Matt Davis

Fifty years ago, McGurk & MacDonald dubbed the sound /ba/ onto a face mouthing /ga/ & 'most' people heard /da/. For the effect’s 50th anniversary, we surveyed 37 researchers in AV speech & multisensory perception: does McGurk still deserve its iconic status? 🧵

🧵 Human language comprehension is remarkably robust, but it also breaks down in surprising ways. In this preprint, we argue that both can be explained by one theory: noisy-channel inference. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thank you to everyone who joined us for #SNL2026! 💙 We're already looking ahead to next year, and your feedback is essential to help us grow. 🙏🏽 Let us know what you loved and what we can improve - please check your inbox for the survey link!

📣 Inclusive electroencephalography – a tutorial and media resource 📣 We're proud to announce publication of a tutorial to help make EEG research more inclusive, co-produced with Black and Hijabi students. doi.org/10.3758/s134... @thechbh.bsky.social @uob-sop.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social

So they're at it again 🙄 Torturing valid HMRC data to create wildly misleading headlines, designed to invoke fear and anger about immigrants. Same old, same old... (and you'll see just how old shortly!) 🧵1/28

The economics Nobel was annouced today, and for the 30th straight year and maybe 75th time total, the prize went to people who were funded earlier in their career by the NSF economics program.

We’re hiring! Join my group at BCBL in San Sebastián for a funded 4-year PhD on how the brain learns and processes an additional language. MEG · speech modelling · Python · LLMs Deadline: 8 November 2026 www.bcbl.eu/eu/phd-posit...

Postdoc opening in my lab to work on NeuroAI approaches to improve prosthetic devices for human hearing. We offer a great training environment and strong mentorship. Prior expertise in machine learning and signal processing are essential. Apply here: careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

delighted to share my review article, out now in Trends in Cognitive Sciences! i have been thinking a lot about dynamics lately. this article outlines three key principles - persistence, parallelism, and time-stamped encoding - that support human speech comprehension 🧠✨🌀

Many strong Elman Prize candidates are never nominated simply because no one thought to do it. Please repost! Your share might reach the colleague who writes the letter. Deadline: Nov 18 👇

“I was flabbergasted that someone could take the time to generate a paper that I believe is fake,” Rastle told us.

Delighted to be welcomed to Geneva airport by @snlmtg.bsky.social

Hello E-DLD followers! Today's study aimed to investigate whether a jury’s opinions are different when they know that a defendant has DLD. Article summary: www.engage-dld.com/post/does-a-... Original article/Full text available at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #DevLangDis #DLD #Jury

So pleased to see this paper published. Great work from @gtmai1.bsky.social, Emily Upton, Holly Robson and their team at @uclpals.bsky.social

We're hiring! 2 postdocs + 3 PhD students to join InfantNeuroAI at Trinity College Dublin: awake infant fMRI & OPM-MEG, plus computational models of how infants learn. Aims: understand infant visual cognition, infant neuroimaging methods, more energy-efficient learning 🧵 www.cusacklab.org/vacancies

Do you work with production data? We have some updates for you. My students and I developed a tool that was accepted for publication in Behavior Research Methods. The tool is called: TAPA (Toolkit for Acoustic-Phonetic Analysis). Yes, the name is influenced by the tapas tradition. #speechscience

The advert for the Hatton Professorship of Sustainability is now out. A fantastic opportunity for someone with expertise in social psychology, behavioural science, etc, to help address the greatest threat of our age. Please share with anyone who might be interested! www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/hatton-...

Electrophysiological indices of hierarchical speech processing differentially reflect the comprehension of speech in noise https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42642328/

The Cognition Group in the Psychology dept at Exeter are at risk of redundancy because "basic cognitive psychology research does not align with the current priorities of funding bodies" If you think this is overtly wrong and misguided, please sign this open letter docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I was not informed by the BBC that they would have a right wing political figure or lobbyist on after me to rebut what I said. The individual in question went on to spout lies about China, etc. to distract attention from the Trump administration's assault on climate action. This is unacceptable.

