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John Henderson

@jmhenderson.bsky.social

2.8K followers 780 following 270 posts

songwriter & musician, cognitive scientist, runner, cyclist, Californian, not necessarily in that order, @ucdavis and @spotify https://linktr.ee/johnhenderson_aces38

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Nov 13

And on my musical side... Really flattered by this review of my newly released EP with Kimberly Collins. I think the reviewer really got what we were going for with these songs. www.unxigned.com/reviews/ep-r...

EP Review: John Henderson and Lemonhead - Sing Me to Sleep | UNXIGNED

An acoustic EP that stirs the soul, wrapping listeners in the warmth of folk simplicity and the rawness of lyrical honesty.

www.unxigned.com

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Reposted by John Henderson

Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 3d

When Republicans are pre-butting a pro-democracy rally like No Kings and making shit up left and right to scare people, you know they're losing and in panic mode.

Pedal to the floor.

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 3d

I just realized that Octavia Butler's classic novel "The Parable of the Sower" takes place way off in the future... in 2025.

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 5d

I'm a psychologist. I know this test. It isn't hard unless you have cognitive deficit. The vast majority of people get a perfect score. I don't understand why the media don't call this out.

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Reposted by John Henderson

@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 6d

This right here is Trump's ultimate goal: staying in power

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Pritzker: "He wants to militarize major cities because he wants us to get used to the idea of troops on the streets. I believe he's gonna post people outside of polling places and if he needs to in order to control those elections, he'll assume control of the ballot boxes & count the votes himself"

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 11d

Check out the new John Henderson and Lemonhead song Renewed, now streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. Cover art by Julian! open.spotify.com/album/2fTlgp...

Renewed

open.spotify.com

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 11d

“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM" -- Gavin Newsom

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 11d

Here's the assignment folks. Write op-eds for your local papers and campus newspapers too. Just. Say. No. This is a classic authoritarian move and risks the future of higher education and science and innovation in the US. Speak out today. No time to lose. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 20d

this is good for UCLA, good for the entire University of California, and good for all US universities

Blake Emerson @blakeprof.bsky.social · 20d

UCLA’s funds reinstated after yesterday’s court order! Thanks to the brave researchers and their amazing counsel, including Dean Chemerinsky, who brought suit. This is just another turn in the ongoing fight, but a great result for now.

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 20d

I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting, and... no rapture. It did rain though.

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 22d

This was a fun study to work on. Congrats Karina, great to see it in print!

Fernanda Ferreira @fernandaedi.bsky.social · 22d

New paper: We argue that linearization in language production is a foraging process, with speakers navigating semantic and spatial clusters. Lead author: Karina Tachihara, former UC Davis postdoc, now faculty at UIUC!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Planning to be incremental: Scene descriptions reveal meaningful clustering in language production

How do speakers plan complex descriptions and then execute those plans? In this work, we attempt to answer this question by asking subjects to describ…

www.sciencedirect.com

Reposted by John Henderson

Senator Scott Wiener @scottwiener.bsky.social · 28d

The more Trump tears things down — especially on public health & science — the more California will step up to take care of business at the state level. Trump is destroying the CDC & making it harder for people to get vaccines. So California is picking up the slack — now moving toward our own CDC!

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · 28d

Happy Pythagorean Triple Square Day!

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Sep 12

Thanks to Kev Rowe for including my new single The "Prouder They Are" on his spotify and apple music Acoustic Overnight playlist open.spotify.com/playlist/0lK...

Acoustic Overnight

open.spotify.com

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Sep 12

New single just dropped! It's a song about the hubris among us. You can hear me sing, with a special guest on backing vocals 🥰 I'm posting the spotify link here but it's streaming wherever you listen to music. Search for The Prouder They Are and my name. open.spotify.com/album/1X0R1p...

The Prouder They Are

open.spotify.com

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Sep 8

**For academic followers. Musicians can ignore** My department at UC Davis is recruiting this year in cognition. Send your best students and postdocs our way, and please spread the word! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

Assistant Professor of Psychology - Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience

University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ucdavis.edu

Reposted by John Henderson

Adi Upadhyayula @adibuoy23.bsky.social · Sep 3

1/ 🚨 Preprint alert!
How does the brain make sense of continuous experience?
We find that continuous experiences can be compressed using a subset of key moments that dominate comprehension and recall.
👉 https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 28

These people are very brave and deserve our support.

Jeremy Faust, MD @jeremyfaust.bsky.social · Aug 28

Massive walkout underway at CDC.

RFK jr. must resign so that we can be safe.

Reposted by John Henderson

Demetre Daskalakis @drdemetre.bsky.social · Aug 28

Enough is enough. The health of the country is in danger. Read our resignation letters: insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-n...

Breaking News: Read three top CDC officials' resignation emails.

