Rocco Chiou
I use neuroimaging and neurostimulation to study how the brain processes language, semantic meaning, mental imagery, and synaesthesia 🧠🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I'm a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London.
More info in my website: roccochiou.weebly.com
- Reposted by Rocco Chiou
Hats off to the great Anne "I don't do fancy" Treisman! - Reposted by Rocco ChiouEpstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouImportant reminder that the relationship between functional connectivity and a trait is likely to be state-dependent, and hence it may be unwise to rely on resting state only
- Cute panda 🐼
- Have you ever wanted to study individual differences in attention only to be frustrated by prohibitive low reliability? If so, what a coincidence! Let me introduce you to the first study from the newly formed Sheffield PandA lab: Using RSVPs to measure the speed of attention: rdcu.be/e0t0A 1/
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- Reposted by Rocco ChiouThis seems to be based entirely on the Project Implicit sample, as reported in the un-refereed preprint linked from the NYT piece. Seems premature to declare this as fact in the NYT.
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouSo excited to see this lovely paper with @benjyb.bsky.social, @matanmazor.bsky.social and @giuliacabbai.bsky.social published in @nconsc.bsky.social! academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...
- 🚨New preprint🚨 out with the dream team @matanmazor.bsky.social @giuliacabbai.bsky.social and @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social! We report a novel and robust effect across five different datasets: vivid imagery is reported faster than weak imagery. 📝: osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNeuroscience is moving away from a modular view of the brain because the brain is not modular. It is network of murmuring neurons. Great metaphor by @pessoabrain.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/o... #neuroscience
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouIt won't actually exist for another month or so, but because it now 'exists' on amazon, I'll humbly observe that, after working through this book, your student/trainee would be able to read and understand all but two or three papers in this week's J. Neurosci. Check it out:
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouFor 15(!) years I’ve been teaching introductory #MRI to grad students, and struggled to find a textbook for a wide variety of backgrounds. I'm happy to share an online textbook I created, fully open source (including code for generating figures and plots shown): larsonlab.github.io/MRI-educatio...
- Reposted by Rocco Chiou2025 has been a rotten year for most early career postdoctoral researchers, especially in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouMajor new study isolating the amodal language network from non-linguistic domains 🧠 📐 💭 Languages of the brain: fMRI dissection of the amodal networks for language, mathematics, and social knowledge www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouCurious to hear from anyone who attended this workshop nenckiopenlab.org/why/ It explored questions like: What motivates – and demotivates us – in our research? How our overt motivations – ones that we speak about in public, in grant writing or science communication – relate to the real ones?
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNew analysis of the major qualitative differences between natural and artificial intelligence (via LLMs). LLMs and humans form judgments differently across seven epistemological stages 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNew book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press. This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNew Preprint: People in general have idiosyncratic imagined experiences characterised by salience differences. Some have more salient imagined sensations of smell than of imagery, while most have the opposite - and these differences shape people's daily lives. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- We’re recruiting a new Lecturer at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social 🎓 Birkbeck offers a collegial, research-intensive environment, with consistently strong performance in the REF. If you’re an early-career researcher looking for a positive change, then Birkbeck could be the right place for you.
- ECR looking for a change in the New Year? We are recruiting a new Lecturer in Psychology at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social ! If you’d like to talk about life in the Department, please do feel free to get in touch. Deadline 8th Feb - More details below 👇 cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...
- Sounds like a great opportunity. Get in touch with Daniel if you're interested in pursuing a PhD with him. 😀
- I've got a fully-funded PhD studentship open at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social, investigating social learning about metacognition & awareness, w/ behavioural studies & neuroimaging (fMRI) - thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk More details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPV831/p... #cogsci #neuroskyence
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouIt is hugely fun & we are very lucky to do science for the sake of science. But it is amazing to see work we and many others I admire have done turn into public awareness thanks to excellent science writing. (see also www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...)