📢📢📢 Neuroscientists and psychologists with kids Did your research interests change as a result of (or after) having kids? Would you mind telling me how/why if it has? Appreciate a repost for reach…

🔥 Published today, and just in time for summer conferences, here are your guidelines for presenting badly www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/fqa92

Wow! A record-breaking 688 abstracts have been submitted for #SNL2026! 🤯 As we finalize the review process, please hang tight - decisions will drop on June 29th. In the meantime, please join us in thanking our amazing Reviewers for their hard work! 🙏🏼

We would really appreciate a few more perspectives over the next week! 🙏 Please let us know what vocabulary support looks like in your classroom/school, and the kinds of challenges you encounter. #EduSky #edchat #secondaryschool tinyurl.com/UoYVocabular...

The criticism of Trump, Kennedy, and Bhattacharya that was so subversive that the ADA had to eject the Editor-in-Chief of their flagship journal from their annual meeting for sharing it? Prior today it had fewer than 1000 views. Do your thing.

Delighted to celebrate today @jvonseth.bsky.social from @mrccbu.bsky.social passing her PhD viva. Special thanks to examiners @olafhauk.bsky.social and @pattiadank.bsky.social for asking all the right questions

It’s actually on Friday 12th June - but an excellent change to join me in celebrating a fantastic researcher

Poster submissions for #SNL2026 are now officially open! Don't miss this chance to showcase your work and connect with colleagues in the field. 🗓️ Deadline: May 22 / 📣 Notifications: June 24 More info: 2026.neurolang.org/abstract-sub...

Hello followers! Today we have more information about the E-DLD event taking place on Friday 13th March, 10-11am with Professor Saloni Krishnan from UCL Don’t miss out! Sign up for your free ticket today: e-dld.ticketbud.com/cognitive-an... #DevLangDis #DLD #Event

Please tell friends & colleagues about our unique course “Genetics & Neurobiology of Language” July 27-Aug 3 2026. Expert tutors, interactive talks, panel discussions, all in a beautiful setting. Scholarships available: meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx... @cshlnews.bsky.social @cshlbanbury.bsky.social

1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

Cutaneous alternating current stimulation can cause a phasic modulation of speech perception https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41617605/

Thank you to everyone who attended, presented and helped organise #EPSLondon 2026! EPS meetings are coming up fast in 2026, with the next to be held at Newcastle University between Monday 30th March – Wednesday 1st April. Portals open on Monday 12th January, 10am UK time! eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/

This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!

Season's Greetings! From all at the MRC CBU 🎄☃️🎅

New 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...

Modulating speech tracking through brain state-dependent changes in audio loudness https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41435423/

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of York, York, UK The Research Associate would be working on a project funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), examining multilingual language control and use in younger and older adults. Application deadline: 31 August 2025.

The AI Con: In Conversation with Prof. Emily M. Bender Wednesday 16 July, 18:00–19:30 Computer Laboratory, Cambridge Will new technology help make the world better, or is AI just another tech bubble that benefits the few? Register now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-ai-con...

Excited for CBU post-doc James Webb who will demonstrate eye-tracking methods for studying speech understanding at Science Night. Come and see webcam eye-tracking with WebGazer supported by @gorillapsych.bsky.social

Join us tomorrow (19 March from 6pm) at the MRC CBU for our 'Science Night' open evening. We have a fantastic line up of speakers talking on various topics of interest in cognition and neuroscience research! Event details: www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/events/scien...

1 week to go! ‘Inside the Mind: Exploring the Human Brain’ on Wednesday 19 March from 6pm. Enjoy hands-on activities, tours of Unit facilities and excellent short talks @mrccbu.bsky.social Full details: mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/events/scien... @cambridgefestival.bsky.social

Hello Bluesky community, we’re new here! Cambridge Language Sciences is a virtual interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Cambridge. Follow us to stay updated on all things language sciences – events, funding, research, news, and more. Website: www.languagesciences.cam.ac.uk

The International #CognitiveDevelopment Seminar Series continues in February with Dr Nadine Gaab (Harvard University) discussing "The Typical and Atypical Reading Brain." Don’t miss it—join us on 4th February! 🌟 Sign up: lnkd.in/eVERArbw details about the series: lnkd.in/ebQz_fXd

Past BNA President, John Aggleton, has published a remarkable book dedicated to his late son, who passed away from a brain tumour. In honour of this, all royalties from the book will be donated to @braintumourrsch.bsky.social 20% discount from Routledge in January. routledge.com/Memory-and-t...