Ishan Singhal

#consci

Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge | Quanta Magazine New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial la...

The astrocyte reckoning is nigh!
www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought...

Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...

🧵

#consci

Ph.D. Programme in Philosophy - Ashoka University The PhD in Philosophy programme conforms to all Ashoka PhD programme guidelines. Additional guidelines specific to the Philosophy PhD programme […]

We're starting a PhD programme in Philosophy at Ashoka! Anyone can apply by April 15 for admission this year, and we will ensure that admitted applicants receive enough funding to support them for the 5 year programme. More info here:
www.ashoka.edu.in/programme/ph...

15 yrs since we published this, but some scholars still define (animal) colour vision as just wavelength discrimination independently of intensity. Colour vision requires having vision - and this means seeing an image in which things have colour properties.

PhD Scholarship

My Centre is a unique place to do a PhD in Philosophy, because you can be in constant contact with experts in veterinary medicine, psychology, zoology and policy and be part of a team united by a shared interest in animal minds. We now have our 1st ever PhD scholarship: www.lse.ac.uk/sentience/phd

anyway, it’s very weird that subjective phenomenology turns out to be the area of psychology that’s most amenable to quantitative theorizing and replicable results

If you happen to be in Oxford on Monday, I'll be speaking in @oxexppsy.bsky.social about my recent research on cognition and emotions navigating the Marshall Islands: @oxexppsy.bsky.social

www.psy.ox.ac.uk/events

Is this volleyball sentient? Many lonely castaways feel they're talking to a real person. Scientists say it's time to consider whether they're on to something.

The International Association for Philosophy of Time (IAPT) is pleased to announce its 11th annual conference to be held at Yamaguchi University, Japan, on 25th–27th July 2026.

Call for abstracts: www.philtimesociety.com/calls-for-pa...

#consci

#consci

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.

My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

a project I really like, now officially out!

"Shape Guides Visual Pretense"

by Qian and me

paper link: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

I'll walk through a quick version here

To get a sense of it, first consider:

Would it make more sense to pretend that this block is a car, or a strawberry?

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would naturally yield better models of biological vision. However, we present accumulating evidence that this alignment is now plateauing – and in some cases worsening – as DNNs scale to human or even superhuman accuracy. This divergence between artificial and biological perception may reflect the acquisition of visual strategies distinct from those of primates, and these findings challenge the view that advances in AI will naturally translate to progress in neuroscience. We argue that vision science must chart its own course, developing algorithms grounded in biological visual systems rather than optimizing for internet data.

Online Now: Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

In continuing with this tradition of cataloguing failures to balance social media feeds, here goes for 2025.

New manuscript submissions: 0
Failed attempts at dissertation awards: 2
Conference/workshop rejections: 2
Rejected book proposals: 1
Failed journal editor applications: 1

A new year awaits!

Computational Neurophenomenology in a cabin in the alps! March 22-29, supported by my @erc.europa.eu grant #CONSCIOUS & organised by @singhal.bsky.social @robertchisciure.bsky.social & team. Application deadline extended until *December 28*. Pls spread word: www.uni-bamberg.de/en/bamxi/res...

In the spirit of winter holidays, the deadline has been extended to 28th December!

Last chance to apply to join the Consciousness Cabin workshop ..

#consci #neuroskyence #visionresearch #philsky

"About 40% of voxels with significant BOLD signal changes during various tasks showed reversed oxygen metabolism, particularly in the default mode network... Our findings challenge the canonical interpretation of the BOLD signal" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41402521/ A BOLD challenge #fmri

More than half of researchers now use AI for peer review — often against guidance A survey of 1,600 academics found that more than 50% have used artificial-intelligence tools while peer reviewing manuscripts.

Just decline the peer review invitation.

What are you people even doing?

PhD Studentship: Social Learning of Metacognition and Awareness at Birkbeck, University of London jobs.ac.uk now advertising a PhD Studentship: Social Learning of Metacognition and Awareness Visit jobs.ac.uk to apply and to browse more PhD opportunities.

I've got a fully-funded PhD studentship open at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social, investigating social learning about metacognition & awareness, w/ behavioural studies & neuroimaging (fMRI) - thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk

More details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPV831/p...

#cogsci #neuroskyence

A reminder for sending in your applications:

Deadline approaching! (20th December)

The Groningen Spring school on Cognitive Modeling is back! Join us from March 30th-April 2nd, 2026! www.ai.rug.nl/springschool/

The first school to market itself as AI free is going to corner the market on people interested in actually learning. And I would not be surprised if rich families and the children of people creating this tech were the first movers.

A big thank you to @anilseth.bsky.social for supporting this workshop via an ERC grant (CONSCIOUS), and to both BAMΞ and AMCS for invaluable infrastructural support :D

The workshop is co-organized by @robertchisciure.bsky.social @annaeiserbeck.bsky.social @kathrynnave.bsky.social @quantummoxie.bsky.social @johanneskleiner.bsky.social and me!

We're very happy to announce another consciousness workshop in the famed snowy mountain cabin of the Austrian Alps! ❄️🦇

This year's theme is computational neurophenomenology (broadly defined)

Applications are now open!

www.uni-bamberg.de/en/bamxi/res...

Officially out in the current issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences:

"Physics versus graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition"

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

#consci