- New writeup on interoception in Scientific American focusing on its role in mental health: www.scientificamerican.com/article/inte...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouOur paper is out now in J Neuroscience (currently in "accepted paper" form). We directly record single neurons in human insula, as well as primary auditory cortex, while participants passively listen to simple sounds. @sfnjournals.bsky.social www.jneurosci.org/content/earl... (1/5) 🧠📈🧵👇
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouExcited to share a new article, led by Barnes Jannuzi. Here we tried to pinpoint something about visual familiarity that isn't reflected in visual cortex via something putatively hippocampal. Nope! Per the theme of this era, the brain is not so simple. /1 www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
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- Reposted by Rocco ChiouWe recently stumbled upon a surprisingly common misunderstanding in computing noise ceilings that can be quite consequential. So if you care about noise ceilings, please check out Sander’s thread and our preprint! 👇
- New preprint w/ Malin Styrnal & @martinhebart.bsky.social Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are. osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNew preprint alert! Cognitive maps are flexible, dynamic, (re)constructed representations #psychscisky #neuroskyence #cognition #philsky 🧪
- Reposted by Rocco Chiou“I’ve had my bath, lunch was good, and I’m getting ready to watch my programs.” Life Is Too Short to Fight With Your Family www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/o...
- Nobel Laureate Janes Watson repeatedly made claims suggesting that differences in intelligence between ethnic groups are biologically determined, and these claims were not supported by credible scientific evidence. He died today. #JamesWatson #DoubleHelix news.sky.com/story/scient...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNoise ceilings are really useful: You can estimate the reliability of your data and get an index of how well your model can possibly perform given the noise in the data. But, contrary to what you may think, noise ceilings do not provide an absolute index of data quality. Let's dive into why. 🧵
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouPleased to share our latest paper led by @tomlewin.bsky.social, now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We present the first chromosome-level genome of a phoronid and show that shared chromosomal fusions unite phoronids and bryozoans as sister groups. www.cell.com/current-biol...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouBeyond Broca: The Two Routes to Speaking. My new @psychtoday.bsky.social essay excerpted and adapted from Wired for Words: The Neural Architecture of Language, forthcoming this month @mitpress.bsky.social. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wire... .
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouPlease repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026. The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social. Please apply here until Nov 25: www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouI wrote a thing on episodic memory and systems consolidation. I hope you all enjoy it and/or find it interesting. A neural state space for episodic memories www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #neuroskyence #psychscisky #cognition 🧪
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouHow can the "default network" support many forms of introspective thought? Our new review argues these functions rely on distinct MTL connections: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thanks to @denizvatansever.bsky.social & Jess Andrews-Hanna for the invitation to this Special Issue! 🧵
- Reposted by Rocco Chioushare.google/FkOnXVNpGvvZ... I've been playing around with this and it's actually kinda neat - it separates an author's h-index into 1st, 2nd, other, and last authorship positions. Perhaps this could encourage a more even spread (& ignore the final weighted metric proposed). What do you think?
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouFrom retinotopic to ordinal coding: Dissecting the cortical stages of visual word recognition www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouWhat does it mean to be both animal and thinker? Join @moatazassem.bsky.social and John Duncan on 25 November at Murray Edwards College for the launch of John’s new book ‘The Animal and the Thinker.’ Get your tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-animal...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouWow, this excerpt from Giuffre's book (www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...), and Bloomberg got Epstein's emails, including one from Steve Kosslyn (the Harvard psychologist possibly referenced here) asking how he could help when Epstein was about to enter jail. www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
- It’s been a chaotic evening. A major accident in Vauxhall caused train delays and pushed my lecture back by an hour. Huge thanks to our students for being so patient and understanding! Now heading home after a very long day 😴 share.google/aRwA9JUkd4jc...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouApply now for #visceralmind26 #functionalneuroanatomy #summerschool! The course will run 7th-11th September 2026. Visit our website for an example timetable, more info on content, and testimonies: www.bangor.ac.uk/visceralmind. @psychbangor.bsky.social | @bangoruniversity.bsky.social
- Reposted by Rocco Chiou📣 New preprint from the Braga Lab! 📣 The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning? Thread 🧵 ⬇️
- Just finished by my very first lecture at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social. I was very impressed by the students at Birkbeck, particularly their initiative and motivation. 💝 Many thanks to my colleague Raffa for helping us run the lecture smoothly. 👊
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouLong time in the making: our preprint of survey study on the diversity with how people seem to experience #mentalimagery. Suggests #aphantasia should be redefined as absence of depictive thought, not merely "not seeing". Some more take home msg: #psychskysci #neuroscience doi.org/10.1101/2025...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouSome people are unable to consciously picture images in their mind's eye – they have aphantasia. What have scientists learned about aphantasia over the past 10 years? This paper reviews subtypes of aphantasia, its potential functions, and ongoing debates. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- OK. One more item added to my reading list 📚
- Excited to share new work with @hleemasson.bsky.social , Ericka Wodka, Stewart Mostofsky and @lisik.bsky.social! We investigated how simultaneous vision and language signals are combined in the brain using naturalistic+controlled fMRI. Read the paper here: osf.io/b5p4n 1/n
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouAhem. Mental imagery (& imagery-critical) researchers should read this: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
- I hate cancel culture, seriously. I don't think Jimmy Kimmel should be cancelled by ABC, and I don't think Megyn Kelly should be cancelled by MSNBC either. Instead of cancelling, a mature society should encourage mutual understanding and open discussion.
