A piece for The Conversation about our recent paper on two sources of confidence biases in people. theconversation.com/some-people-... In brief: Taking time to think about your decisions may either help or worsen underconfidence depending on whether it is related to gender or anxiety symptoms

Some people gain confidence from thinking things through, others lose it – new research

Second-guessing yourself? Here’s how it can hurt (and at times help) your confidence.

theconversation.com

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

We're running a 5th edition of the always-exciting UCL Summer School on Consciousness and Metacognition this year, 8th-10th July 2026 in London. Accommodation and travel expenses are covered. For more information and how to apply, check out metacoglab.org/summer-schoo...

A nice write-up of our recent paper

UCL News@uclnews.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Women and people with anxiety are both prone to low confidence in their own abilities, but a new study by Dr @sucharit.bsky.social and Prof @smfleming.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social @uclbrainscience.bsky.social has found that the two groups are prone to two distinct types of underconfidence

Our new paper on different types of underconfidence in relation to anxiety symptoms and gender out now in Psychological Medicine 😊 doi.org/10.1017/S003... with @smfleming.bsky.social

Our new study led by @renzolanfranco.bsky.social out in PNAS showing an indistinguishable association between performance and awareness judgements when it comes to bodily self-perception

Renzo Lanfranco@renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Happy to share our new and groundbreaking study on the relationship between conscious awareness and the sense of bodily self! With @brainself.bsky.social at @ki.se and out today in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Body ownership is not constructed unconsciously and then brought to awareness—it emerges directly in consciousness. A fundamental insight for understanding the bodily self, with clear implications for theories of consciousness. See PNAS article and thread below.

Renzo Lanfranco@renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Happy to share our new and groundbreaking study on the relationship between conscious awareness and the sense of bodily self! With @brainself.bsky.social at @ki.se and out today in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

1/4 I’m super excited to share our latest PNAS paper: a 7T-fMRI study shows that functional connectivity between habenula and VTA in humans is associated with individual differences in negative learning bias, which further associates with higher anxiety and depression scores. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

🧠 New paper on breathing and the brain, out now @plos.org Computational Biology! 🫁 "The respiratory cycle modulates distinct dynamics of affective and perceptual decision-making" doi.org/10.1371/jour... We show how respiratory 'tidal computations' alter our decisons!

The respiratory cycle modulates distinct dynamics of affective and perceptual decision-making

Author summary Breathing is more than just a vital process for survival — it influences how we perceive and interact with the world around us. Recent research suggests that the rhythm of breathing, fr...

doi.org

Very pleased to share our new review in @natrevpsychol.nature.com on integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives of metacognition in mental health! With @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social, Lena Jelinek, and Steffen Moritz. (1/3) Web: www.nature.com/articles/s44... PDF: rdcu.be/ePxUG

Integrating cognitive neuroscience and clinical perspectives on metacognitive mechanisms in psychopathology - Nature Reviews Psychology

Cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology have made substantial advances in knowledge about metacognitive processes, but these fields have progressed in parallel. In this Review, Seow et al. inte...

eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

Brace yourself: neural and computational insights into the experience of mental effort! Now out in @cerebralcortex.bsky.social Led by Gaia Corlazzoli. Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u.... Thread ↓↓↓

I’m excited to share our latest article “The Multifaceted Ganzfeld at the Crossroad Between Visual Perception and Consciousness: Behavioral, Neural and Qualitative Aspects”, published in Open Mind!

Open Mind@openmindjournal.bsky.social · 9mo ago

What a day. Our foundation model of cognitive science is out in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @marcelbinz.bsky.social's thread: bsky.app/profile/marc... Centaur is featured by the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/s... We got featured in a Nature views: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A foundation model to predict and capture human cognition - Nature

A computational model called Centaur, developed by fine-tuning a language model on a huge dataset called Psych-101, can predict and simulate human nature in experiments expressible in natural language...

nature.com

Marcel Binz@marcelbinz.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to see our Centaur project out in @nature.com. TL;DR: Centaur is a computational model that predicts and simulates human behavior for any experiment described in natural language.

Claire and team did a remarkable job here, and you should read their reply. An updated preprint from us will be out shortly, reflecting our revised understanding of these issues.

Claire Gillan@clairegillan.bsky.social · last yr.

We @smfleming.bsky.social, Marion Rouault and @seowxft.bsky.social and I) have posted a reply osf.io/preprints/ps... to a preprint that recently raised concerns about the validity of associations between mental health and metacognition from online studies. I hope you can take the time to read it.

We @smfleming.bsky.social, Marion Rouault and @seowxft.bsky.social and I) have posted a reply osf.io/preprints/ps... to a preprint that recently raised concerns about the validity of associations between mental health and metacognition from online studies. I hope you can take the time to read it.

I am so excited to share that our paper 'A neural basis for distinguishing imagination from reality' is now published in @cp-neuron.bsky.social! 🧠✨ See thread below! doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

Nadine Dijkstra@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social · 2y ago

I am beyond excited to share our new preprint ‘A neural basis for distinguishing between imagination and reality’ with Thomas von Rein, @peterkok.bsky.social and @smfleming.bsky.social! osf.io/preprints/ps... a thread 🧵

Some coverage in Danish newspapers (with a very broad interpretation) of our recent study ☺️ uniavisen.dk/en/you-did-w...

