Peter Kok
@peterkok.bsky.social
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the FIL, UCL, using human neuroimaging to study how our prior knowledge influences the way we perceive the world. https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/team/visual-perception-team/
Pinned
Peter Kok
@peterkok.bsky.social
· Oct 21
Contents of visual predictions oscillate at alpha frequencies
Predictions of future events have a major impact on how we process sensory signals. However, it remains unclear how the brain keeps predictions online in anticipation of future inputs. Here, we combin...
www.jneurosci.org
@dotproduct.bsky.social's first first author paper is finally out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! Her findings show that content-specific predictions fluctuate with alpha frequencies, suggesting a more specific role for alpha oscillations than we may have thought. With @jhaarsma.bsky.social. 🧠🟦 🧠🤖
Reposted by Peter Kok
#JNeurosci: Using fMRI, Han and Epstein explored how people integrate different kinds of views to form mental maps of places, revealing two sets of brain regions involved in integrating views of landmarks into existing mental maps of a virtual city.
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0187-25.2025
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0187-25.2025
January 5, 2026 at 7:58 PM
#JNeurosci: Using fMRI, Han and Epstein explored how people integrate different kinds of views to form mental maps of places, revealing two sets of brain regions involved in integrating views of landmarks into existing mental maps of a virtual city.
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0187-25.2025
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0187-25.2025
Reposted by Peter Kok
⚽️ Pitch update ⚽️
The Old Spotted Dog Ground pitch is surprisingly dry today - despite the storms over the last few days.
Unless the weather forecast is drastically wrong, Saturday's Men's First Team game against Brimsdown is very likely to be ON. 😍
The Old Spotted Dog Ground pitch is surprisingly dry today - despite the storms over the last few days.
Unless the weather forecast is drastically wrong, Saturday's Men's First Team game against Brimsdown is very likely to be ON. 😍
January 9, 2026 at 2:24 PM
⚽️ Pitch update ⚽️
The Old Spotted Dog Ground pitch is surprisingly dry today - despite the storms over the last few days.
Unless the weather forecast is drastically wrong, Saturday's Men's First Team game against Brimsdown is very likely to be ON. 😍
The Old Spotted Dog Ground pitch is surprisingly dry today - despite the storms over the last few days.
Unless the weather forecast is drastically wrong, Saturday's Men's First Team game against Brimsdown is very likely to be ON. 😍
Reposted by Peter Kok
Greenlanders:
The pitch is: We’ll pay you some money, but if you join the United States, you’ll no longer have free healthcare.
Parents will not have access to affordable childcare.
Your children will no longer have free education.
You will no longer be independent.
Self respect? Priceless.
The pitch is: We’ll pay you some money, but if you join the United States, you’ll no longer have free healthcare.
Parents will not have access to affordable childcare.
Your children will no longer have free education.
You will no longer be independent.
Self respect? Priceless.
Exclusive: US officials discussed sending lump sum payments to Greenlanders as part of a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and potentially join the United States, according to four sources familiar with the matter reut.rs/4ptL77G
January 9, 2026 at 2:19 PM
Greenlanders:
The pitch is: We’ll pay you some money, but if you join the United States, you’ll no longer have free healthcare.
Parents will not have access to affordable childcare.
Your children will no longer have free education.
You will no longer be independent.
Self respect? Priceless.
The pitch is: We’ll pay you some money, but if you join the United States, you’ll no longer have free healthcare.
Parents will not have access to affordable childcare.
Your children will no longer have free education.
You will no longer be independent.
Self respect? Priceless.
Reposted by Peter Kok
The UK-based Guardian is doing the job of honestly covering U.S. politics that American legacy media have largely failed to do. The content is free, but they need your donations to keep up the vital work. I've given them my $$. @theguardian.com
Trump administration unleashes torrent of untruths after woman shot dead by ICE
Victim-blaming began almost as soon as Renee Nicole Good was killed – we examine the claims and the reality
www.theguardian.com
January 9, 2026 at 1:19 PM
The UK-based Guardian is doing the job of honestly covering U.S. politics that American legacy media have largely failed to do. The content is free, but they need your donations to keep up the vital work. I've given them my $$. @theguardian.com
Reposted by Peter Kok
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
January 9, 2026 at 1:27 AM
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
Reposted by Peter Kok
AOC: This has now become what we feared most about ICE for a long time—that it would be used as an anti-civilian force with no accountability. At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.
January 8, 2026 at 12:05 AM
AOC: This has now become what we feared most about ICE for a long time—that it would be used as an anti-civilian force with no accountability. At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.
Reposted by Peter Kok
You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today.
This could be you.
This could be you.
January 8, 2026 at 12:15 AM
You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today.
This could be you.
This could be you.
Reposted by Peter Kok
Job alert 🚨 Fully funded PhD position available in our Maastricht lab! Are you interested in the relationship between memory and prediction, and have a track record of neuroimaging/decoding? Please apply! #NeuroJobs
www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3576...
www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3576...
