Charan Ranganath

Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS): a flexible paradigm for event-related fMRI - Nature Methods Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS) is an acquisition scheme for event-related fMRI that generates data with high temporal signal-to-noise ratios interspaced with acquisition-free perio...

Excited to share my first first-author paper in Nature Methods!🤩

A quest to solve fMRI–EEG interference revealed a hidden strength in the usually discarded “dummy” scans. That spark became SASS-fMRI — boosting sensitivity and enabling silent, flexible experiments.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I loved the section saying: "he’s one of few — if not the only — American researchers who has specifically studied the effect of MDMA on memory" i.e., one of the few people who should actually weigh in on this matter.

This week's Short Wave news roundup Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of Short Wave talk about spider web architecture, storytelling and memory, and why more TV pixels may not translate to a better viewing experience.

This week a study of ours was (briefly) covered on NPR's All Things Considered during their bi-weekly science roundup. It's a short listen, covered third in this section (starting around 5m30s) featuring comments from
@charan-neuro.bsky.social .

www.npr.org/2025/10/30/n...

Career Award for Richard Robins Among Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2025 Honors Richard Robins is among the 2025 honorees of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the world’s largest association of social and personality psychologists.

Our very own Rick Robins received the prestigious @spspnews.bsky.social 2025 Block Award in recognition of the many accomplishments throughout his career. Several other members of our Social-Personality Area also received honors and awards from SPSP.

lettersandsciencemag.ucdavis.edu/news-notewor...

You learn better when you test yourself on an answer before you study it? Even more counterintuitive, our findings showcase that there is not one direct mechanism to this effect.
Thank you @charan-neuro.bsky.social , @xiaonanl.bsky.social , and @jameswardantony.bsky.social !
doi.org/10.1037/xlm0...

15 Pieces of Classical Music That Showed Up in 'Looney Tunes' Cartoons Warner Brothers relied on music to help pull off some of the funniest gags in cartoon history.

"Kill the wabbit, Kill the wabbit..."=Wagner
So many others: www.mentalfloss.com/article/6667...

Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🧵 1/

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

Moments Lab

Last month, I launched my lab at Ohio State. Our lab website is now live, and we're recruiting graduate students this cycle! If you're interested in the cognitive (neuro)science of learning & memory, please reach out!

www.momentslab.org

Word. "General" intelligence will involve inherent compromises. More data or layers is not the answer. Metacognition is what helps humans calibrate confidence.

Very cool new results from @alexbarnett.bsky.social !

UC Davis Center for Neuroscience postdoc spotlight: Dr. Qianqian Wan, studying human perception, learning and memory.

Happy National Postdoc Appreciation Week! We're thrilled to spotlight 💫Dr. Qianqian Wan💫, a postdoctoral scholar in @charan-neuro.bsky.social's Dynamic Memory Lab and Dr. Joy Geng's Attention Lab @ucdavis.bsky.social. Learn more: dml.ucdavis.edu #PostdocAppreciationWeek2025 #NPAW2025 #LabsToLives

We are looking for our next colleague. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions!

Apple Sued by Authors for Copyright Infringement On Friday, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of illegally using their books to train its AI.

😏 ...Next? www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

I really enjoyed talking to Meryl Horn about memory, & the Science Vs. team put it together w/interviews from Jan Born & Loren Frank and made an episode that's clear, true to the science, and fun!

Well done Brian and well deserved. Congratulations!!!!

LibGen sucks but I really hate that companies are making tons of money off training AI systems with stolen work. If a single mom steals a textbook for their kid, they can be arrested, but if a company does it, they are rewarded. And they'll send the lawyers to destroy anyone who steals *their* IP.

AWESOME congratulations Brian!!!!

So my book, "Why We Remember" (English and Italian versions) plus a ton of my papers are in this database. Sad but unsurprising given that ChatGPT can tell me all sorts of things about my book. Sharing this for anyone else who might be affected.

It's conceivable that someone who starts w/ genAI might eventually make art themselves, but I think it's more likely that they will settle for what is easy than what is worthwhile. We're already seeing that in a lot of student writing. That said, AI can be used by artists in interesting ways.

Entering a prompt in generative AI and receiving a picture or song or poem in less than a minute might give the feeling of creation, but it'll disappear quickly like junk food. And it leads people to devalue real art made by people who put in the time to learn, experiment, and express themselves.

I've given this more thought. Anyone can make art, it just takes patience. Even if it's not "good" they can express themselves and it is a real accomplishment. With practice, they get better at expressing themselves.

There's nothing wrong with using technological tools to make art, but something deeply wrong about companies stealing art to train AI models & with people who think that a prompt-generated mediocre picture counts as art. Anyone can make art, but it takes work to make something good.

Well done Hugo! Awesome that you are documenting their knowledge while people are still practicing it!

New study examining predictive eye movements during naturalistic events. These effects can occur without awareness and show sleep-mediated consolidation effects. Cool stuff! (I only made a small contribution to the study but it was fun to be involved)

Participants in the “Kill the Cuts” rally march against the Trump administration’s proposed research funding cuts in Los Angeles on April 8, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters. Hed: Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore hundreds of UCLA research grants

Breaking: A federal judge ordered the Trump admin. to restore a portion of the 800 federal science research grants that it suspended at UCLA, delivering a major setback to efforts to force the university into a $1 billion settlement buff.ly/cJKbdTY

📝 @mzinshteyn.bsky.social
📸 Jules Hotz

Cartoon image of me looking at a map, with a stadium behind me and a hotel and ferris wheel across the river in the background. I am thinking about going to the ferris wheel

My first PhD paper - with @lhuntneuro.bsky.social and @summerfieldlab.bsky.social - is now out in @plosbiology.org! We ask: how do humans (and deep neural networks) navigate flexibly even in unfamiliar environments, such as a new city? Link: plos.io/45uSwNm 🧵 (1/6)

"Large language models surpass human experts in predicting neuroscience results" w @ken-lxl.bsky.social
and braingpt.org. LLMs integrate a noisy yet interrelated scientific literature to forecast outcomes. nature.com/articles/s41... 1/8

Stomach–brain coupling indexes a dimensional signature of mental health - Nature Mental Health Using a relatively large and diverse sample of mostly young adults, this study by Banellis, Rebollo and colleagues examines associations between regional stomach–brain coupling and mental health and i...

I’m elated to share our latest publication - out now in @natmentalhealth.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s44... - tour de force by @leahbanellis.bsky.social @brainandstomach.bsky.social and the rest of the VMP team!

New paper led by @codydong.bsky.social now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, exploring the relationship between memory-augmented LLMs and human episodic memory – see Cody’s post below for a short thread and a non-paywalled paper link! #NeuroAI doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...