Graham Flick

Graham Flick

@grahamflick.bsky.social

Postdoctoral Fellow | Faculty of Computer Science | Dalhousie University 🇨🇦 Studying neural oscillations, meaning and memory https://sites.google.com/view/grahamflick

382 followers405 following22 posts

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

This association was observable between- and within-participants, and the resulting neural representational fidelity, upon the first fixation on an image, predicted participants’ subsequent memory for that stimulus!

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Altogether, this suggests that saccade phase-locking leads to more accurate neural representations of visual experiences, which in turn support the formation of veridical episodic memories. Interested in how these processes play out in even more naturalistic visual experiences? Stay tuned!

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Here, we asked WHY this memory encoding benefit arises, with the hypothesis that it’s due to a more effective visual sampling process. In other words, that phase-locked saccades lead to better fidelity neural representations of visual content, from which the memories are formed.

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Using representational similarity analysis time-locked to saccades, we found evidence in support of this hypothesis. When saccades were phase-locked to alpha oscillations, they resulted in higher fidelity neural representations of the images that the eyes landed on, during the fixation.

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Past research had suggested when saccades are synchronized – or phase-locked – with neural oscillations in the alpha band, the brain more effectively forms memories from visual experiences.

Graham Flick reposted

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Memory might depend on when you look, not just what you see Happy to share a new preprint from my postdoctoral work with Jed Meltzer, @drjenryan.bsky.social, and @rosannaolsen.bsky.social Paper: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

doi.orgPhase-locking saccades to posterior alpha oscillations improves the neural representation of visual objects during memory formationVisual memory formation begins with the intake and neural processing of discrete samples provided by gaze fixations and saccades. Past research has highlighted a functional relationship between the ti...
Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Using combined MEG and eye-tracking, we report new evidence suggesting that when eye movements are phase-locked to alpha oscillations in neural activity, the brain can better process and represent the visual objects that the eyes land on, supporting their encoding in memory.

Graham Flick reposted

SCONe - Scottish-EU Critical Oscillations Network
@scone-neuro.bsky.social

/1 We took our sweet time (~3yrs) to put this into its final shape - but happy to say that the pre-print of an extensive review of brain rhythms in cognition - from a cognruro perspective - is now available. Please let us know what you think. #neuroskyence doi.org/10.48550/arX...

doi.orgBrain rhythms in cognition -- controversies and future directionsBrain rhythms seem central to understanding the neurophysiological basis of human cognition. Yet, despite significant advances, key questions remain unresolved. In this comprehensive position paper, w...

Graham Flick reposted

Joel Voss
@vosstacular.bsky.social

Major team effort on phase-locked stim of human hippocampal theta rhythms finally out in the wild! W/ @jkragel.bsky.social @alikwidge.bsky.social and a cast of many. Thanks to the BRAIN Initiative for making it possible. rdcu.be/ej7VE

rdcu.beClosed-loop control of theta oscillations enhances human hippocampal network connectivityNature Communications - Closed-loop brain stimulation of the human hippocampal theta rhythm produces lasting enhancement of network communication. This implicates theta rhythms in human hippocampal...

Graham Flick reposted

Liina Pylkkänen
@liinapy.bsky.social

During natural reading with eye movements, the left posterior fusiform cortex reflects both fixated and upcoming words in parallel—and distinguishes whether an upcoming word is skipped or fixated. A new preprint from Graham Flick @grahamflick.bsky.social!

Graham Flick@grahamflick.bsky.social

Very happy to share a preprint from the final project of my PhD with @liinapy.bsky.social! Reading ahead: localized neural signatures of parafoveal word processing and skipping decisions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgReading ahead: Localized neural signatures of parafoveal word processing and skipping decisionsVisual reading proceeds fixation-by-fixation, with individual words recognized and integrated into evolving conceptual representations within only hundreds of milliseconds. This relies, in part, on in...
Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

What about word skipping? Here, we examined parafoveal processing of words that were skipped vs. fixated. This revealed widespread parafoveal effects of frequency and surprisal before skipping, with significantly larger effects preceding skipped words in the left fusiform and middle temporal gyri

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

These results suggest that during visual reading, word recognition and integration begin parafoveally, underpinned by the left occipito-temporal system. AND this system appears to be the first port of call where word processing may rapidly exert downstream influences on eye movement behaviours.

