Ivan Tomic

The final bit of work from my PhD just got published at JOV! We looked at similarity judgements made for naturalistic image patches, and whether these are predicted by simple image statistics… (spoiler: yep!)

Link to paper: doi.org/10.1167/jov....

1/11

ELLIS PhD Program: Call for Applications 2025 The ELLIS mission is to create a diverse European network that promotes research excellence and advances breakthroughs in AI, as well as a pan-European PhD program to educate the next generation of AI...

I'm looking for a doctoral student with Bayesian background to work on Bayesian workflow and cross-validation (see my publication list users.aalto.fi/~ave/publica... for my recent work) at Aalto University.

Apply through the ELLIS PhD program (dl October 31) ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...

What annotations / metadata do you wish was included with every #cogsci dataset (especially #workingmemory folks 👀)? My current list includes the experiment task, stimulus, level of data (trial-, subject-, or group-level), format, and whether analysis code is provided. Any more?

New preprint with Sebastian Schneegans and @bayslab.org
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Here, we ask whether the key limits of working memory - load and retention interval - are independent, or do they interact? Despite years of research, this question is still much debated.
#psychscisky #neuroskyence 1/6

@matthiasmichel.bsky.social and I are beavering away reading and responding to all the excellent commentaries on our BBS paper outlining an evolutionary account of visual consciousness.

In the meantime, if you missed our target article, it's available here:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Dynamics of variability and bias in working memory: https://osf.io/y2bjv

The manuscript also includes practical analytical tips for controlling swap errors, as well as a new non-parametric method for estimating biases.

Let us know what you think of this work! 6/6

We think these findings - on the interactive effect of load and retention on variability and the dissociation between variability and bias - have important implications for understanding working memory limits. 5/6

Very surprisingly, stimulus-specific biases remained stable, unaffected by either load or retention. This contradicts recent prominent attractor-based models, which predict that biases should grow as noise accumulates. 4/6

Using the same analytical tools across all datasets, we consistently found an interactive effect of load and retention on variability: the impact of delay was amplified at higher memory loads - in other words, people forget faster when storing more information in their working memory. 3/6

To address this, we examined the effects of load and retention on two components of recall error: unsystematic variability and systematic bias. Our dataset included 6 new experiments and reanalysis of 7 published ones, spanning orientation, colour, and location tasks conducted across 5 labs. 2/6

New preprint with Sebastian Schneegans and @bayslab.org
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Here, we ask whether the key limits of working memory - load and retention interval - are independent, or do they interact? Despite years of research, this question is still much debated.
#psychscisky #neuroskyence 1/6

A Mucha-style painting showing the Eiffel Tower at sunset with ECVP 50 2028 Paris written

As #ECVP2025 wraps up, I’m delighted that #ECVP2028 in Paris was accepted at the Business Meeting! ECVP will meet again before but the Parisian organizing committee is already planning an unforgettable 50th anniversary!

UK mothers earn £302 a week less than fathers, analysis shows ONS data shows they are working for free from 1 September, almost three months earlier than Equal Pay Day for all women

Equal Pay Day for women with children falls on 1 September this year. From this date, mothers are working for free for the rest of the year compared with fathers.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Expression of Interest in Serving as a PsyArXiv Moderator As you might have heard, PsyArXiv is having some issues with an increase in low-quality submissions, ranging from AI generated manuscripts to inflate citation metrics, incoherent or nonsensical docume...

PsyArXiv is seeking new moderators to help combat an increase in AI submissions! If you've ever posted a preprint to PsyArXiv, please consider joining. Minimum commitment 1h/month, there's a training session this Monday @ 1pm ET. More info here: forms.gle/9LB1rEtxHAeZ... #PsychSciSky

Due to a recent influx of problematic submissions, PsyArXiv has switched to pre-moderating its content. If your submitted preprint had not yet been approved, it will be temporarily inaccessible to the public (you can still view your preprint when logged into your OSF account). #PsychSciSky

Hi, we will have three NeuroAI postdoc openings (3 years each, fully funded) to work with Sebastian Musslick (@musslick.bsky.social), Pascal Nieters and myself on task-switching, replay, and visual information routing.

Reach out if you are interested in any of the above, I'll be at CCN next week!

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).

