Corey Ziemba
@cmziemba.bsky.social
I work in the Visual Decision Making Section of the Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research at NEI/NIH. I study visual neurophysiology, perception, and decision-making. "Opinions are my own."
Pinned
Corey Ziemba
@cmziemba.bsky.social
· May 29
Preprint alert 🚨! Excited to share our new work on metacognition in value-based decision-making. www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/.... We ask whether it is possible to derive a computational measure of metacognitive ability for economic preference choices.
Computational characterization of metacognitive ability in subjective decision-making
Metacognition is the process of reflecting on and controlling one's own thoughts and behaviors. Metacognitive ability is often measured through modeling the relationship between confidence reports and...
www.biorxiv.org
This project began after my move to NIH and has been an eye-opening synthesis of my and Silvia's previous work. Couldn't be prouder of the incredible work of my first trainee and first author Corey Plate, who has just left NIH to begin his MD/PhD!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
How does our brain excel at complex object recognition, yet get fooled by simple illusory contours? What unifying principle governs all Gestalt laws of perceptual organization?
We may have an answer: integration of learned priors through feedback. New paper with @kenmiller.bsky.social! 🧵
We may have an answer: integration of learned priors through feedback. New paper with @kenmiller.bsky.social! 🧵
October 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
How does our brain excel at complex object recognition, yet get fooled by simple illusory contours? What unifying principle governs all Gestalt laws of perceptual organization?
We may have an answer: integration of learned priors through feedback. New paper with @kenmiller.bsky.social! 🧵
We may have an answer: integration of learned priors through feedback. New paper with @kenmiller.bsky.social! 🧵
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
New ms on trinary choices! Somewhat surprisingly, our monkeys’ choices satisfied IIA (independence of irrelevant alternatives). In OFC, decision variables were represented in the same way under trinary and under binary choices. This property implies IIA.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Neuronal Activity in Orbitofrontal Cortex during Trinary Choices under Risk
Economic choice entails computing and comparing the subjective values of different goods. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to contribute to both operations. However, previous work focused almost ...
www.biorxiv.org
September 21, 2025 at 10:36 PM
New ms on trinary choices! Somewhat surprisingly, our monkeys’ choices satisfied IIA (independence of irrelevant alternatives). In OFC, decision variables were represented in the same way under trinary and under binary choices. This property implies IIA.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature
Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...
www.nature.com
September 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
How does the brain decide? 🧠
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.
After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.
rdcu.be/eGUrv
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
In many brain areas, neuronal tuning is heterogeneous. But how does this diversity help behavior? We show how tuning diversity shapes representational geometry and boosts coding efficiency for perception in our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(w/ @sueyeonchung.bsky.social&Tony Movshon)
(w/ @sueyeonchung.bsky.social&Tony Movshon)
Variations in neuronal selectivity create efficient representational geometries for perception
Our visual capabilities depend on neural response properties in visual areas of our brains. Neurons exhibit a wide variety of selective response properties, but the reasons for this diversity are unkn...
www.biorxiv.org
June 29, 2025 at 12:19 AM
In many brain areas, neuronal tuning is heterogeneous. But how does this diversity help behavior? We show how tuning diversity shapes representational geometry and boosts coding efficiency for perception in our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(w/ @sueyeonchung.bsky.social&Tony Movshon)
(w/ @sueyeonchung.bsky.social&Tony Movshon)
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
1/ New paper by Hame Park, (@AraziAyelet), Bharath Talluri, Marco Celotto, Stefano Panzeri, Alan Stocker & Tobias Donner published in Nature Communications – “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex”: rdcu.be/etlR7. Here is a summary:
Confirmation bias through selective readout of information encoded in human parietal cortex
Nature Communications - People often discard incoming information when it contradicts their pre-existing beliefs about the world. Here, the authors show that this discarded information is precisely...
rdcu.be
June 27, 2025 at 1:35 PM
1/ New paper by Hame Park, (@AraziAyelet), Bharath Talluri, Marco Celotto, Stefano Panzeri, Alan Stocker & Tobias Donner published in Nature Communications – “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex”: rdcu.be/etlR7. Here is a summary:
This project began after my move to NIH and has been an eye-opening synthesis of my and Silvia's previous work. Couldn't be prouder of the incredible work of my first trainee and first author Corey Plate, who has just left NIH to begin his MD/PhD!