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Matching past work, 2 properties significantly influenced fixation durations: a given word's frequency and it's surprisal in the current context. Next, we asked where and when these properties influenced neural activity, time-locked to fixation onsets

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

We identified putative generators of these influences in left occipito-temporal and ventral temporal areas. These effects began in posterior areas during parafoveal word processing and shifted anteriorly when the word was fixated.

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

As a visual reader moves their eyes across this sentence, they will linger on certain words longer than others, and skip some entirely. How does the brain make these decisions, based on the incoming linguistic input, in tens or hundreds of milliseconds?

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

To try to answer this, we recorded brain activity and eye movements with simultaneous MEG and eye-tracking, while participants naturally read short stories. This allowed us to analyze neural activity time-locked to more than 22k gaze fixations

Graham Flick reposted

Alex White
@alexlw.bsky.social

Attention PhD grads looking for research and teaching jobs! Barnard College in NYC is hiring "Faculty Fellows." It's a 2-year mentored position that requires 2 courses/year (or equivalent) and research in one of our labs. Due April 20th. More info: barnard.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Faculty/job/...

barnard.wd1.myworkdayjobs.comBarnard Early-Career Faculty Fellow, Neuroscience & BehaviorIf you are a current Barnard College employee, please use the internal career site to apply for this position. Job: Barnard Early-Career Faculty Fellow, Neuroscience & Behavior Job Summary: With B...
Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Nice study showing that memories for new speech + hand movement associations are linked to the specific words they were learned with, suggesting that "...word or gesture production might reactivate an entire co-speech gesture memory engram"

Dan Lametti@daniellametti.com

New paper out in Psych Bulletin & Review with @thelablab.bsky.social: "Memories of hand movements are tied to speech through learning". Featuring the hard work of two former Acadiau.ca undergrads—Gina Vaillancourt and Maura Whitman. link.springer.com/article/10.3...

link.springer.comMemories of hand movements are tied to speech through learning - Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewHand movements frequently occur with speech. The extent to which the memories that guide co-speech hand movements are tied to the speech they occur with is unclear. Here, we paired the acquisition of ...

Graham Flick reposted

Kate Nussenbaum
@katenuss.bsky.social

I'm hiring a full-time lab manager / research tech for my new psychology lab at Boston University, to start this summer (July 2025)! The lab's research focuses on understanding developmental changes in learning, memory, and exploration. More details here: cldlab.org/join/ 🧠💻 #psychscisky

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Opportunity to join a really great group!

Pablo Ripollés@pripolles.bsky.social

We have an open position for a full time junior research scientist to work at the Ripollés and Fuentes labs at MARL in the context of an NIH project. The position starts in January/February 2025, is full time, and based in NYC.

Graham Flick reposted

Nadine Dijkstra
@nadinedijkstra.bsky.social

JOB ALERT: We are recruiting a research assistant in the Imagine Reality Lab to work on a project using MEG decoding to distinguish between different theories of consciousness 🧠 Get in touch if you have any questions about the role's scientific details. Please share! 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).
Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Had a lot of fun teaching this workshop on simultaneous MEG and eye-tracking yesterday!

Rosanna Olsen@rosannaolsen.bsky.social

Earlier today post doc @grahamflick.bsky.social showed off how he has mastered the collection, temporal coregistration, and analysis of MEG and eye-tracking data, no easy feat! 🧠〰️👀🔗 Very excited to address new questions about how eye movements relate to memory formation!

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Not so "new" anymore but still here at the Rotman and the University of Toronto Data Sciences Institute, interested in all things memory, language, aging, and MEG/eye-tracking! 👋

Graham Flick@grahamflick.bsky.social

Hi folks, I'm a new PhD from NYU and now a postdoc at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto 🇨🇦 My research examines memory, language, and aging using MEG & eye-tracking, MRI, and behavioral methods 🧠

Graham Flick reposted

Simon Eickhoff
@sbe.bsky.social

Finally out 🎉 - our meta-analysis of 403 neuroimaging studies on language (1/3) In addition to providing robust evidence on the engagement of classical language regions during language tasks, we also investigated the processing of linguistic subdomains: semantics, syntax, phonology and pragmatics!

Graham Flick
@grahamflick.bsky.social

Hi folks, I'm a new PhD from NYU and now a postdoc at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto 🇨🇦 My research examines memory, language, and aging using MEG & eye-tracking, MRI, and behavioral methods 🧠

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