📢 Job announcement: Two (!) 3-year postdoc jobs in our lab at UCL 📢

🧠💫🔊 We are looking for postdocs interested in the abstract mechanisms underlying social cognition. Modelling, fMRI and non-invasive ultrasound, a new deep-brain stimulation method.

Please RT

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

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Position (80%) at the Cognitive Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich. The ideal start date would be January 1st, 2026 but could be somewhat earlier or later. The position is for initially 3 years, with possible renewal for another 1.5 years. The successful applicant will work with the head of the Cognitive Psychology Unit, Prof. Dr. Klaus Oberauer, and the Cognitive Psychology team. The post involves research and teaching (one course per semester). Research at the Zurich Cognitive Psychology Unit focuses on capacity limits of cognition, in particular working memory, long-term memory, and attention, which we investigate with experimental, individual-differences and aging studies and computational modeling. For further information see: https://www.psychology.uzh.ch/en/areas/nec/allgpsy.html We offer: - An attractive research environment with close collaboration within the team - Excellent lab infrastructure - Salary according to Cantonal regulations We expect: - a PhD in psychology or a related discipline - experience with experimental research - excellent method knowledge and skills - very good command of English - interest in pursuing an academic career in cognitive psychology In addition, it would be desirable if you had: - experience with publishing in international journals - programming skills - experience with mathematical / computational modeling Please send applications including your CV and motivation letter no later than September 10, 2025 electronically as a single PDF to: Michaela Oestmann, michaela.oestmann@psychologie.uzh.ch For questions about the position please contact Klaus Oberauer, k.oberauer@psychologie.uzh.ch

🚨 PostDoc Opening 🚨 The lab of Klaus Oberauer is looking for a new postdoc, starting end of this/beginning next year. Research focus is #cognition, #workingmemory, #methods and #computationalmodeling or anything in that direction. I cannot highlight ENOUGH how great it is to work in this lab 🥰🤓

Ah, great point - thanks! I hadn’t really thought of serial dependence or those contextual biases in this context. Will check those out and see how they map onto what we’re finding.

... delay-related changes in bias, I’m not convinced they actually increase (or decrease) - even though my initial intuition was that they should. We're finalizing that work now and can share it with you in the next couple of weeks - would be great to hear if you think we're missing something.

Thanks for sharing these. My understanding of Gi-Yeul's work is that these biases (also in colour) are most likely perceptual, and the analysis of the data in Fig. 3 supports that. To be fair, I had W-S’s law in mind when asking you about data, because after a non-trivial amount of looking for...

Now out in JEP:G! We (@fridaprintzlau.bsky.social & @keisukefukuda.bsky.social ) resolve inconsistent attentional protection in WM by addressing discrepancies in cueing. Upshot: Attention changes how perception biases memory, but *not* how memory biases perception!

doi.org/10.1037/xge0...

Divisive attenuation based on noisy sensorimotor predictions accounts for excess variability in self-touch | Journal of Neurophysiology | American Physiological Society When one part of the body exerts force on another part, the resulting tactile sensation is perceived as weaker than when the same force is applied by an external agent. This phenomenon has been studie...

New work on sensory prediction resolves some long-standing puzzles about attenuation of self-touch journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....

Really interesting! Just skimming the paper - it looks like they focus on changes in decision-consistent biases with delay, which is new to me. Is that also the case for estimation biases? If so, could you point me to work showing changes in estimation biases with delay (besides Panichello et al.)?

New published paper with Ham Huang and @actlab.bsky.social! @cognitionjournal.bsky.social
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

ONE MORE DAY til the #WorkingMemory event of the year! 👇

Postdoc position open in our #workingmemory lab! See here for more info: www.unige.ch/fapse/womcog...

The 2025 WomWoM research fairy award Welcome, fellow working memory researchers! It's time to decide who should be this year's research fairy. If you are not yet aware of the story about this award or would like a refresher, please che...

#workingmemory researchers! It's time to nominate all of our brilliant and wonderful female colleagues for the 2025 #WomWoM research fairy award! 🧚‍♀️🪄 Please share widely -- deadline 2nd August! bit.ly/2025womwomfa...

Excited to see our Centaur project out in @nature.com.
TL;DR: Centaur is a computational model that predicts and simulates human behavior for any experiment described in natural language.