Preprint alert 🚨! Excited to share our new work on metacognition in value-based decision-making. www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/.... We ask whether it is possible to derive a computational measure of metacognitive ability for economic preference choices.
Computational characterization of metacognitive ability in subjective decision-making
Metacognition is the process of reflecting on and controlling one's own thoughts and behaviors. Metacognitive ability is often measured through modeling the relationship between confidence reports and...
www.biorxiv.org
May 29, 2025 at 3:10 AM
This project began after my move to NIH and has been an eye-opening synthesis of my and Silvia's previous work. Couldn't be prouder of the incredible work of my first trainee and first author Corey Plate, who has just left NIH to begin his MD/PhD!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
Happy to share our new paper exploring how the brain might represent decision confidence.
A population representation of the confidence in a decision in the parietal cortex: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...
A population representation of the confidence in a decision in the parietal cortex: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...
A population representation of the confidence in a decision in the parietal cortex
At the end of a decision based on evidence accumulation, the neural representation
of the accumulation is invariant across decisions. Zylberberg and Shadlen show, nonetheless,
that accuracy can be dec...
www.cell.com
April 19, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Happy to share our new paper exploring how the brain might represent decision confidence.
A population representation of the confidence in a decision in the parietal cortex: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...
A population representation of the confidence in a decision in the parietal cortex: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
At #cosyne2025? Come to my poster tonight!
March 27, 2025 at 3:42 PM
At #cosyne2025? Come to my poster tonight!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
A bit delayed, but I'm happy to announce my first paper as a postdoc in the Jazayeri lab! We discuss recent insights into the neurobiology of timing and why timing is a useful platform to understand flexible control of behavior more generally. We hope the review is useful!
tinyurl.com/5n8yhxet
tinyurl.com/5n8yhxet
Control Principles of Neural Dynamics Revealed by the Neurobiology of Timing | Annual Reviews
Cognition unfolds dynamically over flexible timescales. A major goal of the field is to understand the computational and neurobiological principles that enable this flexibility. Here, we argue that th...
www.annualreviews.org
March 24, 2025 at 10:29 PM
A bit delayed, but I'm happy to announce my first paper as a postdoc in the Jazayeri lab! We discuss recent insights into the neurobiology of timing and why timing is a useful platform to understand flexible control of behavior more generally. We hope the review is useful!
tinyurl.com/5n8yhxet
tinyurl.com/5n8yhxet
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
1/7 Our paper on individual variability in decision-making is finally out in @nature.com! Inspired by the classic work by Mante and Sussillo, we trained many rats to solve context-dependent decision-making, and we found that different brains use different neural mechanisms to solve the same task!
Individual variability of neural computations underlying flexible decisions - Nature
Behavioural experiments to study decision-making in response to context-dependent accumulation of evidence provide testable models that are consistent with the heterogeneity in neural signatures among...
www.nature.com
March 21, 2025 at 1:29 PM
1/7 Our paper on individual variability in decision-making is finally out in @nature.com! Inspired by the classic work by Mante and Sussillo, we trained many rats to solve context-dependent decision-making, and we found that different brains use different neural mechanisms to solve the same task!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
People talk a lot about objects, but what about the softness of a cushion, the greenness of an emerald, or the viscosity of oil? In our work just published @pnas.org, we shed light on how we make sense of the hundreds of materials around us.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
March 6, 2025 at 9:36 PM
People talk a lot about objects, but what about the softness of a cushion, the greenness of an emerald, or the viscosity of oil? In our work just published @pnas.org, we shed light on how we make sense of the hundreds of materials around us.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
I just wrote a book about how the type of work @markhisted.org is doing is key to breaking through the bottlenecks holding back new treatments for brain and mental disorders (from Alzheimers to depression). Seeing his work in danger makes me ill, and angry.
We must @standupforscience.bsky.social.
We must @standupforscience.bsky.social.
Compelling pushback from @jmgrohneuro.bsky.social and the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) regarding termination of tenure-track investigators driven by DOGE.
1/2
1/2
March 6, 2025 at 1:41 PM
I just wrote a book about how the type of work @markhisted.org is doing is key to breaking through the bottlenecks holding back new treatments for brain and mental disorders (from Alzheimers to depression). Seeing his work in danger makes me ill, and angry.
