Lucy Stafford

Online Studies Psychological Science requires that authors who use samples from online data collection include a statement in the Method section explicitly addressing their approach to preventing and detecting automated or AI-generated responses. Rationale As large language models and other generative AI tools become more accessible, the risk of data contamination by non-human respondents has increased dramatically in research. Psychological science (and the social sciences generally) is particularly susceptible to this issue given its growing reliance on online data collection. Preventing automated responses during data collection and detecting them afterward often involve methodological trade-offs. For instance, technical barriers that aim to prevent LLM use (e.g., blocking copy-pasting functionalities) may eliminate behavioral indicators needed for detection (e.g., pasting rather than typing). This policy aims to enhance transparency and reproducibility of reported results by requiring authors to articulate their approach across both prevention and detection dimensions, enabling readers and reviewers to assess the likelihood of reported data being influenced by automated responses. Scope This policy applies to any submission with at least one study that includes data collected online without direct human supervision (e.g., via crowdsourcing platforms, student participants who complete the study online, online recruitment ads, or remote survey distribution tools). Required Reporting Authors must include in the Methods section either: A statement confirming that procedures were in place to prevent and/or detect and exclude automated or AI-generated responses, including a description of those procedures (e.g., explicit participant instructions against LLM use, disabled copy–paste functionality, CAPTCHA use, IP filtering, consistency checks, attention checks, adversarial prompting) as well as the types of automated responses that these procedures are suitable …

Maybe of interest: The submission guidelines of Psychological Science now demand an explicit statement on measures taken to reduce the risk of AI-generated responses for all online studies!

www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

From Body to Brain and Back: Multimodal Evidence for Interoceptive Alterations in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders When the brain and body misalign, emotional experience and sense of reality can be disrupted. Although such atypical experiences are central to schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD), interoception, p...

How the brain listens to the body matters.
Our new preprint investigates interoceptive processing in schizophrenia spectrum disorders across phenomenology, behavior, and heartbeat-evoked brain responses. 🧠🫀DOI: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Delighted to share my first paper of 2026 "Interoception and allostatic load after stroke: A scoping review". Available now, open access: doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

Interoception in Autism, Pitfalls, and Promise: A Participatory Research Perspective - Eleanor R. Palser, Wenn B. Lawson, Emma Goodall, Elizabeth Pellicano, 2026 Bodily autonomy is essential to Autistic well-being. Interoception supports bodily autonomy through guiding behavior in support of homeostasis. Promoting adapti...

It took several late night/early morning meetings, but I’m very happy to see this perspective piece on #Autistic #interoception published. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Our paper on interoceptive rhythms and perception now is published in NeuroImage 🚀📄

@alexgalvezpol.bsky.social already shared a fantastic breakdown of our main findings in the thread below👇🏽

🔗Full OA article: doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

#Interoception #Perception #Neuroscience #ActiveSensing

NEPTUNE project logo with affiliations & funders

New job alert 💫 We’re hiring a 3-year postdoc for the NEPTUNE project to study the causal mechanisms of paranoia and social learning.

Work with us on experimental psychopharmacology (THC), social cognition, and psychosis 🧑‍🔬

Apply here: lnkd.in/gQqnNvjR](my.corehr.com/pls/kclrecru...)

Please RT :)

A figure showing that non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) modulates Pavlovian bias in a state-dependent manner. A milkshake vs. water load reduces hunger and these changes are associated with the effects of tVNS on Pavlovian bias.

Last preprint 🎶(of the year).

If vagus nerve stimulation alters motivation by amplifying internal signals, then bodily states should matter. Using milkshake vs. water loads, we show that tVNS-induced changes in Pavlovian bias are dependent on hunger. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It is hugely fun & we are very lucky to do science for the sake of science. But it is amazing to see work we and many others I admire have done turn into public awareness thanks to excellent science writing.

(see also www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...)

Disruptions in This Sixth Sense May Drive Mental Illness Disruptions in interoception may underlie anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health ailments

New writeup on interoception in Scientific American focusing on its role in mental health:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/inte...

A graphical abstract showing the research question and the operationalization of the study.

Out now in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social 🚨.
Hunger often affects our mood, but is this a conscious or a subconscious process? Using continuous glucose monitoring, we show that differences in mood are driven by hunger ratings, not just glucose. #neuroskyence 🩺
www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...

