Redmond O'Connell

Big Doughnutty News.
Just out in Nature: the all-new 2025 Doughnut. Transformed from a single-year snapshot to an annual global monitor of 21st century social & ecological thriving. Available to all in an open-access paper by @andrewlfanning.bsky.social and me. 🧵 1/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out our reviewed preprint, now out in eLife!
With @spk3lly.bsky.social, @redmondoconnell.bsky.social and Anna Geuzebroek

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

While we work on improving the [solid] paper based on the reviews, here are the key take-home messages:

Introducing hMFC: A Bayesian hierarchical model of trial-to-trial fluctuations in decision criterion! Now out in @plos.org Comp Bio.
led by Robin Vloeberghs with @anne-urai.bsky.social Scott Linderman

Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u... Thread ↓↓↓

#PsychSciSky #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence

Common neural choice signals reflect accumulated evidence, not confidence! Now out in @cerebralcortex.bsky.social w @helenevanmarcke.bsky.social @pierreledenmat.bsky.social @yfvisser.bsky.social @denizerdil.bsky.social a.o.

Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u... Thread ↓↓↓

On Wednesday at 16:30, I will be presenting at a symposium organised by @redmondoconnell.bsky.social SY24: Integrating Distinct Viewpoints On The Neural Origins Of Metacognition.

I will show a series of experiments on higher-order monitoring for distinguishing imagination and perception.

Thanks Charlotte 🤣

Trinity College unveils 'gamechanger' brain scanner. Watch the full interview with Professor Redmond O'Connell with RTE here:

www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

@redmondoconnell.bsky.social

Check out our new multisensory decision study!
We tackle a decades-old Q: does faster detection of bimodal targets come from a race or co-activation between modalities? And also a vital, orthogonal Q: is it one decision process or two?
A1: co-activation
A2: two!
Read here: rdcu.be/eASYd

Delighted to share this paper, now published in @arvoinfo.bsky.social. With @spk3lly.bsky.social‬ and Anna Geuzebroek we explored differences in visual cortical responses for pattern pulses and pattern reversals. Here's the link:
jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx...

Ireland launches global talent fund! www.researchireland.ie/funding/glob...
If you're a neuroscience professor (assistant/associate/full) and would consider relocating to the vibrant and booming city of Dublin, please get in touch!

1/3 Check out our new commentary bsky.app/profile/imag....

Laminar MEG is possible across all cortical depths. Our comprehensive simulations outline SNR, head movement, and micro/macro anatomical limitations to source reconstruction precision. Not perfect by any chance, lots of confirmatory work ahead, but it's promising.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neurally-informed modelling unravels a single evidence accumulation process for choices and subsequent confidence reports Subjective confidence in perceptual choices depends on computations occurring prior to and after choice commitment. However, the nature of these computations remains unclear. Current models disagree o...

Our newest preprint is out (doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.05.658071), with @lucvermeylen.bsky.social,Dasha Monakhovych, Cameron McCabe, Sarah-Louise Mannion, @kobedesender.bsky.social, @redmondoconnell.bsky.social, comparing post-decision confidence models against behaviour and neural decision signals...

#RLDM2025 officially starts tomorrow! 🚀 Have you checked out our program? See details below, full program is available at rldm.org 👀

New to RLDM? Join our first-timers gathering tonight, 6-7pm, at Kennedy's Pub (30-32 Westland Row) 😊

📢 #RLDM2025 is nearly here – 11–14 June at Trinity College Dublin ☘️

Join researchers from AI, neuroscience, psychology & beyond to explore the latest in reinforcement learning & decision making.

🎟️ Register now to secure your spot: rldm.org #ReinforcementLearning #AI #Neuroscience #CognitiveScience

Dissociable encoding of evolving beliefs and momentary belief updates in distinct neural decision signals - Nature Communications People are capable of making near-optimal decisions in volatile, changing environments. Here, the authors show how two neural decision signals encode distinct aspects of the belief updating process un...

Very happy to share this paper, now published in
@natcomms.nature.com! nature.com/articles/s41...
With @spk3lly.bsky.social and @neuromurphy.bsky.social, we investigated the neural computations that allow us to make near-optimal decisions in changing environments. Here's a short summary:

Deep reinforcement learning can promote sustainable human behaviour in a common-pool resource problem - Nature Communications Koster et al introduce a deep reinforcement learning (RL) mechanism designed to manage common-pool resources successfully encourages sustainable cooperation among human participants by dynamically adj...

getting this paper published was a bit painful but I am proud of it: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... We use deep RL to find mechanisms that help (real) people sustain the commons. Well done to Raphael Koster and Miruna Pislar (not on BlueSky). non-paywalled version on arxiv.

Check out this great thread by @jduffy9.bsky.social highlighting our new review paper in which we examine emerging methods for disentangling sources of behavioural variability on perceptual and cognitive tasks bsky.app/profile/jduf...

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...

Exciting news - early bird registration is now open for #RLDM2025!

🔗 Register now: forms.gle/QZS1GkZhYGRF...

Register now to save €100 on your ticket. Early bird prices are only available until 1st April.

Thanks to all who came to support and watched online!

A recording is available here: www.youtube.com/live/6LSfkQk...

A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition - Nature Communications Measuring metacognitive ability is one of the enduring challenges in cognitive science. The current paper develops formal tests of the quality of different measures and assesses how current metrics pe...

My article "A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition" is finally out in Nature Communications 🎉 If you work on metacognition and think you know the psychometric properties of your favorite measure, you may be surprised.

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

Come join us in Dublin June 11-14th for the Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social! Great speaker list rldm.org/invited-spea..., workshops and tutorials soon to be announced. Abstract submission deadline 15th January. Don't miss out!

Devastating news that Eleanor Maguire has passed away. She was my mentor for many years. She was a wonderfully thoughtful and kind person and a brilliant scientist. Her research inspired so many of us and her legacy of incredible discoveries will continue to inspire far into the future.
RIP Eleanor

There's a movement in neuroscience suggesting we should be pursuing bigger bets with larger teams. I think there's a case for doing a bit of this, but I think it's a bad idea to prioritise it for two reasons, and a good case for saying we should be moving in the exact opposite direction. 🧠🧪

No gene is an island Source Many people, scientists and non-scientists alike, object to what they perceive as genetic determinism . This is often a ...

Time to re-up this old blog of mine: No gene is an island www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/07/no-g... (or: complex traits and disorders are genuinely freaking COMPLEX!)

I wrote an article about my dad's death, and how it affected my views on assisted dying, published in the Times

Free version here

Fresh out: a short review article where I give an overview of different ways that across-trial temporal structure is helpful in understanding cognitive models of decision-making

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Nice review of the history of the peer review system

It’s increasingly clear to me this has to change - experts should be paid by journals to do this key task that adds rigour & value to scientific publications

Journals have exploited academics & universities to make massive profits for too long

Hey 👋 the deadline for submitting workshop proposals to #RLDM is fast approaching! We would especially love creative structures for workshops, like hackathons, debates or other traditional formats. Follow @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social for more updates!