Tom Foulsham

I am thrilled to announce the European Summer School on Eye Movements! #ESSEM2026 takes place 7-12 September, 2026, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. Further details including info on how to register can be found here: essem2026.org

📣 Paper alert: We reviewed callous unemotional (CU) traits across neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs). Individuals with CU traits consistently show atypical gaze patterns (reduced looks to the eyes), when viewing fearful faces.
@tomfoulsh.bsky.social
www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/13...

Cognitive profiles of Autism, ADHD, and co-occurring presentations in childhood: insights from an online working memory task Access to standardized cognitive assessment remains limited in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), with direct implications for the identification and support of children with neurodevelopme...

🚨New paper! We examined face & emotion id across ASC, ADHD, ASC+ADHD and typically developing children using
The Gorilla exp builder, reaching diverse regions of Mexico. With the great support of @tomfoulsh.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Building better than we know: Maintenance, eye movements, and social trust To determine if remediating images of poorly maintained residential properties increases social trust and identify which aspects of the built environm…

New from David McAleavey who used eyetracking to test theories of "community perception" authors.elsevier.com/c/1mbVyzzKDT...

Just over 2 weeks until the deadline for this studentship - know any great students interested in memory, eye movements and sleep?

The advert for collaborative, SENSS funded PhD-studentships is now live, including one project about sleep and eye movements with me as a co-supervisor. PLEASE SHARE this for people interested in doing a funded PhD in the UK: www.senss.ac.uk/collaborativ...

The advert for collaborative, SENSS funded PhD-studentships is now live, including one project about sleep and eye movements with me as a co-supervisor. PLEASE SHARE this for people interested in doing a funded PhD in the UK: www.senss.ac.uk/collaborativ...

I agree with this. Journals are in a silly place at the moment with power analysis where everyone asks for it but they are mostly not worth much (because power analysis for anything beyond simple designs isn't so easy, especially within subjects).

We did this in a very sophisticated way....by making the actors wear sunglasses! Green dots show how observers follow the speaker.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

New paper which took a long time to come out, based on PhD students' Jessica Dawson and @apmartinezcedillo.bsky.social. We investigate the influence of signals from the eyes, and clinically-relevant traits, on how people follow a conversation.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Essex set to advance eye behaviour research with AI supercomputer | University of Essex Researchers at Essex have been granted access to one the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputers as part of a project to better understand eye behaviour and mental fatigue.

The next steps in our funded research on eye movements in fatigue involve some fancy AI and supercomputing! @universityofessex.bsky.social
www.essex.ac.uk/news/2025/11...

I don't think it is OK to desk reject a paper with no comments or feedback at all. If you have time to read/skim the paper and make a judgement, then you have time to write a sentence explaining why you don't want it (and that stuff is invaluable for ECRs)

Absurd thing number 2: One of the reviewers, who I frankly suspect wrote their initial review using AI, insisted that our paper (a narrative review) required a method section. I'm all for rigour in reviews, but I've never read a review paper with a method section!

Absurd thing number 1: We had SIX reviews (and at least two rounds of revisions) and the editor still didn't make a clear decision.

We withdrew a manuscript from review at a journal today. I think that is the first time I've done that, but the review process was hugely delayed and unhelpful.

I'm going to try and talk about 3 experiments, with 3 different eyetrackers, in 10 minutes. So we'll see how that goes!

Looking forward to speaking in tomorrow's pre-conference workshop on eye-tracking @escop.bsky.social in Sheffield #ESCOP2025

Some exciting news to share: I’m joining Edge Hill University as a Lecturer in Psychology this September!
Excited (and a little nervous) for this next chapter in academia. I can’t wait to get started!

#AcademicTwitter #Psychology #LecturerLife #EdgeHillUniversity

Oh yes, we're in a similar "funny" situation:

Reviewer: minor revision, you must add more justification for X
Us: now added
Reviewer: changes are "ad hoc" and "reactive adjustments". Major revisions!

If changes in response to reviewer are criticised as "ad hoc" it kind of defeats the object...

We know plenty about covert attention in lab settings, but not much about how people spontaneously use it in social situations. It is hidden, but critical. It's like the dark matter of real world cognition and behaviour. 4/4

BUT, it is actually in real situations (complex, social, active) where that assumption is most likely to be false. We use covert attention (attending without moving the eyes) so that we can avoid signalling to other people. 3/4

People working with eyetrackers (including me) often assume that where someone is looking is what they are attending to (what is called the "eye-mind assumption"). This is particularly true if you try to do "real-world" research... 2/4

Covert orienting: the dark matter of social attention Covert visual attention is often seen as a lab phenomenon. Yet, in real-life, people routinely shift their attention to others without moving their eyes, a fact overlooked in most research. To truly u...

Here's a short thread about our paper in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social dlvr.it/TKxcFg ... 1/4

Covert orienting: the dark matter of social attention Covert visual attention is often seen as a lab phenomenon. Yet, in real-life, people routinely shift their attention to others without moving their ey…

#socialAnx this articulates something i've wondered about www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Covert orienting: the dark matter of social attention Covert visual attention is often seen as a lab phenomenon. Yet, in real-life, people routinely shift their attention to others without moving their eyes, a fact overlooked in most research. To truly u...

On gaze vs attention, autism-relevant, free www.cell.com/trends/cogni... "in live situations, where the eyes signal information, people may naturally avert their gaze while covertly tracking others... with the eyes effectively sending a false signal as to where attention is directed"

Covert orienting: the dark matter of social attention Covert visual attention is often seen as a lab phenomenon. Yet, in real-life, people routinely shift their attention to others without moving their eyes, a fact overlooked in most research. To truly understand natural behaviour, we must look beyond the eyes and illuminate this dark matter of social attention.

Online Now: Covert orienting: the dark matter of social attention

More paper news! After years of thinking/talking about it, here is our short perspective piece on covert attention in natural situations. Now in press at TICS @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

I played a small part in this new paper led by Stasha Medeiros in Vermont and with @neilcohn.bsky.social: autistic traits have some nuanced effects on how people process comic strips...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Identifying the human olfactory and chemosignaling neural networks using event related fMRI and graph theory Scientific Reports - Identifying the human olfactory and chemosignaling neural networks using event related fMRI and graph theory

Now out from my colleagues on our POTION project: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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...