Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah I think generalisation has always been a major issue in that field & afaik the reason why chess is often included is the availability of that data-- based on my non-deep reading of the paper they do acknowledge the latter point

Effect (Cohen’s d) on world- class
performance in:
Athletics Science Music Chess
Increased multidisciplinary
practice
*
0.51 0.58 0.39 –

0.41 – 0.56

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d

the good thing is that at least this isn't a nature journal so the editors will likely take the criticism seriously-- looking much forward to learn from the formal commentary & authors' reply :)

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d

what I've been most concerned about in the expert performance lit over the years is that ppl rarely consider the differences between fields of expertise seriously, plateaus & leaps manifest very differently even across sports let alone culture/science fields

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d

I remain open to learning how there's a retraction-size problem but compared to the things that come out in these venues (& field) regularly the issue-claim ratio seems somewhat modest here--

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d

Just read the last part of the paper & see lots of new discussion in this place too-- I think a lot of confusion derives from the use of so many different datasets, at least a non-stats person like me would need to go deeper to grasp the problem fully (which might be evident for experts)

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

Yes half-way through reading & I think they've been quite careful with it

One may question whether the evidence simply reflects statistical
artifacts—namely, restriction of range (limited variance among the high-
est performance levels) or regression to the mean (extreme scores will be
less extreme with repeated measurements, such as at early and peak
performance age). However, assuming the evidence rests on these statisti-
cal artifacts would be at odds with the negative association between early
and peak performance when comparing adult performers across the high-
est levels. Such an assumption would also be at odds with opposite predic-
tor effects on early performance and on later peak performance.

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

Ok need to read the full paper now 😅 but before reading intuition still says: you can understand a part of process even if not all of it-- sure we'll never know what happens to those who permanently drop but that doesn't nullify the interesting patterns within those who continue

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

The paper doesn't seem to make a population claim tho-- it's focused specifically on highest level end-performances..

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

(didn't read the new paper yet, it likely has many more!)

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

This is my anecdotal exp of the world too, been thinking about the reasons often-- a) it takes time to find the thing you both love & have the talent for so starting a bit behind is logical, b) talent ≠ long-term performance, those with talent alone shine bright before slowly falling behind

Brooke N. Macnamara @brookemacnamara.bsky.social · 5d

Compared with counterparts performing just below, world-class performance is associated w/ less discipline-specific practice, more early multidisciplinary practice, and more gradual early progress. E.g., those who were the top performers early on are underrepresented at the adult world-class level.

Brooke N. Macnamara @brookemacnamara.bsky.social · 5d

Compared with counterparts performing just below, world-class performance is associated w/ less discipline-specific practice, more early multidisciplinary practice, and more gradual early progress. E.g., those who were the top performers early on are underrepresented at the adult world-class level.

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 5d

The important question that isn't talked about enough is that no one wants to define "important question"-- except prestige (mostly for-profit) journals

Gordon Hodson @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social · 6d

#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky

Gordon Hodson @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social · 6d

#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky

“Ideally, criteria for publication should not be any different for significant and nonsignificant results,” Tackett said. “This is why models like Registered Reports are so critical. Papers should be evaluated based on whether they ask important, scientifically grounded questions and use robust and rigorous methods and analyses.”

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 8d

In addition to those, also that big generalist editors lack topic competence-- when editing literally all areas & methods under a general topic, one must rely mostly on reviewers instead of own expertise (= quality assessment requires federalism)

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 9d

You remember that Nature Aging paper about how multilingualism protects against accelerated aging? Well…

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 11d

One of the best experiences in academia is to be an editor for a difficult paper & against all odds find that 1 reviewer in the world who fully gets it, receiving brilliantly constructive review-- feels like having solved a puzzle, collective epiphany, knowing our mutual understanding makes progress

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 11d

One of my fav part in Latour's ANT is the attempt to make sense of the mess that 'social' generated for us!

A long quote from Latour's Reassembling the social (2005), sadly pdf doesn't allow copy pasting :(

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 13d

I don't see how journal issue would be much different from journal in general so imo ok with usual caveats (separate handling editor etc)-- there's ofc bad cases from special issues that editors have opened for their own papers, those should def have a limit of 1 own paper/issue

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 13d

"psychology, too, can in its own way proceed from the 'fire and water' level to a more advanced level of concepts" (Lewin 1951)

2026 starting soon: still on the fire and water level

It is however of greatest importance that psychology too can in its own way proceed from the fire and water level to a more advanced level of concepts For no part of psychology or its applications can progress beyond very definite limitations if it cannot reach the level where the psychological nature of an event is characterised by the conceptual construction which represents it CONCEPTUAL DIMENSIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTS

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d

Journal of Philosophical Logic (springer nature) editorial board resigned-- opened new diamond journal under the name Philosophical Logic

www.openlibhums.org/media/press/...

www.openlibhums.org

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 15d

Sara worked on that for a long time, she should know the field well (you can dm for more names, i know a few others)

portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/persons/s...

Sara Mosberg Iversen

portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 15d

Great article about fertility in South Korea. That motherhood penalty 😳

worksinprogress.co/issue/two-is...

Graph comparing motherhood penalties in Sweden, the United States and south korea

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 17d

Hands down the most genuine, reflexive, & sensible take on AI as far as my memory goes-- this is canon

Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 18d

was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.

Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...

Please, don't automate science!

I was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans a...

togelius.blogspot.com

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 18d

I think they mentioned author email was traced back to the journal so sounds like the journal was trying to boost its IF by creating a highly cited meta

Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 18d

was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.

Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...

Please, don't automate science!

I was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans a...

togelius.blogspot.com

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19d

asked the same question a year ago and ppl I trust recommended this, didn't read yet but next in line

mitpress.mit.edu/978026204880...

The Blind Spot

“This is by far the best book I've read this year.”—Michael Pollan, Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction, Harvard University; #1 New York Times bes...

mitpress.mit.edu

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19d

2) evaluating in-depth qual/mixed requires expertise & knowledge and there's a natural evolution of OS folks being more quant oriented, many places simply don't have the competence to understand what such papers are doing so i'm also sympathetic to their allergies

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19d

there's at least two major factors in it: 1) prestige publishing needs citable claims to maintain IF and public attention so not all epistemic efforts count

bsky.app/profile/mkar...

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · Oct 5

Major journals using statistics as a proxy for impact & quality these days nicely reflects academia's attention economy at the cost of being interested in explaining things

Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · Oct 5

My hottest academic take is that we shouldn’t be using statistics in the vast majority of papers.

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19d

It's a longer topic (& wrote them about it too) but can very much assure getting an in-depth qual/mixed paper published in a prestige journal almost never happens bc editors see them unable to make claims ("not enough N") and it's often framed as not meeting high OS

jyx.jyu.fi/jyx/Record/j...

Registered reports for qualitative research :: JYX

jyx.jyu.fi

Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19d

Yes but the point is that such rules are frequently weaponised against mixed/qual in particular as justification for their lack of credibility implicitly & explicitly--

remember when NHB initiated RRs? they made it clear from the start that mixed/qual wasn't welcome (and afaik still isn't) etc etc

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