Jonny Smallwood
@themindwanders.bsky.social
Psychology professor who also makes music. See link below:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJCawAG85dzMxug7HNM?si=nsT7_QR_R-ahMs0MHFgVIA
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJCawAG85dzMxug7HNM?si=nsT7_QR_R-ahMs0MHFgVIA
In a non trivial way the #climate_crisis is reducible to shortcomings in human intelligence. This idea is behind my new release with the Natural Philosophers with Attitude: "Hot Summer Nights". Please check it out!
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
July 19, 2025 at 7:03 PM
In a non trivial way the #climate_crisis is reducible to shortcomings in human intelligence. This idea is behind my new release with the Natural Philosophers with Attitude: "Hot Summer Nights". Please check it out!
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
In a non trivial way the #climate_crisis can be reduced to shortcomings in human intelligence. This is the idea that is behind my new release with the Natural Philosophers with Attitude. Please check it out!
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
July 19, 2025 at 6:03 PM
In a non trivial way the #climate_crisis can be reduced to shortcomings in human intelligence. This is the idea that is behind my new release with the Natural Philosophers with Attitude. Please check it out!
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
Hot Summer Nights the new album by the Natural Philosophers is out now.
If you would like to help:
Stream it a few times
Post reply mentioning a track you like by name.
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Apple Music
music.apple.com/us/album/hot...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
If you would like to help:
Stream it a few times
Post reply mentioning a track you like by name.
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Apple Music
music.apple.com/us/album/hot...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
July 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Hot Summer Nights the new album by the Natural Philosophers is out now.
If you would like to help:
Stream it a few times
Post reply mentioning a track you like by name.
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Apple Music
music.apple.com/us/album/hot...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
If you would like to help:
Stream it a few times
Post reply mentioning a track you like by name.
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/0Tju52...
Apple Music
music.apple.com/us/album/hot...
Soundcloud
soundcloud.com/npwa/sets/ho...
One cool thing is that in both studies the number of people to generate a consistent brain-trait relationship is in the hundreds not thousands. Supports our idea that with the correct tasks you can capture brain-trait links more efficiently than rest.
Here's a figure from our study. #BWAS ≠Rest.
Here's a figure from our study. #BWAS ≠Rest.
February 6, 2025 at 3:40 PM
One cool thing is that in both studies the number of people to generate a consistent brain-trait relationship is in the hundreds not thousands. Supports our idea that with the correct tasks you can capture brain-trait links more efficiently than rest.
Here's a figure from our study. #BWAS ≠Rest.
Here's a figure from our study. #BWAS ≠Rest.
Elon Musk's take over of the government is our focus on "Empiricism Today". Join us live with the this and other breaking new stories using the link below 👇 #klfm
open.spotify.com/album/7cpbVH...
open.spotify.com/album/7cpbVH...
February 1, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Elon Musk's take over of the government is our focus on "Empiricism Today". Join us live with the this and other breaking new stories using the link below 👇 #klfm
open.spotify.com/album/7cpbVH...
open.spotify.com/album/7cpbVH...
Keep up with #breaking science news 24 hours a day 7 days a week on kLFM 👇
open.spotify.com/track/3sJWuf...
open.spotify.com/track/3sJWuf...
February 1, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Keep up with #breaking science news 24 hours a day 7 days a week on kLFM 👇
open.spotify.com/track/3sJWuf...
open.spotify.com/track/3sJWuf...
Don't lose hope. Just remember this is what you are trained to do and keep the faith in the scientific process.
January 28, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Don't lose hope. Just remember this is what you are trained to do and keep the faith in the scientific process.
Grant writing is one of the three pillars of the life of a scientist
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
January 28, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Grant writing is one of the three pillars of the life of a scientist
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
If everyone could please just stop listening to the Natural Philosophers on #spotify. I would really appreciate it - it's just too loud in here and we are trying to sleep.
Just so you all know exactly what not to listen to here is the link. So don't click here 👇
open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJ...
Just so you all know exactly what not to listen to here is the link. So don't click here 👇
open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJ...
January 28, 2025 at 4:02 PM
If everyone could please just stop listening to the Natural Philosophers on #spotify. I would really appreciate it - it's just too loud in here and we are trying to sleep.
Just so you all know exactly what not to listen to here is the link. So don't click here 👇
open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJ...
Just so you all know exactly what not to listen to here is the link. So don't click here 👇
open.spotify.com/artist/4zrxJ...
So this architecture helps explain the DMN role in both action and decoupled states. It's role in actions comes from the peripheries interactions with the rest of the brain, helping situate action in a broader setting. Decoupled states like mind-wandering happen when the core does it's own thing 😎
January 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
So this architecture helps explain the DMN role in both action and decoupled states. It's role in actions comes from the peripheries interactions with the rest of the brain, helping situate action in a broader setting. Decoupled states like mind-wandering happen when the core does it's own thing 😎
Casey's paper is important because it shows the architecture solves this problem. She discovered that the DMN contains a peripheral system which communicates with other neural systems (including sensory systems) and a core that communicates with the DMN but is insulted from the rest of the brain.
January 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Casey's paper is important because it shows the architecture solves this problem. She discovered that the DMN contains a peripheral system which communicates with other neural systems (including sensory systems) and a core that communicates with the DMN but is insulted from the rest of the brain.