The end of an era.

insidemedicine.substack.com

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 25

Our new paper using transformers to understanding scene semantics has finally dropped in Open Mind. Fully open access. #cognition #percepton (If you follow me for music you can ignore this one.) direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

DeepMeaning: Estimating and Interpreting Scene Meaning for Attention Using a Vision-Language Transformer

Abstract. Humans rapidly process and understand real-world scenes with ease. Our stored semantic knowledge gained from experience is thought to be central to this ability by organizing perceptual info...

direct.mit.edu

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 25

wow, this looks amazing!

Reposted by John Henderson

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 25

Today, courageous FEMA staff members sent the Katrina Declaration to the FEMA "leadership" and others.

Sign on it support of these folks committed to the FEMA mission for all of us.

www.standupforscience.net/fema-katrina...

@standupforscience.bsky.social

Support the FEMA Katrina Declaration Now! — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE

www.standupforscience.net

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 20

Our new single Summer Morning just dropped! This is an introspective folk song capturing the quiet struggle to find peace in the present while your mind is still haunted by the past. Streaming everywhere. #indiefolk #indie #originalmusic #acoustic #folk #americana open.spotify.com/album/2fTDpy...

Summer Morning

John Henderson · Single · 2025 · 1 songs

open.spotify.com

John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 20

Gypsies, tramps, and thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town
They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves
But every night all the men would come around
And lay their money down

Reposted by John Henderson

Office of Mayor Michelle Wu 吳弭 @mayorwu.boston.gov · Aug 19

Last week, Boston received a letter from AG Bondi threatening to prosecute officials and withhold funds unless we cooperate with carrying out mass deportations.

The US Attorney General asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.

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John Henderson @jmhenderson.bsky.social · Aug 19

Yup, if you search google scholar for vection you'll find research about it. It also works in car washes where your car sits still and the large brushes all move in one direction. Astronauts apparently suffer from the illusion a lot.

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Reposted by John Henderson

Blake Emerson @blakeprof.bsky.social · Aug 15

🚨 150 University of California law professors (and counting) have now signed this open letter to the UC Regents and other officials, explaining the flagrant illegality of the Trump Administration’s UCLA funding cut offs, and urging the UC to fight back. sites.google.com/view/uclawfa...

Dear President Milliken, Regents, and Governor Newsom,
As faculty members of University of California law schools, we endorse Governor Newsom's commitment to resist the Trump Administration's unlawful actions taken against the University of California, Los Angeles. The Governor is on firm legal ground. The Trump Administration's termination and suspension of federal funds has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in numerous ways. Governor Newsom and the University of California Regents will protect the vital interests not only of Californians but of all Americans if they defend the University of California's rights.
The U.S. Department of Justice notified UCLA on July 29, 2025, that it had found that UCLA had "violated its obligations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Chancellor Frenk subsequently announced that
"the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons" for federal grant terminations. UCLA faces losses of at least $584 million, funding that has supported vital research on matters ranging from treatments for pancreatic cancer to advances in online security.
The Trump Administration has made no pretense of following the law. Title VI permits a federal agency to terminate funding only if it has found that the particular program receiving that funding has violated the law's non-discrimination provisions. Funding cannot disappear just because the agency's policy or political preferences differ from the institution's.
Moreover, the agency can act only after following specific procedural steps. Importantly, Title VI requires a formal administrative hearing—a proceeding much like a trial-before the agency can terminate funding. At the hearing, the agency would have the burden of proving the university's alleged violations of Title VI before an impartial decision-maker. If the agency prevails at the hearing, the university or other interested persons could appea…

factually supported and consistent with civil rights laws. Without the steps Title VI requires, there is no protection against an administration alleging discrimination as a pretext to force compliance with its policy or partisan preferences. Title VI's procedures guarantee the constitutional due process requirement that no person can be deprived of liberty or property without fair notice and opportunity to be heard. They protect the university and its members' academic freedom, an endowment essential to scientific research, intellectual discovery, and open debate.
We are deeply committed to the core principle of non-discrimination codified in Title VI and in the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The principle that no person may suffer discrimination because of race, color, or national origin protects equality and ensures fairness in political as well as social life. Allegations of discrimination deserve serious and careful consideration and, where established, effective redress. But this enforcement effort must follow the law.
We urge Governor Newsom and the UC Regents to continue to stand up for the fundamental principles of the rule of law, due process, and equal protection. A defense of the University of California's rights in court will model respect for these bedrock principles of equality and fairness, and it will ensure that the government honors them. The Trump Administration's failure to abide by the law subverts these principles by denying the University of California a fair opportunity to contest the government's charges of unlawful discrimination before an impartial decisionmaker. It is precisely because we cherish the principles of the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution that we encourage Governor Newsom, the UC Regents, and the University of California to fight back.
Through its grantmaking powers, the federal government wields vast influence over social and economic life. If not held to account by the procedural protections enacted by Congres…

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