We must @standupforscience.bsky.social.
We must @standupforscience.bsky.social.
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
One of the NIMH PIs whose name is the termination list: Sooyhun Lee, whose lab just published this beautiful @nature.com paper (that has received too little press because comms at NIH are down). Read! Cite!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
March 6, 2025 at 7:04 PM
One of the NIMH PIs whose name is the termination list: Sooyhun Lee, whose lab just published this beautiful @nature.com paper (that has received too little press because comms at NIH are down). Read! Cite!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
www.nature.com/articles/s41... awesome new work out today! From the Lee lab in the intramural research program at NIMH!
Brain-wide presynaptic networks of functionally distinct cortical neurons - Nature
Behavioural-state-dependent pyramidal neurons have a distinct pattern of long-range glutamatergic inputs, with a larger proportion of thalamic versus motor cortex inputs compared with non-behavio...
www.nature.com
February 27, 2025 at 12:21 AM
www.nature.com/articles/s41... awesome new work out today! From the Lee lab in the intramural research program at NIMH!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
Pleased to share the final version (out in @natureneuro.bsky.social ) of my recent project showing how the primate HPC and OFC interact during contextual reasoning!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A big thanks to the reviewers who made the paper better!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A big thanks to the reviewers who made the paper better!
Context-dependent decision-making in the primate hippocampal–prefrontal circuit - Nature Neuroscience
The brain uses different valuation schemes across contexts. Elston and Wallis show this is supported by hippocampal encoding of context that is broadcast to prefrontal value subcircuits via theta sync...
www.nature.com
January 6, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Pleased to share the final version (out in @natureneuro.bsky.social ) of my recent project showing how the primate HPC and OFC interact during contextual reasoning!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A big thanks to the reviewers who made the paper better!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A big thanks to the reviewers who made the paper better!
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
It's finally out!
Visual experience orthogonalizes visual cortical responses
Training in a visual task changes V1 tuning curves in odd ways. This effect is explained by a simple convex transformation. It orthogonalizes the population, making it easier to decode.
10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115235
Visual experience orthogonalizes visual cortical responses
Training in a visual task changes V1 tuning curves in odd ways. This effect is explained by a simple convex transformation. It orthogonalizes the population, making it easier to decode.
10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115235
February 2, 2025 at 9:59 AM
It's finally out!
Visual experience orthogonalizes visual cortical responses
Training in a visual task changes V1 tuning curves in odd ways. This effect is explained by a simple convex transformation. It orthogonalizes the population, making it easier to decode.
10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115235
Visual experience orthogonalizes visual cortical responses
Training in a visual task changes V1 tuning curves in odd ways. This effect is explained by a simple convex transformation. It orthogonalizes the population, making it easier to decode.
10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115235
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
New preprint: "The geometry of the neural state space of decisions", work by Mauro Monsalve-Mercado, buff.ly/42wVHD5. Surprising results & predictions! (Thread) We analyze neuropixel population recordings in macaque area LIP during a reaction time, random-dot motion 1/
January 31, 2025 at 2:32 PM
New preprint: "The geometry of the neural state space of decisions", work by Mauro Monsalve-Mercado, buff.ly/42wVHD5. Surprising results & predictions! (Thread) We analyze neuropixel population recordings in macaque area LIP during a reaction time, random-dot motion 1/
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
🔵 NEW PAPER 🔵
Spatiotemporal Style Transfer #STST is out on #NatureComputationalScience!
STST as a framework for dynamic visual stimulus generation to study brain and machine vision
feat. @siegellab.bsky.social
paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
code: github.com/antoninogrec...
🧵👇
Spatiotemporal Style Transfer #STST is out on #NatureComputationalScience!
STST as a framework for dynamic visual stimulus generation to study brain and machine vision
feat. @siegellab.bsky.social
paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
code: github.com/antoninogrec...
🧵👇
December 20, 2024 at 12:31 PM
🔵 NEW PAPER 🔵
Spatiotemporal Style Transfer #STST is out on #NatureComputationalScience!
STST as a framework for dynamic visual stimulus generation to study brain and machine vision
feat. @siegellab.bsky.social
paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
code: github.com/antoninogrec...
🧵👇
Spatiotemporal Style Transfer #STST is out on #NatureComputationalScience!
