Marco K Wittmann

Marco K Wittmann

@mkwittmann.bsky.social

Associate Professor @ UCL. Experimental Psychologist. Interested in neural computations underlying social cognition. https://www.wittmann-lab.com

837 followers376 following62 posts

Marco K Wittmann reposted

🚀 PhD opportunity in the Vaghi Lab, starting 2027 @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social We are looking to support applicants interested in: 🔬 precision neuroimaging 🧠 compulsivity/OCD 💻 computational approaches Available via the ESRC UBEL DTP PhD or MSc + PhD routes 🔗 surl.li/qunzzt Please share! 📢

ubel-dtp.ac.ukESRC Studentships Main Competition - UBEL DTPESRC Studentships Main Competition The UBEL DTP’s fully funded ESRC studentships cover full payment of tuition fees per year and an annual maintenance stipend. What’s on offer UBEL DTP studentships co...

Marco K Wittmann reposted

What a pleasure to collaborate with @mkwittmann.bsky.social and @yongling.bsky.social to find reduced signatures of "we-ness", along enhanced "they-ness" in young individuals with Borderline personality disorder. Check out the preprint 👇🏻if you are interested

Marco K Wittmann@mkwittmann.bsky.social

New preprint with @yongling.bsky.social and @anrei.bsky.social on asymmetric social structure representation in participants with Borderline personality disorder.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Autism has long been linked to difficulties with Theory of Mind. But what exactly is driving these differences? And what happens in the brain? In our new preprint, we show that adaptive mentalization might be key. A 🧵 #CogSci #CogNeuro osf.io/preprints/ps...

Amazing and well deserved!

Tricia Seow@seowxft.bsky.social

🎈 Happy to announce that I was awarded the ERC StG for my project CHASM-Meta which will aim to close the chasm (👀) between our understanding of neurocognitive and clinical metacognition, and its role in mental health. Lots to look forward to in this space 🚀

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Out now @natcomms.nature.com. how do deadlines shape effort processing? We show that deadlines cause us to seek high effort rather than avoid it. Why? Becease effort makes progress towards completing goals, making it valuable, a process coordinated by fronto-striatal computations.

nature.comNeural and computational mechanisms of effort under the pressure of a deadline - Nature CommunicationsPeople are effort-averse in most situations but can exert effort for little reward when progressing towards goals. Here, the authors show that under deadline pressure people become effort-seeking whil...
Andrea Pisauro@andreapisauro.bsky.social

Under pressure? It may not be bad. We think of pressure when there is too much of it, but in the right doses it is what makes us reach our goals on time. That's the idea @brainapps.bsky.social & I developed in this paper finally in press at @natcomms.nature.com nature.com/articles/s41467-026-75987-6

Marco K Wittmann reposted

New perspective paper from our lab: “The hippocampus as a generative model” out now !! royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article... The traditional view of the hippocampus is that it creates a cognitive map. Here we extend this view to conceptualise the hippocampus as a “generative model”.

royalsocietypublishing.orgThe hippocampus as a generative modelAbstract. A generative model can be defined as a model of the latent causes of sensory input that can be used to generate new data samples. By examining em

Marco K Wittmann reposted

The hippocampus sits at the interface of perception & memory, allowing us to link past, present, & future through its role in generating predictions. Excited to share this theme issue in @royalsociety.org's Philosophical Transactions B, co-edited with @barense.bsky.social & @mariamaly.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.orgVolume 381 Issue 1954 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | The Royal SocietyInfluential themed journal issues across the life sciences.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Finally out in Psychological Review (psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/...), our update to Signal Detection Theory. We show that contrary to the prevailing Gaussian assumption, evidence distributions in recognition memory are likely minimum extreme Gumbel!

Henrik Singmann@singmann.bsky.social

Honey, we fixed Signal Detection Theory (SDT)! In this preprint, Constantin Meyer-Grant, David Kellen, Sam Harding, and I critically evaluate the (unequal-variance) Gaussian SDT model in recognition memory and pursue the Gumbel-min model as a principled alternative: doi.org/10.31234/osf... 🧵

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted

You love teaching psychology and London? Then we have the perfect position for you: Associate Professor (Teaching), Experimental Psychology, @uclpals.bsky.social. Your role: Develop a flexible portfolio of psychology undergraduate modules for Non-Psychology students www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSB720/a...

jobs.ac.ukAssociate Professor (Teaching) at UCLApply for the Associate Professor (Teaching) role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted

PSA for trainees cold emailing with interest in joining a lab: Be careful about your use of LLMs in writing these emails!! It is now *extremely* common to get emails with a bizarrely-detailed, clearly-LLM take on a paper finding or with specific phrases pulled from the lab website. Don’t do this!

Marco K Wittmann reposted

If you have (or will soon) complete your PhD & would like to join a thriving cultural evolution research group in NEW ZEALAND, drop me a line. UoA offers a handful of funded research fellowships. Applications must be made by a faculty member. Deadline August. Pls share with your students

Marco K Wittmann reposted

After learning two equally structured graphs, an abstract relational map of their shared structure emerges in mPFC — but only after a few days 🧠 Huge thanks to all collaborators, especially @alonbaram.bsky.social for leading this and @behrenstimb.bsky.social for making so much of it possible.

Alon Baram@alonbaram.bsky.social

How does the human brain extract abstract structure from experience? We show that sensory-independent relational representations emerge in mPFC over several days. Work with @mgarvert.bsky.social and @behrenstimb.bsky.social now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Marco K Wittmann reposted

check out the inaugural cohort of @neuromatch.bsky.social AI Sentience Scholars! this is a seriously impressive bunch!

