Massimo Grassi

We are back! 🎉 Cognitive Science Arena 2026 📍 Brixen-Bressanone (IT) 📅 February 5–7 📢 Call for papers: docs.google.com/document/d/1... Join Us! After the mighty @michelenuijten.bsky.social , this year’s smart talk will be given by the legendary Open Science black belt: Zoltan Dienes! 🥋 RT RT RT

So… we just found out that GPT sol can complete a complex online behavioral/cognitive study producing nearly indistinguishable behavior and subjective reports… right as we are about to launch. Is this doomsday for online cognitive testing?

Check out this commentary recently published in AMPPS (journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...), a discussion of the findings in Grassi et al related to musical training short-term memory. The interesting part: It's written BY THE AUTHORS, with differing views on the same set of results. Luv this one.

🙌🙌🤟🤟Yeah!🤟🤟🙌🙌

🙌🙌🤟🤟Yeah!🤟🤟🙌🙌

Being part of a multilab study with >100 authors is very cool, but having a co-authored paper with almost everyone in our field does limit potential reviewer options 😂 @masssimo006.bsky.social @francescatalamini.bsky.social - do you have this problem yet? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Rolf Zwaan is starting a new podcast 'As it Happens', following a large-scale psychology research project, where labs around the world collaborate to study human memory. (I am one of the collaborators). The first episode is out! shows.acast.com/research-as-...

Here is why I have started a podcast that takes us inside big team science. open.substack.com/pub/rolfzwaa...

Music Ensemble: a large dataset on musicianship, cognition, and personality in musicians and nonmusicians | Scientific Data www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sometimes I remember that I have a bluesky account ;) I'm very happy to share our last paper, investigating how cognitive skills relate to different levels of musical expertise: url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article... @cesarflima.bsky.social @masssimo006.bsky.social

Learning to play a musical instrument is often assumed to improve brain functioning & cognition. To test this, a new #RSOS study compared non-musicians, amateur & professional #musicians: doi.org/10.1098/rsos... @francescatalamini.bsky.social @cesarflima.bsky.social @masssimo006.bsky.social

Do Musicians Have Better Short-Term Memory Than Non-musicians? Anne-Caclin, Ragnya-Norasoa Souffiane, et Marie-Elisabeth Plasse from the PAM team contributed to this multilab study ! @francescatalamini.bsky.social @masssimo006.bsky.social

I'm reading an old, classic psychoacoustic experiment (N=3). It is written by 3 authors, and 2 are also subjects. In the procedure authors write: "Subjects [...] were encouraged to "bracket" the match before making the final adjustment". I'm wondering how authors were encouraging themselves.

Check out this really cool multilab project about the difference in short-term memory between musicians and non-musicians! By @masssimo006.bsky.social, @francescatalamini.bsky.social, and researchers from 33 institutions around the world.

Fantastic display of collaboration in #musicpsych!!

Finally, our 4-year long project has been published! We have conducted a multi-lab study comparing STM of musicians and nonmusicians, collecting many other cognitive, personality, musical, and demographic variables! A big thank you to all collaborators! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Does this happen in your country (Italy here)? Do you receive communications from the head of the university that include sentences such as "working actively for the continuous improvement of" teaching, research or dissemination. Which is usually translated into a set of nonsense numerical indexes?

Updating my LEGO White House

😃 to share this new @plos.org Medicine 📄 written in collaboration with the super cool @kahin-tai.bsky.social (from the super cool @sharectd.bsky.social doctoral network), Gérard Legoff, @annelelouarn.bsky.social & @synthymama.bsky.social.

Have a paper ready for peer review? Consider sending it to PCI Psychology! We are a preprint recommendation platform and recommended papers can be easily submitted to 20+ PCI Psych friendly journals! See all friendly journals here: psych.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_fr... #PsychSciSky #SciPub

The paper mill probably forgot to include several sections in the paper, including the data and results. The Methods section mentions a survey that is never described in the paper. Immediately after the methods section comes the conclusion. Yet, the paper was still published.

A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸 How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data. www.science.org/content/arti...

Little stat I update every now and then (source Scopus). In psychology only we published 33575 papers about COVID-19. I think it is about time we begin to read these papers.

My cat has a rather peculiar habit. He pees in his litter box and then cleans the area outside it. I have to admit, his method is surprisingly efficient. He cleans so well that I’ve never found the slightest trace of pee outside the box

You just don’t expect random philosophical questions at the supermarket.

For those working with headphones and that need precise intensity level. Calibrate your equipment often, and replace it regularly! I just measured the output of the headphones of the lab and... well, I'm buying a new pair of headphones 😬

A quick reminder to all those who care about open research to consider joining us for the FOR2026 Conference in the Future of Open Research at the Technical University of Munich in May 4-6, 2026! Deadline for paper and poster proposals: 30 September opensciencestudies.eu/for-2026-con...

📣 Save the date for the 12th PCI webinar on September 18, 2025, at 4 PM CET!! Dorothy Bishop (@deevybee.bsky.social) will present "Editors matter: How negligent publishers subvert quality control in scientific publishing ". For more details and registration, visit:

One small step and it is done. Just one more small step. What a journey!

G*Power. Unbelievable. Every time I read a power analysis calculated with G*Power, no matter the input values, the output is invariably N=24. Is that software calculating anything or is just returning a fixed output?

Using gen AI to do peer reviews for you is unethical. Trying to game peer review with hidden AI prompts is also unethical. And putting papers on arxiv that still have those prompts embedded is also just incredibly stupid. Uuuuuugh. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/t...

My routine. Wake up before the rest of the family, lay down on the sofa, play the sudoku of the day.

Come sta la Psicologia? Una conversazione con Carlo Umiltà (2017) neuropsicolab.blogspot.com/2017/01/come...

Oggi è un giorno molto triste perché ci lascia Carlo Umiltà e la gratitudine e gli insegnamenti sono il sicuro conforto. www.mattinopadova.it/cronaca/mort...

Just learned that Carlo Umiltà has passed away — a giant of Italian neuroscience 🧠 I was lucky to learn from him during my PhD (not my advisor, but a regular presence in the lab).