Out now in Translational Psychiatry! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very excited to introduce InteroMap, a new bodily mapping tool designed to measure how we subjectively experience our bodily sensations, what we call interoceptive phenomenology 🧵👇

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

It's that time of year when many start thinking about applying for PhDs. If you're applying for a UK PhD position, here is a blog post I wrote a while back that might be helpful

#cognition #psychscisky #neuroskyence #psychjobs

Scientists discover surprising link between gut-brain interactions and mental health Every emotion has a physical side, but one organ has been curiously overlooked in brain-body research. Now, scientists are turning their attention to the stomach—and discovering signals that may chang...

Thank you to @psypost.bsky.social for featuring our @natmentalhealth.nature.com research on stomach–brain communication and worse mental health symptoms
www.psypost.org/scientists-d...
Was also shared on X but with weirdly more hair colour comments 🌈 than the science itself 😅:
x.com/OwenGregoria...

Even after recovery, relapse is heartbreakingly common in anorexia nervosa. Could the answer lie in the gut’s hidden signals? 🧵

Perceptual Dysfunction in Eating Disorders - PubMed Eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by abnormal responses to food and weight-related stimuli and are associated with significant distress, impairment, and poor outcomes. Because many of the cardi...

Reilly, Brown & Frank link altered taste, touch, vision, and gut sensing to anorexia and bulimia nervosa, highlight knowledge gaps, and proposing neurobiologically-informed strategies for clinical translation. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38730196/

🚨Do you want to join our online seminars?

Next month we have this amazing seminar with Anna and Noa!
Register to join, it’s free 🤓

#somatosensation
#interoception
#sensory
#body
#science
#neuroscience

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"I feel full with shame": A qualitative perspective on gastric interoceptive sensibility “Am I hungry? Did I overeat at lunch?” Gastric interoception - the sensing, interpretation, and regulation of signals from the gastrointestinal system…

New qualitative paper! A foray into gastric interception. @lucysta02475610.bsky.social ran a LOT of focus groups, across groups with eating disorders, gastric disorders and neither, to understand how people experience the sensations from their GI system. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Stomach–brain synchronisation is associated with poorer mental health In common parlance, ‘being in touch with your body’ is often used positively. However, in a recent study, Banellis, Rebollo, and colleagues show that better stomach–brain synchronisation is actually a...

In this @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social Spotlight, I describe how a recent paper by @leahbanellis.bsky.social, @brainandstomach.bsky.social, et al. opens new avenues in interoception research, including those focussed on the subjective interpretation of internal signals: www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

🧠 New publication out!
👁️‍🗨️ 🫀 In this perspective, we draw parallels with anosognosia
for hemiplegia, commonly seen in acute stroke patients, in the attempt to explain anosognosia for the illness in anorexia nervosa, based on recent
computational accounts
 
www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu...

On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue

A roller coaster of a thread for any interoceptive researchers ⬇️

Wow, this is the kind of evidence we need to move ahead in the field. I'll go out on a limb here: I guess it is more about the gut than cardiac and respiratory domains. Huge effort by @leahbanellis.bsky.social @micahgallen.com and the entire team 👏

the tldr of my thread is that, interoceptive sensing at rest has no relationship to mental health symptoms, and we think this is likely because we need to measure interoception during and after arousal, close in time to symptoms, with ecological measures.

The latest from our lab @the-ecg.bsky.social: interoceptive sensing at rest is *not* related to mental health symptoms 🤔 Read our study here 👇

Interoceptive Ability is Unrelated to Mental Health Symptoms: Evidence From a Large Scale Multi-Domain Psychophysical Investigation Interoception-the sensing and perception of the internal viscera-is widely cast as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking brain-body interaction to mental illness. Prevailing models propose that altered ...

Are interoception and mental health linked? Many assume so, with interoception even described as a psychiatric “p-factor.” But in our latest preprint, we were surprised to find little evidence for such a connection. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 Thread with our reflections on the matter 👇

This leads me to our final point. Interoceptive accuracy is not the construct for emotion or mental health. We think that interoceptive narratives and beliefs, and how interoceptive sensastions change during acute stress and arousal, is so much more important.

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

Research opportunity! Email or click the link for more info: www.canva.com/design/DAGmM...

Please share thank you!
#eatingdisorders #EDAwareness #emotions #ResearchStudy #ParticipateInResearch #PsychologyResearch #NHSresearch #UKresearch #students
@jrefox.bsky.social
‪@livuniresearch.bsky.social‬