STST as a framework for dynamic visual stimulus generation to study brain and machine vision
feat. @siegellab.bsky.social
paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
code: github.com/antoninogrec...
🧵👇
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
My article "A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition" is finally out in Nature Communications 🎉 If you work on metacognition and think you know the psychometric properties of your favorite measure, you may be surprised.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition - Nature Communications
Measuring metacognitive ability is one of the enduring challenges in cognitive science. The current paper develops formal tests of the quality of different measures and assesses how current metrics pe...
www.nature.com
January 16, 2025 at 8:17 PM
My article "A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition" is finally out in Nature Communications 🎉 If you work on metacognition and think you know the psychometric properties of your favorite measure, you may be surprised.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
Great to start by sharing an exceptionally interesting paper on the origin of colour categories
Doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400273121
Doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400273121
The origin of color categories | PNAS
To what extent does concept formation require language? Here, we exploit color to
address this question and ask whether macaque monkeys have color ...
Doi.org
January 8, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Great to start by sharing an exceptionally interesting paper on the origin of colour categories
Doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400273121
Doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400273121
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
An extensive dataset of spiking activity to reveal the syntax of the ventral stream - V1, V4, and IT neurons in monkeys viewing >25,000 natural images www.cell.com/neuron/abstr... by @paolopapale.bsky.social et al.; #BCI #NeuroTech #neuroscience
January 13, 2025 at 4:11 PM
An extensive dataset of spiking activity to reveal the syntax of the ventral stream - V1, V4, and IT neurons in monkeys viewing >25,000 natural images www.cell.com/neuron/abstr... by @paolopapale.bsky.social et al.; #BCI #NeuroTech #neuroscience
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
New results for a new year! “Linking neural population formatting to function” describes our modern take on an old question: how can we understand the contribution of a brain area to behavior?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
Linking neural population formatting to function
Animals capable of complex behaviors tend to have more distinct brain areas than simpler organisms, and artificial networks that perform many tasks tend to self-organize into modules (1-3). This sugge...
www.biorxiv.org
January 4, 2025 at 4:25 PM
New results for a new year! “Linking neural population formatting to function” describes our modern take on an old question: how can we understand the contribution of a brain area to behavior?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧠👩🏻🔬🧪🧵
#neuroskyence
1/
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
12 years in the making! I remember having long chats with Michael Oliver about this paper in 2012. Those are still some of the most comprehensive V4 recordings out there. So happy this is finally out.
"...responses of V4 neurons under naturalistic conditions can be explained by a hierarchical three-stage model where each stage consists entirely of units like those found in area V1"
#NeuroAI
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#NeuroAI
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
December 26, 2024 at 10:27 PM
12 years in the making! I remember having long chats with Michael Oliver about this paper in 2012. Those are still some of the most comprehensive V4 recordings out there. So happy this is finally out.
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
I'll be talking about all things metacognitive on 23rd Jan in a public lecture at the @royalsociety.org
It's free to attend and will also be broadcast live on the RS YouTube channel (no pressure then 😅)
royalsociety.org/science-even...
It's free to attend and will also be broadcast live on the RS YouTube channel (no pressure then 😅)
royalsociety.org/science-even...
How the human brain thinks about itself | Royal Society
Royal Society Francis Crick Prize Lecture by Professor Stephen Fleming.
royalsociety.org
December 19, 2024 at 11:37 AM
I'll be talking about all things metacognitive on 23rd Jan in a public lecture at the @royalsociety.org
It's free to attend and will also be broadcast live on the RS YouTube channel (no pressure then 😅)
royalsociety.org/science-even...
It's free to attend and will also be broadcast live on the RS YouTube channel (no pressure then 😅)
royalsociety.org/science-even...
Reposted by Corey Ziemba
Leslie Ungerleider (1946 - 2020) was an extraordinary, pioneering neuroscientist. The latest issue of @jocn.bsky.social honors her legacy with articles authored by former colleagues & trainees that highlight critical aspects of her work and its influence https://buff.ly/4156UKw #cogsci #neuroscience
December 4, 2024 at 12:40 AM
Leslie Ungerleider (1946 - 2020) was an extraordinary, pioneering neuroscientist. The latest issue of @jocn.bsky.social honors her legacy with articles authored by former colleagues & trainees that highlight critical aspects of her work and its influence https://buff.ly/4156UKw #cogsci #neuroscience