So the real question is: What allows the DMN to be involved in both task relevant action, when we must guide our behaviour using memory, and decoupled states like those that occur when our minds wander. We suspect to it is linked to it's location
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
January 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
So the real question is: What allows the DMN to be involved in both task relevant action, when we must guide our behaviour using memory, and decoupled states like those that occur when our minds wander. We suspect to it is linked to it's location
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Some context. Raichle discovered the default mode network at rest where cognition is often decoupled from the outside world. This is why people often argue the DMN is for states like daydreaming and so antagonistic to action (see recent theory paper by @ndosenbach.bsky.social on action mode system)
January 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Some context. Raichle discovered the default mode network at rest where cognition is often decoupled from the outside world. This is why people often argue the DMN is for states like daydreaming and so antagonistic to action (see recent theory paper by @ndosenbach.bsky.social on action mode system)
This distinction explain the DMN involvement in antagonistic states. The peripheries interactions with the rest of the brain supports the DMN role in memory guided actions. Perceptually decoupled states (like mind-wandering or daydreaming) depend upon the insulated core doing it's own thing 😎
January 28, 2025 at 2:04 PM
This distinction explain the DMN involvement in antagonistic states. The peripheries interactions with the rest of the brain supports the DMN role in memory guided actions. Perceptually decoupled states (like mind-wandering or daydreaming) depend upon the insulated core doing it's own thing 😎
Casey's new paper is important because it shows that the architecture of the system supports this viewe. It can be divided up into a peripheral system which receives inout from other neural systems in an efficient manner, and a core that tends not to interact with other systems as much. 👇
January 28, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Casey's new paper is important because it shows that the architecture of the system supports this viewe. It can be divided up into a peripheral system which receives inout from other neural systems in an efficient manner, and a core that tends not to interact with other systems as much. 👇
Will science ever recover?
January 27, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Will science ever recover?
What on earth will we do if there are no more grants to write....EVER?
January 27, 2025 at 10:23 PM
What on earth will we do if there are no more grants to write....EVER?
The revolution will not be synthesised
Listen now on all streaming platforms
#spotify 👇
open.spotify.com/track/40tNtv...
#soundcloud 👇
on.soundcloud.com/xuqb9M9141bt...
Listen now on all streaming platforms
#spotify 👇
open.spotify.com/track/40tNtv...
#soundcloud 👇
on.soundcloud.com/xuqb9M9141bt...
January 27, 2025 at 9:23 PM
The revolution will not be synthesised
Listen now on all streaming platforms
#spotify 👇
open.spotify.com/track/40tNtv...
#soundcloud 👇
on.soundcloud.com/xuqb9M9141bt...
Listen now on all streaming platforms
#spotify 👇
open.spotify.com/track/40tNtv...
#soundcloud 👇
on.soundcloud.com/xuqb9M9141bt...
Trump's pause on science funding is putting in jeopardy one of the fundamental pillars of the scientific process. Listen to our new podcast to find out what you can do to fight back 👇
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
January 27, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Trump's pause on science funding is putting in jeopardy one of the fundamental pillars of the scientific process. Listen to our new podcast to find out what you can do to fight back 👇
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
open.spotify.com/album/2y2sy1...
So our crazy idea seems to work! We can overcome a fundamental problem with measuring conscious experience in movies because we can relate descriptions of experiential dynamics to changes in brain activity without disrupting the dynamics of brain activity.
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
So our crazy idea seems to work! We can overcome a fundamental problem with measuring conscious experience in movies because we can relate descriptions of experiential dynamics to changes in brain activity without disrupting the dynamics of brain activity.
Yes! The experiential time series were linked to systematic changes in brain activity. The most compelling finding was visual and auditory cortex time series activity following the time series of thought patterns emphasising images, sounds + words. Which makes sense!
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Yes! The experiential time series were linked to systematic changes in brain activity. The most compelling finding was visual and auditory cortex time series activity following the time series of thought patterns emphasising images, sounds + words. Which makes sense!
We used time series of different types of thoughts in one group as a regressor in the other group of participants brain activity. We did this by including the time series below as explanatory variables in a FSL analysis predicting brain activity in the other participants. But could this work?
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
We used time series of different types of thoughts in one group as a regressor in the other group of participants brain activity. We did this by including the time series below as explanatory variables in a FSL analysis predicting brain activity in the other participants. But could this work?
To find out we recruited participants to watch a segment of three films for which another group of people had already watched (Thanks Lab-Lab!). We used multi dimensional experience sampling to build a thought space that describes the time series of movie experiences in our participants.
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
To find out we recruited participants to watch a segment of three films for which another group of people had already watched (Thanks Lab-Lab!). We used multi dimensional experience sampling to build a thought space that describes the time series of movie experiences in our participants.
But then we had a crazy idea. Could we overcome this problem by measuring MOVIE WATCHING EXPERIENCE IN ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE and then using this to explain OTHER PEOPLES BRAIN ACTIVITY? This sounds crazy...but could it possibly work?
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
But then we had a crazy idea. Could we overcome this problem by measuring MOVIE WATCHING EXPERIENCE IN ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE and then using this to explain OTHER PEOPLES BRAIN ACTIVITY? This sounds crazy...but could it possibly work?