PhD Candidate: Cognitive Computational Neuroscience of Memory and Prediction
Welcome to Maastricht University! Are you fascinated by how the brain remembers and predicts information, and how it can tell apart representations of past and future? At Maastricht University, you wi...
www.academictransfer.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:22 AM
Job alert 🚨 Fully funded PhD position available in our Maastricht lab! Are you interested in the relationship between memory and prediction, and have a track record of neuroimaging/decoding? Please apply! #NeuroJobs
www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3576...
www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3576...
Reposted by Peter Kok
We recently published a theoretical review about how compositional and generative mechanisms in working memory provide a flexible engine for creative perception and imagery.
Pre-print:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Pre-print:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
January 6, 2026 at 7:04 PM
We recently published a theoretical review about how compositional and generative mechanisms in working memory provide a flexible engine for creative perception and imagery.
Pre-print:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Pre-print:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Peter Kok
🚨 New preprint!
Why do some insights from spikes translate to field potentials while others don't? In this paper we compare visual memory representations in spikes and LFPs to propose a general framework that answers this question.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 (1/10)
🧠🟦 🧠💻
Why do some insights from spikes translate to field potentials while others don't? In this paper we compare visual memory representations in spikes and LFPs to propose a general framework that answers this question.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 (1/10)
🧠🟦 🧠💻
Neural representations of visual memory in inferotemporal cortex reveal a generalizable framework for translating between spikes and field potentials
Translating neurophysiological findings requires understanding the relationship between common measures of brain activity in animals (spiking activity) and humans (local field potentials, LFP). Prior ...
www.biorxiv.org
January 5, 2026 at 3:21 PM
🚨 New preprint!
Why do some insights from spikes translate to field potentials while others don't? In this paper we compare visual memory representations in spikes and LFPs to propose a general framework that answers this question.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 (1/10)
🧠🟦 🧠💻
Why do some insights from spikes translate to field potentials while others don't? In this paper we compare visual memory representations in spikes and LFPs to propose a general framework that answers this question.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 (1/10)
🧠🟦 🧠💻
Reposted by Peter Kok
If the DEA had killed 80 innocent Americans in the course of apprehending one drug dealer, there would be riots. But we are so ghoulishly indifferent to the lives and humanity of people abroad that it's barely even part of the conversation.
A reminder that the US killed 80 people in Venezuela, and it would be nice if the US media cared enough to think that the life of a grandmother in Caracas whose building is destroyed by a US bomb matters as much as the life of a person in the US.
January 5, 2026 at 8:57 PM
If the DEA had killed 80 innocent Americans in the course of apprehending one drug dealer, there would be riots. But we are so ghoulishly indifferent to the lives and humanity of people abroad that it's barely even part of the conversation.
Reposted by Peter Kok
As an aside, this is my second experience with the reviewed preprint route at @elife.bsky.social and it is great! We will likely revise our paper thanks to thoughtful feedback from reviewers, but I am very happy that it is accessible in the meantime. I strongly recommend this model!
January 5, 2026 at 9:39 PM
As an aside, this is my second experience with the reviewed preprint route at @elife.bsky.social and it is great! We will likely revise our paper thanks to thoughtful feedback from reviewers, but I am very happy that it is accessible in the meantime. I strongly recommend this model!
Reposted by Peter Kok
Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social
Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology
Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception
as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence
(AI) would naturally ...
cell.com
January 5, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social
Reposted by Peter Kok
New preprint. We show that in addition to reward prediction errors (RPEs), dorsal striatal dopamine signals encode sensory prediction errors (SPEs), the difference between sensory prior & observed stimulus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Dorsal striatal dopamine integrates sensory and reward prediction errors to guide perceptual decisions
Perceptual decisions are shaped by expectations about sensory stimuli and rewards, learned through sensory and reward prediction errors. Dopamine is known to convey reward prediction errors that shape...
www.biorxiv.org
January 5, 2026 at 10:49 AM
New preprint. We show that in addition to reward prediction errors (RPEs), dorsal striatal dopamine signals encode sensory prediction errors (SPEs), the difference between sensory prior & observed stimulus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Peter Kok
I get the impression that @bmj.com, like many journals, assign far greater weight to possible risks of retraction than they do to the risks of NOT retracting a flawed paper, and leaving it to influence others. Not a good balance when patient care is involved.
How long should it take to retract a paper with incontrovertible signs of data fabrication? Sleuths think 2 months is too long, particularly when clinical risks are involved. deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/01/an-o...
#retraction #stemcells #cardiology
@erictopol.bsky.social
#retraction #stemcells #cardiology
@erictopol.bsky.social
An Open Letter to the BMJ Editorial Board
to: Editor in chief, Kamran Abbasi , kabbasi@bmj.com Executive editor, Theodora Bloom , tbloom@bmj.com Head of research, Elizab...
deevybee.blogspot.com
January 5, 2026 at 3:21 PM
I get the impression that @bmj.com, like many journals, assign far greater weight to possible risks of retraction than they do to the risks of NOT retracting a flawed paper, and leaving it to influence others. Not a good balance when patient care is involved.
