Spatial attention and working memory are popularly thought to be tightly coupled. Yet, distinct neural activity tracks attentional breadth and WM load.

In a new paper @jocn.bsky.social, we show that pupil size independently tracks breadth and load.

doi.org/10.1162/JOCN...

We found attentional suppression might be related to re-coding salient singleton locations in a inverted format to target locations
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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.

How does the visual system track moving objects while remembering the color of those objects? My latest research article (co-first with Piotr @styrkowiec.bsky.social) exploring this question using EEG is out in JoCN! @jocn.bsky.social #workingmemory #cognition #cogneuro #cogsci #neuro

New pre-print day! Distributed and drifting signals for working memory load in human cortex 🧠 (with Ed Awh & @serences.bsky.social)

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

Very excited to announce my first paper is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! Using EEG, we identify an item-based measure of storage in working memory that generalizes across auditory and visual items.

authors.elsevier.com/a/1ljFF3QW8S...

#PsychSciSky #neuroskyence #workingmemory

Splitting 5-4 (with Chief Justice Roberts joining the three Democratic appointees in dissent), #SCOTUS grants *partial* stay to Trump administration in NIH funding case; holds that challenges to grant terminations (but *not* the underlying guidance) need to be filed in the Court of Federal Claims:

Domain general frontoparietal regions show modality-dependent coding of auditory and visual rules

direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

Not looking forward to this getting quoted - may be one of the dumbest words committed to judicial opinion. Don't assume that "experts" are correct, but assume that judges are better at science than scientists?

UChicago has ~$108 million in NIH grants. According to most recent F&A rate info I found (2019-20), UChicago has an F&A rate of 62% for on-campus grants, so around $67million in F&A support. If the rate is cut to 15%, that’ll be a loss of $50 million in support. That’s thousands of jobs lost

One doctor’s recommendation to deny a 43-year-woman coverage “contained errors on practically every aspect” of her condition, the Labor Department said in 2012.

United and other insurers continued to hire the doctor over the next decade.
propub.li/3BQjJ1e

variable names *are* code comments

Terrific! Paywalls are disappearing! No more 12 month embargo between when NIH funded work appears in a journal and when it becomes accessible to all (as of December 2025).

www.nih.gov/about-nih/wh...

A modern staging of Agamemnon where the chorus is referred to as “chat.”