Samuel Evans

Artificial Phantasia: Evidence for Propositional Reasoning-Based Mental Imagery in Large Language Models This study offers a novel approach for benchmarking complex cognitive behavior in artificial systems. Almost universally, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform best on tasks which may be included in th...

Imagine an apple 🍎. Is your mental image more like a picture or more like a thought? In a new preprint led by Morgan McCarty—our lab's wonderful RA—we develop a new approach to this old cognitive science question and find that LLMs excel at tasks thought to be solvable only via visual imagery. 🧵

Ep 3 of Mempathy is now out! Sometimes people with dementia-related memory loss are absolutely convinced that something happened but others know it isn’t true. Why does this happen? Should you correct them? Sonia and I discuss our personal experiences and chew over the science
mempathy.podbean.com

Inspire at least twenty students to throw their lives away by going to graduate school.

Yes - the does it really do anything or is it just an epiphenomenon...

Then you have the issue of small sample sizes and file drawer problem...

I'm personally open minded -but agree with issues you've raised about the difficulty of reflecting on your own/others internal experiences. Also a problem that this area sits on a broader unresolved question about functional role of imagery -so built on shifting sands in terms of finding evidence.

No clear evidence of a difference between individuals who self-report an absence of auditory imagery and typical imagers on auditory imagery tasks Aphantasia is characterised by the inability to create mental images in one’s mind. Studies investigating impairments in imagery typically focus on the visual domain. However, it is possible to genera...

Our work in the auditory domain: majority recruited on basis of self reported visual aphant, also report auditory aphant, but as with visual domain, we did not find strong/any evidence in behavioural tasks we hoped would index auditory imagery: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Joint Postgraduate Award with the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology | BPS This grant scheme provides an opportunity for a postgraduate psychologist to be seconded to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST).

Applications are open for a #psychology #postgrad #reseachfunding opportunity for £7,922.50 and a 13-week fellowship from to support the creation of materials for MPs with POST ! 💻🧑‍🎓
#PhD #research #fellowship @bpsofficial.bsky.social #POST

If you're interested apply by 4th May: shorturl.at/Mk8EI

Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at King's College London Recruiting now: Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

🚨 HIRING 🚨 a Postdoctoral Associate in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience @kingsioppn.bsky.social

My group's research aims to understand how social and physical environments impact brain and behaviour development.

Application window closes in three days!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLX655/p...

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

I'm looking for someone with neuroimaging experience to join my lab for a year - please do repost!

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Investigating Reading Enjoyment in Adults With Dyslexia Previous studies have suggested that adults with dyslexia do not enjoy reading, based on data from trait-based questionnaires. This study uses state-based measures of reading to offer greater insight....

In time for World #Book Day! Our new paper, led by Hannah Jones, suggests that adults with #dyslexia find #reading enjoyable. However, they are less #motivated to continue reading.

doi.org/10.1002/dys....

We speculate why (and why it matters) in our blog: www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/when...

Happy 30th birthday year to SPM!! 🎈🍰

To get the party started, we are delighted to announce SPM 25.01, a major new version of the open-source neuroimaging software.

Read the preprint to discover what's new arxiv.org/pdf/2501.12081 and download SPM for free from Github github.com/spm/spm/rele...

Do you have a PhD in Psychology, Neuroscience or Neuroimaging & are looking for a post-doc?

Do you want to join a friendly lab?

Do you want to live in Norwich (UK) - gorgeous city close to the beach? You can surf, meet seals, do wonderful walks, eat gelato & enjoy gorgeous sunsets!

Morning all. In case you missed it, I wrote a Film article for the Guardian! (Been reading their film section since I was a teenager, so fun to see it up there....)

Pre-announcement: UKRI Metascience AI early career fellowships

https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-metascience-ai-early-career-fellowships/

"The UK Metascience Unit will fund a cohort of early career fellows to build our understanding of:
- how the growing adoption of AI is changing the […]

Speaking of grant applications, will not forget when I asked ChatGPT to rewrite my application to Donald Trump style

Neural specialization for ‘visual’ concepts emerges in the absence of vision The ‘different-body/different-concepts hypothesis’ central to some embodiment theories proposes that the sensory capacities of our bodies shape the co…

Neural specialization for ‘visual’ concepts emerges... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Are the sensory capacities of our bodies shaped the cognitive & neural basis of our concepts? Compared semantic similarity judgments & fMRI of ‘visual’ categories for congenitally blind & sighted adults

To mark the completion of my textbook, The Neuroscience of Language, I'll be posting some tidbits from my book over the coming months. Some will be languagey and some will be little rabbit holes that distracted me along the way. Enjoy!

#neuroscienceoflanguage

jonathanpeelle.net/the-neurosci...

Games

Each year my Xmas present is (just one more game...plus...) the offer that someone in my house will play board games with me. Setting up this year's selection.

🎉 A huge congratulations to Alex Voce, winner of the 2024 BNA Undergraduate Prize!

Alex has been recognised for her resilience and unwavering passion for #neuroscience .

www.bna.org.uk/mediacentre/...

#NeuroscienceAwards #BNAPrizeWinner #UndergraduateAchievement #WomenInSTEM

1st 'skeet' to celebrate success of Alex Voce in winning BNA Undergraduate Prize. Alex is from our 2nd ever cohort of Neuroscience & Psychology BSc - amazing thesis on functional connectivity between brainstem and cervical spinal cord: www.bna.org.uk/mediacentre/... @britishneuro.bsky.social