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouA transformation from vision to imagery in the human brain www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... "Extensive work has shown that the visual cortex is reactivated during mental imagery"; #neuroscience
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouI'm sure I'm not the only one being overly tired yet unable to turn my brain off. What a gift the @snlmtg.bsky.social community is 💙 I genuinely can't wait to welcome you all in Geneva for #SNL2026!
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouA study by Bartels et al (J Neurosci) showed that decoding what colour one person was seeing also decode what another person was seeing. I haven’t read the study but it is a clever way of trying to find out if your blue is my blue. Not my expertise but worth expert discussion.
- Although I’m a liberal, my heart still sinks hearing what happened in Utah today. Political violence has no place in our democratic society. Our differences must be resolved through dialogue and democratic processes, not through threats or acts of harm. Rest in eternal peace, Charlie Kirk.
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouVariance partitioning is used to quantify the overlap of two models. Over the years, I have found that this can be a very confusing and misleading concept. So we finally we decided to write a short blog to explain why. @martinhebart.bsky.social @gallantlab.org diedrichsenlab.org/BrainDataSci...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouA transformation from vision to imagery in the human brain. Intriguing new preprint by Roy & Naselaris et al for anyone interested in mental imagery! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouNew preprint states "The attention model conceptualizes aphantasia as primarily a deficit in top-down attentional control": www.researchgate.net/publication/... @jianghaoliu.bsky.social is on a good role, but "attention control deficits" need to be carefully specified and here's why... 1/6
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouRethinking category-selectivity in human visual cortex www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouOur new study (Titled: Memory Loves Company) asks whether working memory hold more when objects belong together. And yes, when everyday objects are paired meaningfully (Bow-Arrow), people remember them better than when they’re unrelated (Glass-Arrow). (mini thread)
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouThe Next Level @thebulwark.com is so excellent. What a great dynamic between the three hosts, and such insightful and fun conversation on a depressing topic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lC...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouHere's a set of new results from my lab asking how the brain combines different ideas (concepts)! Now in press at J of Cog Neuro, we looked at how semantic composition (combining different concepts together) shapes brain activity. Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroskyence
- Had a lovely afternoon with my Surrey colleagues, chatting and exchanging farewell gifts. Bye, Surrey - I’ll miss many wonderful people I’ve met here. Thanks to Alan W, Carolina FS, Marie M, Ally G, Di F, Juha S, Melissa M, Angela M, Fabio F, & Yetta W 😃
- Reposted by Rocco Chiou[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouCongratulations to Flo Martinez-Addiego and @striemamit.bsky.social for the publication of a cool new paper in PNAS showing that high-level actions like tool use generalize between hand and foot, even in individuals born without hands. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Rocco ChiouExcited to share our new preprint... ...𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒! ⏳ We find temporal confounds in fMRI that emulate neural patterns of perceptual learning. These can be hard to spot with conventional RSA, but may influence our understanding of how prior knowledge shapes perception. tinyurl.com/4bwy6nre
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