my full support to staff threatened with compulsory redundancy at the University of Edinburgh. I have today written to the Principal imploring him to change direction.

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

I'm so sorry to share that Friedemann Pulvermüller, brilliant neuroscientist, has passed. He gave Embodiment ideas legs and worked tirelessly on treatments for stroke victims during his storied career. His kindness and wry humor made him sparkle.

Research from psychologists @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social and The University of Hamburg shows our brains don’t rely on one unified world model, but juggle multiple predictive threads at once. A glimpse into how experience gets fragmented then woven together. Read more: edin.ac/47cETTX #psychology

Fragmentation and multithreading of experience in the default-mode network - Nature Communications

Here the authors show the prefrontal cortex simultaneously predicts context, the thoughts of others and future changes, while the precuneus acts as a hub to fuse these into a coherent experience.

edin.ac

I am co-editing a special issue on the "Neural Bases of Language Processing in the Wild" together with @swathikiran.bsky.social on Brain and Language (zero embargo period). If you are interested, I am happy to chat more (currently at my favorite #snl2025). www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

Late abstract deadline is this Friday! We'd love to hear about your recent research at the #BACN25 meeting in Edinburgh

British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience@bacn.co.uk · last yr.

Preliminary program is up! Lots of exciting research. It's not too late to join us and present! Late-breaking poster deadline is 11 July. www.bacn.co.uk/conferences

Excited to announce a call for papers for a new virtual special issue in Cortex on Concept Knowledge. Our opening editorial, plus further information and guidance for authors can be found here: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Save the date!! #BACN2025 11-12 September 2025, Edinburgh www.bacn.co.uk/conferences Submit talk and poster abstracts by 30 April 2025.

First post and first paper of the year! We show that semantic memory space becomes denser with age. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... .

Call for papers: extended until May 2025! *#Neurocognitive perspectives on #discourse & connected #language*. This special issue will highlight advances from cog & clinical #neuroscience in modeling discourse that spans from multi-word utterances to naturalistic stories. #aphasia bit.ly/4hdKbBb

MRC Units across the UK have led the scientific world for generations, but are due to be closed with little consultation, for reasons that are largely unknown. Please sign this letter if you would like the MRC to reconsider. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Open letter to Sir Patrick Vallance

To sign the letter, please complete the form here: https://forms.gle/eRydV6VpMQVFPtdF7 Please forward a link to this letter to any colleagues who you think may be interested in signing – we would li...

docs.google.com

This job advert is live! I'm looking for a postdoc to work on a 2-year mixed methods project studying communication strategies in aphasia. Part of a big grant on language, neurodiversity, and flourishing elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Postdoctoral Research Associate

We are looking for a postdoctoral research associate for a full-time, fixed term post for 24 months from July 2024 to work as part of the Edinburgh team on the John Templeton Foundation funded project...

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com

Dan Mirman@danmirman.bsky.social · 2y ago

I will soon be recruiting a postdoc for a ~2-year mixed methods (quali + quant) project about real-world communication strategies used by people with aphasia. Spread the word and get in touch with any Qs. I’ll post a link to the actual job description and app page when it's live.

At @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social , we’re recruiting two new permanent Lecturers. We’re especially interested in recruiting in cognitive neuroscience and/or computational modelling 🧠 If you’d like to know about life & science at Birkbeck - please get in touch! 🧠🟦 cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...