Reposted by Peter Kok
Happy back to work day for many of us =) Except of course the poor souls with deadlines in early January (hi there fellow ERC CoG writers). Anyhow, just reposting this in case you missed it in the holiday bliss.
@shansmann-roth.bsky.social and I finally finished our paper confirming a unique prediction of the Demixing Model (DM): inter-item biases in #visualworkingmemory depend on the _relative_ noise of targets and non-targets, potentially going in opposing directions. 🧵1/9
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Noise in Competing Representations Determines the Direction of Memory Biases
Our memories are reconstructions, prone to errors. Historically treated as a mere nuisance, memory errors have recently gained attention when found to be systematically shifted away from or towards no...
www.biorxiv.org
January 5, 2026 at 2:56 PM
Happy back to work day for many of us =) Except of course the poor souls with deadlines in early January (hi there fellow ERC CoG writers). Anyhow, just reposting this in case you missed it in the holiday bliss.
Reposted by Peter Kok
Are we ready to tackle perceptual segmentation of natural scenes?
Finally the review on perceptual segmentation you’ve been waiting for!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Finally the review on perceptual segmentation you’ve been waiting for!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
January 5, 2026 at 12:10 PM
Are we ready to tackle perceptual segmentation of natural scenes?
Finally the review on perceptual segmentation you’ve been waiting for!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Finally the review on perceptual segmentation you’ve been waiting for!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Peter Kok
As the inner endless loop of "jingle bells" and "last Christmas" is gradually departing, 🚨 reminder about this funding opportunity for postdocs to transition to a PI role by Research Ireland👇
🚨 Research Ireland 🇮🇪 has an exciting 4-year funding opportunity to help postdocs develop their own research profile and transition to a PI role: www.researchireland.ie/funding/path...
Let me know if you have any questions or if you are interested in applying via UCD.
Let me know if you have any questions or if you are interested in applying via UCD.
January 5, 2026 at 10:37 AM
As the inner endless loop of "jingle bells" and "last Christmas" is gradually departing, 🚨 reminder about this funding opportunity for postdocs to transition to a PI role by Research Ireland👇
Reposted by Peter Kok
went back and grabbed the full video of her intro. absolutely incredible
🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌
🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌
January 2, 2026 at 2:16 PM
went back and grabbed the full video of her intro. absolutely incredible
🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌
🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌🇮🇹🍝👩🍳🤌
Reposted by Peter Kok
Happy New Year from Imaging Neuroscience - here is the 2025 montage, from 440 papers.
Full size montage PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/19gjQ...
Full size montage PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/19gjQ...
January 1, 2026 at 1:27 PM
Happy New Year from Imaging Neuroscience - here is the 2025 montage, from 440 papers.
Full size montage PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/19gjQ...
Full size montage PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/19gjQ...
Reposted by Peter Kok
2024 was the first full calendar year for Imaging Neuroscience @mitpress - 350 papers published.
We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.
Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...
We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.
Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...
December 29, 2024 at 9:20 AM
2024 was the first full calendar year for Imaging Neuroscience @mitpress - 350 papers published.
We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.
Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...
We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.
Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...
Reposted by Peter Kok
It appears the whole Putin “Ukraine tried to kill me with 91 drones last night” was entirely made up. And of course Trump repeated it and said he was mad at Ukraine.
Nightly Russia launched drones and missiles at innocent people.
And tried to Kill Zelensky every day
Spare me the gaslight
Nightly Russia launched drones and missiles at innocent people.
And tried to Kill Zelensky every day
Spare me the gaslight
December 29, 2025 at 8:41 PM
It appears the whole Putin “Ukraine tried to kill me with 91 drones last night” was entirely made up. And of course Trump repeated it and said he was mad at Ukraine.
Nightly Russia launched drones and missiles at innocent people.
And tried to Kill Zelensky every day
Spare me the gaslight
Nightly Russia launched drones and missiles at innocent people.
And tried to Kill Zelensky every day
Spare me the gaslight
Reposted by Peter Kok
The first publication of my PhD is finally here!
Super proud to share this with my supervisor @theresecollins.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1167/jov....
Super proud to share this with my supervisor @theresecollins.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1167/jov....
Attractive and repulsive history effects in categorical and continuous estimates of orientation perception | JOV | ARVO Journals
doi.org
December 29, 2025 at 3:22 PM
The first publication of my PhD is finally here!
Super proud to share this with my supervisor @theresecollins.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1167/jov....
Super proud to share this with my supervisor @theresecollins.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1167/jov....
Reposted by Peter Kok
Letter to the FT that stingingly sums up Brexit and the shit creek we now find ourselves in.
A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.
A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.
December 24, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Letter to the FT that stingingly sums up Brexit and the shit creek we now find ourselves in.
A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.
A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.