Matteo Lisi

21 Aug 2025

Excited to finally have in my hands a copy of our new book Statistics for Psychology Using R: A Linear Models Perspective (written with Alasdair Clarke, not on bsky) !! 📘 www.mheducation.co.uk/statistics-f... #PsychSciSky #neuroskyence #statistics #statssky @rhulpsychology.bsky.social

Another surprising "seed-42 coincidence" We were reading this: doi.org/10.1057/s415... and noted a mistmatch of data in Fig2 with reported stats (e.g. the SD of x-coordinates for blue crosses cannot be 30 as reported). We extracted the plotted points to investigate... #psychscisky #science

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github.comGitHub - mattelisi/Yuan2025-Fig2Contribute to mattelisi/Yuan2025-Fig2 development by creating an account on GitHub.

but the near-exact reproduction of Fig 2 is particularly concerning: this is strong evidence that the figure was constructed with synthetic data we’ve contacted the journal and shared reproducible code for this analysis: github.com/mattelisi/Yu... — we are waiting for a response

Tagging a few people who might be interested in this: @neuroskeptic.bsky.social @deevybee.bsky.social

another clue: subsequent uniform draws from the same sequence predict marker sizes (r=.983 for 15 isolated blue crosses; r=.958 for 33 red). JPEG size estimates are imprecise and this was exploratory, but it supports the reconstruction

pubpeer.comPubPeer - Artificial intelligence in language learning: biometric feed...There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Artificial intelligence in language learning: biometric feedback and adaptive reading for improved comprehension and reduced anxiety (2025)

we also found discrepancies in the reported t-tests, descriptive statistics, and MANOVA results. The timeline of the study also require clarification (see comment here: pubpeer.com/publications...)

the idea to check for a seed-42 match was inspired by this recent example: bsky.app/profile/neur... and we used an AI coding assistant to search across possible data-generation specifications until it found a match

Neuroskeptic@neuroskeptic.bsky.social

This is an astonishing @pubpeer.com post: pubpeer.com/publications... The author compares data points from a figure against random numbers produced with a certain seed, finding r > 0.999999996! 🫠 Could there be any possible innocent explanation? The paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comTowards a general-purpose foundation model for functional MRI analysis - Nature Biomedical EngineeringThe Neuroimaging Foundation Model with Spatial–Temporal Optimized and Representation Modelling (NeuroSTORM) learns generalizable representations from 4D functional MRI volumes, enabling accurate perfo...

we found that a simple NumPy sequence using RandomState(42) produced an extremely close match to the original data: 190 detected crosses match the seed-42-generated paired coordinates within 1 pixel in the original JPEG image (here crosses=extracted data; circles=seed-42 generated data)

this revealed other discrepancies; for example that the plot contains ~100 points/group instead of the reported 150 participants/group. More interesting and concerning, we found that a striking match of the data with a simple random-number generator...

What an incredible coincidence 😐

Neuroskeptic@neuroskeptic.bsky.social

👏👏👏

Nobel Prize@nobelprize.org

BREAKING NEWS The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

quantamagazine.orgIs AI the End of Math As We Know It? | Quanta MagazineMathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”

this is a thoughtful discussion of what the openAI release of 722 math papers may mean for math as a discipline. things are different in cog/neuro science but we too should be thinking about how widespread availability of AI tools will impact our field www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-the-en...

Matteo Lisi@mlisi.bsky.social

Ah, "the age of abundance" www.illposed.claims/posts/openai...

giorgio.gilest.roThe Weimar of knowledge – la bottega

more food for thought here: giorgio.gilest.ro/the-weimar-o...

quantamagazine.orgIs AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons? | Quanta MagazineThe idea that artificial intelligence can “reason” is more intuitive than ever. But intuitions can be wrong, and the science is far from settled.

Ah, "the age of abundance" www.illposed.claims/posts/openai...

Matteo Lisi reposted

David Ho

@davidho.bsky.social

12 Sept

I resigned from ExxonMobil today. I spent the last three years doing fossil fuel extraction research at both BP and ExxonMobil. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing to maximize extraction while the window to act closes, and gambling with our lives. More below.

Matteo Lisi reposted

Quanta Magazine

@quantamagazine.org

31 July

From this week’s Qualia column: “I’ll just say it: What the hell is going on with AI ‘reasoning’?” www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-reason...

Matteo Lisi reposted

Martin Modrák

@modrakm.bsky.social

17 July

Multiverse analysis, abdication of responsibility and manufacturing of doubt: I have written on some downsides I see with multiverse analysis (which I like in principle): arxiv.org/abs/2607.14623 I was inspired/provoked to write it by @dingdingpeng.the100.ci (thanks!)