You did well — so why do you feel like a fraud? The psychology of impostor syndrome

Academics can feel like they’ve tricked their colleagues into overestimating them. This researcher knows how to fight it.

uniavisen.dk

"In most scientific fields, AI is unlikely to be the solution to concerns about slowing progress." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Why an overreliance on AI-driven modelling is bad for science

Without clear protocols to catch errors, artificial intelligence’s growing role in science could do more harm than good.

nature.com

Do you have #ADHD or #autism? We're running a short, anonymous survey on interoception. It takes just 15–20 minutes, and your input would mean a lot. 👉 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Aarhus University Student Survey

This questionnaire will take approximately 15- 25 minutes to complete. Please answer in a safe environment and as truthfully as possible. As a neurodiverse research team, we prioritize the comfort an...

docs.google.com

Our recent paper in Nat Comms on how people form global underconfidence despite good performance is being covered in popsci press as providing insight into the Imposter Syndrome phys.org/news/2025-04... @sciencex.bsky.social

Persistent underconfidence: Why we doubt our own abilities even when we're good at something

A new study from the University of Copenhagen and University College London has unraveled why some people feel insecure in their abilities—even when they are actually good at what they do.

phys.org

Lovely spin on our recent study on underconfidence in the Danish weekly Weekendavisen www.weekendavisen.dk/2025-13/idee... Link to original study: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @weekendavisen.dk @smfleming.bsky.social

En kur mod tvivl

Bedragersyndrom. Mange veluddannede undervurderer kronisk egne evner. Nyt studie viser, at den rette feedback kan give dem et mere retvisende syn på sig selv.

weekendavisen.dk

Paper out in PLOS Mental Health 2 weeks ago 🙈 but better late than never! Collab with @smfleming.bsky.social and @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social. We investigated how confidence is altered in transdiagnostic compulsivity across memory and perception, as memory confidence is typically lowered in OCD. (1/4)

UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences@uclbrainscience.bsky.social · last yr.

New research from @uclqsion.bsky.social reveals that underconfidence is linked to anxiety and depression, while overconfidence is linked to compulsivity. Understanding these connections can help improve mental health treatments.

We are excited to post a new preprint with Shiyi Liang @shiyiliang.bsky.social: 'Reinforcement learning is positively associated with anhedonia symptoms' osf.io/preprints/ps... (a bit late here – a version was online back in December) @mpc-comppsych.bsky.social

Great work by @sucharit.bsky.social suggesting that one failure mode in maintaining low self-esteem is the failure to integrate experiences of high confidence into self-esteem. Would be great to develop the intervention/therapeutic potential further.

Sucharit Katyal@sucharit.bsky.social · last yr.

Our paper where we use computational modelling to study how some people continue to be underconfident in their abilities despite having intact performance out in Nature Communications @naturecomms.bsky.social with @smfleming.bsky.social @docqhuys.bsky.social Ray Dolan

This is a great study, if I may say. We have had a lot of data showing correlations between subjective assessments and behaviour between individuals. With this study, we are starting to see how they interact over days within individuals. Congratulations @samuelhewitt.bsky.social!

Samuel Hewitt, PhD@samuelhewitt.bsky.social · last yr.

A little bby from my PhD is published! we did a complex study to answer a simple Q: do day-to-day feelings impact choices? A: Yes. When feeling motivated (independent of other stable or unstable feelings) choices changed because rewards seemed greater. open access link: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Pleased to share our latest collaborative publication, "Thermosensory predictive coding underpins an illusion of pain", out now in Science Advances! The first major output of our Visceral Mind Project, lead by the amazing @francescafardo.bsky.social! www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Thermosensory predictive coding underpins an illusion of pain

Computational modeling reveals how uncertainty transforms harmless stimuli into perceptions of pain.

science.org

Very excited to organise the 4th edition of the Metacognitive Science Meeting in Amsterdam just before the @cogcompneuro.bsky.social conference, on Monday 11th Aug 2025. More information to come soon but please save the date!

Steve Fleming@smfleming.bsky.social · last yr.

We are extremely excited to announce the 4th edition of the Metacognitive Science Meeting (formerly known as the Perceptual Metacognition Satellite) - to be held on August 11th 2025, right before @cogcompneuro.bsky.social in Amsterdam! For info and how to submit: sites.google.com/view/metacog...

Love this (below); Here's a short piece to a similar tune from me, @alvanoe.bsky.social, & @evanthompson.bsky.social (2024) –– "LLMs Don't Know Anything" philpapers.org/archive/GODL...

Henry Farrell@himself.bsky.social · last yr.

1. @alisongopnik.bsky.social, Cosma Shalizi, James Evans and myself have a new piece in Science on "AI" Large Models, pushing back against much of the collective wisdom about what they can and can't do. Official below, unpaywalled at henryfarrell.net/large-ai-mod... . So why this now?

Can we enhance interoception by controlling the heart? Thrilled to share our new study, led by @ashleytyrer.bsky.social , where we use computational modeling to show that blockading peripheral noradrenaline uniquely alters awareness of heart rate & breathing! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵👇

Many congratulations on this excellent work @mkwittmann.bsky.social @yongling.bsky.social @cormacd.bsky.social

Marco K Wittmann@mkwittmann.bsky.social · last yr.

New paper from our lab now in @nature.com . We show that our brains use basis functions or "building blocks" to navigate social interactions. Rather than tracking every individual separately, social information is compressed into patterns that can be flexibly combined. www.nature.com/articles/s41...