Uta Frith

Autism-ness Does Not Exist, but Autism Does. Part 1: A Critic of the “Spectrum” Position Used to Describe, Diagnose, and Research Autism, and Its Alternative
By Mottron et al.
doi: 10.1177/23969415251404764

Some inconvenient truths about the dimensional (vs categorical) concept of autism.

Super-interesting.

Idyllic

A step towards biomarkers for ADHD.
doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.0001
Mapping ADHD Heterogeneity and Biotypes by Topological Deviations in Morphometric Similarity Networks

...Results of this case-control study reveal ... 3 distinct ADHD biotypes with unique clinical-neural profiles.

Avalanches of choice: How stranger-to-stranger interactions shape crowd dynamics | PNAS Pedestrian routing choices play a crucial role in shaping collective crowd dynamics, yet the influence of interactions among unfamiliar individuals...

Very cool paper relevant to social imitation www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants Learners rely on a combination of experience-independent and experience-dependent mechanisms to extract information from the environment. Language acquisition involves both types of mechanisms, but mo...

This paper is a model of clarity! It successfully argues that innately biased language learning mechanisms are more plausible than innate language knowledge.
Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Newborn Infants Selectively Attend to Points That Refer to Objects Recognizing that certain acts are communicative is a key requirement of the development of communicative skills. Newborn infants have been shown to selectively respond to certain ostensive cues, incl...

This is great. I love to see evidence for 'factory settings' of cognitive mechanisms that enable learning.
Newborn Infants Selectively Attend to Points That Refer to Objects - Geraci - 2026 - Developmental Science - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Toddlers expect ingroup loyalty to override personal preferences when outgroups are present | PNAS When outgroups are present, adults may endorse ingroup choices that are at odds with their personal preferences, in an outward show of ingroup loya...

An exciting advance in developmental psychology! Toddlers expect ingroup loyalty to override personal preferences when outgroups are present | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Are health influencers making us sick? Social media can help to raise awareness of health conditions — but the wealth of dubious information online might do more harm than good.

This review is so good, it makes me eager to recommend this book by Deborah Cohen:
Are health influencers making us sick? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Just what is needed today.

A 19th century photo portrait of a woman wearing a dark garment, with a lace collar and a subtle smile, in a black and white with an oval frame.

Born #OnThisDay in 1821 was Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the USA and the first woman on the medical register in the UK. She was a committed social reformer and helped found the London School of Medicine for Women. #WomenInSTEM

❄️🎣 What ice-fishing competitions reveal about human decision-making. New paper in @science.org by researchers from @mpib-berlin.bsky.social, @scioi.bsky.social, and the University of Eastern Finland.

👉 Read more: www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/newsroom/new...

📄 Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reality Is a Shared Hallucination—And It’s at Risk of Collapsing, Scientist Claims When that happens, it can lead to some truly disturbing outcomes.

A recent interview with Chris Frith @cdfrith.bsky.social
www.popularmechanics.com/science/a700...

Unlocking thermal energy: capture, storage and re-use of industrial waste heat | Royal Society This report from the Royal Society explores how industrial waste heat can be captured, stored, transported and re-used.

Industrial heating accounts for around 14% of UK emissions, yet approximately half of the energy used in UK industry is lost as waste heat. Capturing and re-using this could help decarbonise industry, reduce energy demand and more. Read the full report here: royalsociety.org/news-resourc...

Hmm, interesting and a bit disturbing too.

A very important review.

Professor Maggie Snowling on rethinking reading disorders We caught up with the presenter -  Prof. Maggie Snowling, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Oxford and Research Fellow at St John's College - about her career, the topic, and her h...

Dyslexia isn’t just about reading and writing. Prof Maggie Snowling explains how reading disorders originate in the language system, and why many children also struggle with oral language.

Read the full blog to learn more. https://bit.ly/4qr5SlY

Painted in 1913, Paul Nash gave this picture the ultimate simplicity of a title, 'A Drawing.' The elm trees marked the boundary of his family's home at Wood Lane House, Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. Trees always held a spiritual quality for him.

Development of Uncertainty Sensitivity: Early Competence or Protracted Development? The development of uncertainty sensitivity, a critical cognitive ability, presents a challenging paradox: Some evidence points to its emergence in infancy, whereas other evidence indicates much late.....

A very neat experiment that uncovers developmental differences: Development of Uncertainty Sensitivity: Early Competence or Protracted Development? - Wan & Sloutsky 2026 - Developmental Science - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.

Great to see that someone decided to make a difference in putting quality over quantity and promoting slow science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There are different causes for under-confidence and different remedies.

Why morning light is so important | The Royal Society YouTube video by The Royal Society

Good to watch this video on a day like today.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDM...

Put pressure on publishers to follow best practice — external regulation is the answer Journals that work hard to meet the needs of both authors and readers should be acknowledged publicly — encouraging others to follow suit.

“I propose academic journals submit to independent regulation through an international quality-management standard. Organisations must demonstrate operations are customer-focused, committed to continual improvement, underpinned by systematic management approaches & evidence-based decision-making”

EU’s Horizon scheme boosts UK research quality, report finds

Shared exclusively with us ahead of its publication, the DSIT report evaluates the UK’s performance in an earlier EU funding programme, Horizon 2020

It also highlights disruption to UK researchers’ participation following Brexit

One of the rare studies that tries to relate ToM performance with real life social interaction.
The Impact of Theory of Mind on Real‐Time Social Interactions and Momentary Social Anxiety: A Comparison Between Young Autistic and Neurotypical Children - Chen onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Abnormal Developmental Trajectories in the Brain in Individuals With Reading Disability It is unknown how the brain supports reading development in individuals with reading disability (RD). In a cross-sectional study (i.e., children, adolescents, adults), we found an age-related shift ...

Interesting brain changes in Chinese readers.
Abnormal Developmental Trajectories in the Brain in Individuals With Reading Disability - Yan - 2026 - Developmental Science onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

French natural philosopher and mathematician Émilie du Châtelet was born #OnThisDay in 1706. Her 'Institutions de Physique' caused debate throughout Europe, and her translation of Newton's 'Principia Mathematica' is still considered the standard translation in France.

#WomenInSTEM

Dissociating underlying components of pragmatics: a most promising basis for research into communication difficulties.

Three distinct components of pragmatic language use: Social conventions, intonation, and world knowledge–based causal reasoning | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Pleasing picture and interesting to compare with the work of Anna Ancher currently on show at Dulwich Picture Gallery www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/ann...

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Winter Carols by Candlelight @ConwayHall
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