Matteo Lisi reposted

Andreas Kirsch

@blackhc.bsky.social

14 July

I work at Google DeepMind. This won't make me popular. But it's all public reporting: 2014: DeepMind reportedly sold to Google on conditions: no military use, independent oversight 2026: a Pentagon contract for "any lawful government purpose" Not one safeguard survived intact

rousseeuwprize.orgThe Rousseeuw Prize for StatisticsThe Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics is a biennial prize to celebrate outstanding contributions to statistics research.

7 July

Opportunity to join a great team on our Leverhulme-funded project, where we'll apply cognitive science to antibiotic misuse and contribute to tackling antimicrobial resistance, one of the world's most pressing public health threats @rhulpsychology.bsky.social #PsychSciSky #academicsky 👇👇👇

Miroslav Sirota@miroslavsirota.bsky.social

We’re recruiting a postdoctoral researcher / Senior Research Officer to join our new project on antibiotic decision-making. Job details and application link: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSE155/s... The project is funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk Please share.

👏👏👏

The R Foundation@r-foundation.bsky.social

The 2026 Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics has been awarded to the R Project. #RStats www.rousseeuwprize.org/2026

nature.comConsciously detecting and recognizing a past visual word after its sensory trace is gone - Communications PsychologyThis series of studies shows that conscious detection and recognition of a word can be triggered retrospectively, even after its visual features are masked. This suggests that conscious access may be ...

11 June

New paper out ! 📣 Across a careful and extensive set of experiments spearheaded by @rimskyrobert.bsky.social, we show that conscious access to a word’s meaning can occur *without* access to its appearance or low-level sensory features. #PsychSciSky #neuroskyence @rhulpsychology.bsky.social

Communications Psychology@commspsychol.nature.com

New research Article in the journal by Daphné Rimsky Robert and colleagues: www.nature.com/articles/s44... (in Press) @rimskyrobert.bsky.social @clairesergent.bsky.social @mlisi.bsky.social

Matteo Lisi reposted

Stephan Lewandowsky

@lewan.uk

4 June

🧵 Thread: Does the internet threaten democracy? I argue that it does in my latest piece in Science: doi.org/10.1126/scie... Here's the short version. 1/9 1/10

doi.orgThe architecture of the internet creates risks for democracyWill democracy survive the internet? Do we need to choose between Facebook’s surveillance capitalism or democracy? Layered lines of evidence can inform questions like these. When considered together, the evidence gives rise to a concerning picture, as summarized in a recent report for the European Commission that I co-led.

Matteo Lisi reposted

Darren Dahly

@statsepi.bsky.social

3 June

"Upon closer inspection of the DAG, we realized we shouldn't have bothered with this study..."

Jeremy Labrecque@jeremylabrecque.bsky.social

As a course assignment, I had students rewrite the discussion section from an actual paper (using track changes) and incorporate information from a DAG and bias analyses they ran. Some of these are among the best discussion sections I've ever seen!

flipsnack.comLeverhulme Trust Newsletter – June 2026Flipsnack is a digital catalog maker that makes it easy to create, publish and share html5 flipbooks. Upload a PDF or design from scratch flyers, magazines, books and more.

29 May

Thrilled to be involved in this Leverhulme-funded project. The grant will also support a postdoc position at @rhulpsychology.bsky.social to apply signal detection theory modelling to antibiotic-related medical judgements. Stay tuned if this sounds like your kind of research!

Miroslav Sirota@miroslavsirota.bsky.social

We are very fortunate to have received generous funding from @leverhulme.ac.uk to investigate the psychology of antibiotic-related judgements. With @mlisi.bsky.social @mariejuanchich.bsky.social and @evakrockow.bsky.social More about the award here: www.flipsnack.com/leverhulmetr...

Matteo Lisi reposted

Royal Holloway Psychology

@rhulpsychology.bsky.social

8 May

Excited to announce the 2nd Graduate Summer School on Computational Decision Sciences (GSS-CDS) at RHUL! 📅 Sept 7–11, 2026 📍Stewart House, Central London Fee: £480 (includes lunch, breaks & events) Registration closes on June 15. center-decision-sciences.com/cds-graduate...

center-decision-sciences.comCDS Graduate Summer School 2026Program Registration Schedule Directions Home 7th – 11th September, 2026 The Center for Decision Sciences will host a Graduate Summer School during the second week of September, 2026 in Senat…

12 Mar

Whoops forgot the relevant feeds #PsychSciSky #neuroskyence A comment on Piray’s recent paper on low statistical power in computational modelling studies: Are computational modelling studies severely underpowered? I don’t think the current analyses justify that conclusion Thread + commentary 👇

Matteo Lisi@mlisi.bsky.social

This is an interesting paper on power in computational modelling, with several useful points. But I think the headline conclusion — that 60–80% of studies are underpowered — rests on a very specific effect-size assumption that is hard to justify and unlikely to be realistic in most cases. 1/5

Payam Piray@payampiray.bsky.social

Happy to share my new paper published in @nathumbehav.nature.com: A critical look at statistical power in computational modeling studies, particularly those based on model selection. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My point is not that the studies reviewed by Piray are well powered — they may well be underpowered. The point is that power analysis always depends on assumptions about how strongly one model is favoured in the population, and those assumptions need to be explicit.