Neuromatch@neuromatch.bsky.social

🎉 Introducing the 2026 Neuromatch AI Sentience Scholars cohort! Learn more about them, the projects they will be working on, and their mentors! ⬇️ neuromatch.io/ai-sentience... We're just kicking off this 6 month program and already incredibly proud! #AISentience #AIResearch #ConsciousnessStudies

Marco K Wittmann reposted

I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student, funded by a new ERC grant. The grant focuses on the role of the hippocampus in visual perception, using 7T fMRI (hippocampal subfields, cortical layers) and MEG+iEEG. The intended start dates for both positions are in early 2027. 🧠🟦 1/3

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted

🧠 Warum fliehen wir vor einer Bedrohung und stellen uns einer anderen? An der #LMU untersucht Neurowissenschaftlerin @annaschroeder.bsky.social, wie das Gehirn Emotionen oder Bedürfnisse mit äußeren Reizen verknüpft und in Verhalten übersetzt. Im Fokus: die Zona incerta 🔬 Was das ist? Jetzt lesen!

lmu.deWenn Gefühle Verhalten steuernAnna Schroeder, neuberufen an der LMU, erforscht, wie das Gehirn Emotionen, Bedürfnisse und Motivation in Handlungen übersetzt – und wie es Verhalten an wechselnde Umweltbedingungen anpasst.

New preprint from the lab! Here, @yongling.bsky.social shows that people prioritise self / ingroup-related information to guide their decisions - irrespective of their autistic traits.

Yongling Lin@yongling.bsky.social

😀Excited to share the new preprint!!!🥳 We show preserved self–other integration in social decision-making among individuals with elevated autistic traits (N = 1,621), highlighting the importance of large samples to validate null effects. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Marco K Wittmann reposted

📢PhD job alert! A exciting PhD project that involves using MEG and biophysical modelling to try to predict effects of a glutamatergic treatment for psychosis... plus you can develop your own side project. Join our great team! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

ucl.ac.ukUCL – University College LondonUCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted

🎉New positions!🎉 Postdoc and Research technician openings in our lab @yale for computational psychiatry research. Technician position a great stepping stone to grad school. More info: rutledgelab.org/positions Work w/big data from our smartphone apps and large clinical samples happinessquest.app

rutledgelab.orgPostdoc and Research Technician Positions — Rutledge LabNow hiring a postdoc and a research technician with an interest in neuroeconomics or computational psychiatry.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

📣 New preprint 📣 "Neural Dynamics of Belief and Value Computations Guiding Strategic Social Decisions" We use EEG and computational modeling (combining learning + DDM) to explain participants' choices, RT, and neural signals in a strategic game. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgNeural Dynamics of Belief and Value Computations Guiding Strategic Social DecisionsSuccessful strategic behavior must be grounded in beliefs about the opponent and her intentions. While many potential models have been proposed to explain choices in such situations, the neural mechanisms that govern learning and choice in complex strategic contexts remain poorly understood. Here, we use a computational model that combines dynamic learning and choice mechanisms to explain both choices and response times of human participants engaged in a competitive strategic task. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we identify temporally structured stages of neural processing that support an evolving value-based decision process, corresponding to first- and second-order belief updates and evidence accumulation related to the comparison of action values. Gamma-band phase coupling between central and parietal EEG signals varied with individual winning rate, suggesting that strategic behavior involves coordinated information transfer across spatially remote areas. Together, our data characterize the temporally evolving neural dynamics of belief and valuation processes that underlie strategic choice and provide neural validation for assumptions embedded in computational models of this behavior. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, 725355

Marco K Wittmann reposted

New preprint led by @mateuspsi.bsky.social and @andrecravo.bsky.social dissociating absolute from relative time estimation in the brain. Thanks for having me along! Nice to see this out even though it's also a reminder of how much we miss Mark...

Andre Cravo @andrecravo.bsky.social

New preprint www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... How does the brain separate "how long was that?" from "was it longer than expected?" We designed a task in which physical duration and categorical judgment vary independently, and used EEG to separate these signals. #neuroskyence #psychscisky 1/8

Marco K Wittmann reposted

We are looking for two Research Assistants to conduct experiments and data analyses investigating the neural mechanisms of strategic and social decision-making using head-fixed (1) and freely-moving (1) behavioural paradigms in mice. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

ucl.ac.ukUCL – University College LondonUCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Marco K Wittmann reposted

🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨 I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p... Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling. Pls share!

jobs.ac.ukPostdoctoral Research Fellow at UCLDiscover Postdoctoral Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation can reach deep brain regions such as the amygdala, modulate ongoing task-related activity, and bias emotional responses. Nice to see this impressive brainstim-MRI study from @mkflugge.bsky.social lab come together and glad to have been involved.

Miriam Klein-Flügge 🧠@mkflugge.bsky.social

🧠 Focused ultrasound changes emotional processing 🔊 In a new study published in Neuron today, we stimulated the human amygdala using transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) and show it plays a causal role in detecting and resolving emotional ambiguity.

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Symposium submissions are due tomorrow, March 31, 2026!

Symposium Proposal Deadline Extended! 2026 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN 2026) will take place in Montréal, Canada, August 23–26, 2026. 🧠 The deadline for symposium proposals has been extended to Tuesday, March 31. Learn more: s4sn.org/s4sn2026

Marco K Wittmann reposted

Marco K Wittmann reposted