Benjamin Lowe

Principles for proper peer review

For all the knucklehead reviewers out there.
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience

@sulfaro.bsky.social literally what we were just talking about!

One of the most depressing phd experiences is hearing of others' advisors (the ones that are supposed to train us into good scientists) encourage the use of chatbots in lieu of their students' development. thankfully mine don't.

My petty gripe: not only am I losing my livelihood to AI – now it’s stealing my em dashes too The humble em dash is being used as a tell that something is written by a large language model. But it’s James Shackell’s favourite piece of punctuation, and he’s not ready to lose it

I feel seen—and heard: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Investigating orientation adaptation following naturalistic film viewing - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Investigating orientation adaptation following naturalistic film viewing

Just published some work at Scientific Reports! We investigated visual adaptation following free viewing of a film (Casablanca) that had its oriented contrast altered. To our surprise, we found adaptation effects to be pretty negligible…

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/10

Throw hands and then give hug. Good on ya, Will!

1/ Why are we so easily distracted? 🧠 In our new EEG preprint w/ Henry Jones, @monicarosenb.bsky.social and @edvogel.bsky.social we show that distractibility is associated w/ reduced neural connectivity — and can be predicted from EEG with ~80% accuracy using machine learning.

Looking forward to this!

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

Convenience AI Sabina Leonelli & Alexander Martin Mussgnug12 Abstract: This paper considers the mundane ways in which AI is being incorporated into scientific practice today, and particularly the extent to which AI is used to automate tasks perceived to be boring, “mere routine” and inconvenient to researchers. We label such uses as instances of “Convenience AI” — that is situations where AI is applied with the primary intention to increase speed and minimize human effort. We outline how attributions of convenience to AI applications involve three key characteristics: (i) an emphasis on speed and ease of action, (ii) a comparative element, as well as (iii) a subject-dependent and subjective quality. Using examples from medical science and development economics, we highlight epistemic benefits, complications, and drawbacks of Convenience AI along these three dimensions. While the pursuit of convenience through AI can save precious time and resources as well as give rise to novel forms of inquiry, our analysis underscores how the uncritical adoption of Convenience AI for the sake of shortcutting human labour may also weaken the evidential foundations of science and generate inertia in how research is planned, set-up and conducted, with potentially damaging implications for the knowledge being produced. Critically, we argue that the consistent association of Convenience AI with the goals of productivity, efficiency, and ease, as often promoted also by companies targeting the research market for AI applications, can lower critical scrutiny of research processes and shift focus away from appreciating their broader epistemic and social implications.

5. Today I read a paper by @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social and Alexander Mussgnug that I think illustrates this point perfectly.

philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24891/1/Phil...

Thanks @bealebrains.bsky.social!

FYI I've published similar results previously :)
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

The Latency of a Domain-General Visual Surprise Signal is Attribute Dependent Predictions concerning upcoming visual input play a key role in resolving percepts. Sometimes input is surprising, under which circumstances the brain must calibrate erroneous predictions so that perc...

🚨Pre-print of some cool data from my PhD days!
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

☝️Did you know that visual surprise is (probably) a domain-general signal and/or operates at the object-level?
✌️Did you also know that the timing of this response depends on the specific attribute that violates an expectation?

I spoke yesterday with a lovely university student I know in Gaza who sent the message below.
His instagram page shows his beautiful English and charisma, and the dire situation he is in: www.instagram.com/jehadkmiri/
Please consider donating to his family here:
www.paypal.com/donate?hoste...

It’s frankly absurd that we’re at the point where this critique needed to be written

I think a lot of people studying neural expectation have been skeptical of literal interpretations of PC for a while now. Again, this is not same as saying the brain doesn’t integrate prior knowledge with sensory input when resolving precepts.

I’m excited to see where the field goes next :)

IMO (now that this canned of worms has been opened), I think the field would really benefit from moving away from evoked responses and towards pre-stimulus and/or state-based activity characterising how predictions themselves are signalled (rather their errors!)

The envelope has been pushed forward and now we can think about what these data mean within the broader literature. It’s exciting!

I really like this paper. I fear that people think the authors are claiming that the brain isn’t predictive though, which this study cannot (and does not) address. As the title says, the data purely show that evoked responses are not necessarily prediction errors, which makes sense!

New paper out in @plosbiology.org w/ Charlie, @phil-johnson.bsky.social, Ella, and Hinze 🎉

We track moving stimuli via EEG, find evidence that motion is extrapolated across distinct stages of processing + show how this effect may emerge from a simple synaptic learning rule!

tinyurl.com/2szh6w5c

my NIH grant was terminated today - the grant that pays my rent and my bills and my loans and my health insurance - because I study how to improve the lives and wellbeing of queer people #episky #medsky

Immigrants, trans people, palestinian rights activists, eventually it’s going to be your turn when the regime decides you are an enemy

Neural mechanisms of learned suppression uncovered by probing the hidden attentional priority map Learned suppression of distractor locations in visual search emerges through reactive mechanisms that involve initial spatial selection prior to suppression.

We used a brain "pinging" again and found that distractor suppression is reactive rather than proactive, meaning attention is first drawn to the distractor before being suppressed.

Climate science 👀

Excited to share my first paper: a novel visual illusion discovered by my co-authors Will Turner and Hinze Hogendoorn which we call the "Split-Stimulus Effect", in which a single flashed stimulus is perceived to be in two different locations simultaneously jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx... [1/5]

How to Support Trans Colleagues Create a Gender-Inclusive Environment Research institutional, governmental, local, and other bureaucratic procedures and policies that recognize and support gender transition. Support training and advocacy for colleagues’ personal/professional safety (ex. in fieldwork, lab work, conferences, institution visits, affinity groups). Establish and/or identify gender-neutral bathrooms throughout your building. Implement trans-inclusive recruitment and hiring procedures. Acknowledge intersectionality and the unique needs and barriers that someone with multiple marginalized identities may face. Consider the importance of representation in your field. Advocate for Name Changes Research institutional, governmental, local, and other bureaucratic procedures and policy to recognize and support an individual’s name change. Identify journals in your field that allow authors to change their names post- publication. Improve Information Accessibility Publicly share information on inclusive practices throughout your departments and institution. (Ensure the content centers and is created by trans people.) Consider Daily Language & Use Decrease use of gendered terms to avoid exclusionary language. Ask for personal pronouns. List on all public-facing directories, and consider including them in email signatures and on professional websites. Practice discretion. Don’t out your colleagues without their consent.

Collaborating with @rin-krichilsky.bsky.social and Kanako Shimizu, we put together what's basically a top-ten list of ways to help foster trans inclusivity and awareness within our scientific and academic communities and would love if you could help share the guide!

PhD student Jesse Gardner-Russell earns $20 an hour. Experts say low pay is turning Australia’s best and brightest away The University of Melbourne student whose work could contribute to curing blindness says ‘people are shocked to find out how unlivable it is’

“The PhD stipend is $33,511 … well below minimum wage of $47,627”

“Universities can raise the stipend to a maximum of $52,352, but a ACGR survey found none have done so. The highest stipend is just over $40,000 … with the average at $34,244.”

#RaiseTheStipend

Aperiodic and oscillatory systems underpinning human domain-general cognition Communications Biology - Using MEG/EEG, this study reports that aperiodic broadband power, rather than oscillations, reflects a core response to diverse cognitive demand that links to the...

✨New paper @commsbio.bsky.social !! Using MEG/EEG, we investigated domain-general cognitive systems in human brains implemented by aperiodic and oscillatory responses. Great collaboration with @alexwoolgar.bsky.social , John Duncan, and Nadene Dermody. rdcu.be/d34pt