Without explicit effect-size assumptions, power simulations are hard to interpret. And if those assumptions are poorly chosen, the resulting power estimates can be highly misleading. Commentary here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Payam Piray@payampiray.bsky.social

To illustrate this in this short commentary I propose an approach for sensitivity analysis: start from the empirical population model frequencies, then progressively attenuate them toward a uniform Dirichlet.

I applied this to 3 studies from Piray’s review (selected only due to availability of empirical Dirichlet params in public materials). Power remained high under substantial attenuation, only dropped to the low levels estimated by Piray under 90% attenuation of the empirical population preferences

theshamblog.comAn AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on MeSummary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

9 Mar

human-AI misalignment in the wild

Lisa DeBruine@debruine.bsky.social

WTF. I think I will make it explicit policy on my OS projects that bots cannot be contributors (sole or joint). They are tools, not contributors! theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

Matteo Lisi reposted

Eiko Fried

@eikofried.bsky.social

7 Jan

After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data. If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition. eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...

eiko-fried.comWARN-D machine learning competition is live » Eiko FriedIf you share one single thing of our team in 2026—on social media or per email with your colleagues—please let it be this machine learning competition. It was half a decade of work to get here, especi...

Matteo Lisi reposted

derek guy

@dieworkwear.bsky.social

21 Dec 2025

One day something will happen — a wedding, a graduation, a job promotion, Jake Paul getting knocked out, Andrew Tate getting knocked out the next day — and you’ll want the right outfit to celebrate. Buy that special outfit now, so you’re ready when that next unexpected moment arrives.

Matteo Lisi reposted

lucynoakes1.bsky.social

@lucynoakes1.bsky.social

11 Dec 2025

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Matteo Lisi reposted

Georgia Milne

@georgiamneuro.bsky.social

9 Dec 2025

@orisshenyan.bsky.social and me are happy to share our most recent preprint - we find that prior knowledge protects high-level perception from low-level visual deficits common in healthy ageing. @tessamdekker.bsky.social @mlisi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Matteo Lisi reposted

James Vincent

@jjvincent.bsky.social

8 Dec 2025

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

Matteo Lisi reposted

UCU Essex

@ucuessex.bsky.social

2 Dec 2025

It's official: 400 redundancies and a campus closure. At-risk staff will get a letter next week. Absolutely no serious consideration of any of the union's counterproposals. Please share widely.

Matteo Lisi reposted

Dariia Mykhailyshyna

@dariia.bsky.social

7 Nov 2025

❗️Our next workshop will be on Nov 13 6 pm CET titled Building & Customising Stat Models with Stan and R: Introduction to Bayesian Inference by @mlisi.bsky.social Register or sponsor a student by donating to support Ukraine! Details: bit.ly/3wBeY4S Please share! #AcademicSky #EconSky #RStats

jobs.royalholloway.ac.ukJob Opportunity at Royal Holloway University of London: Lecturer in Psychology (Research & Teaching)Full-time, PermanentApplications are invited for a post of Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, starting 1 April 2026. The post is open to ambitious, researc...

3 Nov 2025

We are hiring, come work with us! Please share widely 🙏 and do get in touch if you have questions about the Department Deadline: December 1st #neurojob #psychscisky #neuroskyence #VisionScience #academicsky

Royal Holloway Psychology@rhulpsychology.bsky.social

🚨We are looking for a scholar to join us as a lecturer (teaching & research contract, full-time, permanent), starting 1 April 2026! The application deadline is 1 December 2025. jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Matteo Lisi reposted

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)

@sundersays.bsky.social

24 Oct 2025

A very worrying escalation of online harassment. Somebody has used a video of me saying "racism in football is a game of two halves" + put a fake voiceover on it saying "what I would say to the girls of Rotherham is it is a game of two halves" x.com/EuropaIneffa...

x.comEuropa Ineffable on X: "In a recent panel at what looks like Labour conference, Sunder Katwala, wearing an England shirt, appeared to compare the R🦍 GANGS to a football match: "it's a game of two halves" 🥴 https://t.co/b5YNKyaQtu" / XIn a recent panel at what looks like Labour conference, Sunder Katwala, wearing an England shirt, appeared to compare the R🦍 GANGS to a football match

sites.google.comDariia Mykhailyshyna - Workshops for UkraineFeedback on the past workshops (if you want to learn how to make wordclouds, check out Text Data Analysis workshop below)

16 Oct 2025

I’ll be giving a 'Workshops for Ukraine' session on Building and Customising Statistical Models with Stan and R: An Introduction to Bayesian Inference — online on Nov 13. Open to all, with donations supporting Ukrainian organisations. 👉 sites.google.com/view/dariia-... #stats #rstats #statssky