Matthias Nau
@matthiasnau.bsky.social
Cognitive Neuroscientist | Assistant Prof at VU Amsterdam | Active vision, memory, imagery | Multi-task studies, fMRI, eye tracking | https://matthiasnau.com
What a great figure! What we call “fixation” is really a complex pattern of fixational eye movements, several captured beautifully in this single shot. Love it! 👀 #EyeTracking
www.nature.com/articles/nrn...
www.nature.com/articles/nrn...
November 7, 2025 at 8:50 AM
What a great figure! What we call “fixation” is really a complex pattern of fixational eye movements, several captured beautifully in this single shot. Love it! 👀 #EyeTracking
www.nature.com/articles/nrn...
www.nature.com/articles/nrn...
Agreed! Always loved this result by Jazayeri & Shadlen showing a similar effect for the time domain.
Crazy how the same interval can be estimated so differently depending on context.
www.nature.com/articles/nn....
Crazy how the same interval can be estimated so differently depending on context.
www.nature.com/articles/nn....
November 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Agreed! Always loved this result by Jazayeri & Shadlen showing a similar effect for the time domain.
Crazy how the same interval can be estimated so differently depending on context.
www.nature.com/articles/nn....
Crazy how the same interval can be estimated so differently depending on context.
www.nature.com/articles/nn....
Design top-down, implement bottom-up. 3/3
October 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Design top-down, implement bottom-up. 3/3
Pro's and con's. 2/3
October 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Pro's and con's. 2/3
Kicked off my course "Programming for Psychologists" again, starting with a lecture on *Mindset*.
The first exercise is writing out a peanut butter jam sandwich recipe 🥜🥪. Fun way to learn about imperative vs. declarative instructions, top-down design etc.
Maybe useful for others too? 1/3
The first exercise is writing out a peanut butter jam sandwich recipe 🥜🥪. Fun way to learn about imperative vs. declarative instructions, top-down design etc.
Maybe useful for others too? 1/3
October 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Kicked off my course "Programming for Psychologists" again, starting with a lecture on *Mindset*.
The first exercise is writing out a peanut butter jam sandwich recipe 🥜🥪. Fun way to learn about imperative vs. declarative instructions, top-down design etc.
Maybe useful for others too? 1/3
The first exercise is writing out a peanut butter jam sandwich recipe 🥜🥪. Fun way to learn about imperative vs. declarative instructions, top-down design etc.
Maybe useful for others too? 1/3
Current trends in European Research funding... 😵💫 erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
October 23, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Current trends in European Research funding... 😵💫 erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
Nice to see *non-neural* brain cells more in the spotlight! This new paper links astrocyte activity during memory recall to the long-term stability of the memory! By Deva et al. @nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
October 20, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Nice to see *non-neural* brain cells more in the spotlight! This new paper links astrocyte activity during memory recall to the long-term stability of the memory! By Deva et al. @nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
This is one of those papers that just deserves a post every now and then. Half a century old, with a message still relevant today: Cognition won't be understood one variable at the time.
You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...
You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...
October 10, 2025 at 7:41 AM
This is one of those papers that just deserves a post every now and then. Half a century old, with a message still relevant today: Cognition won't be understood one variable at the time.
You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...
You Can't Play 20 Questions with Nature and Win, by Allen Newell (1973) www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~crocker/doc...
Incredible study by Raut et al.: by tracking a single measure (pupil size), you can model slow, large-scale dynamics in neuronal calcium, metabolism, and brain blood oxygen through a shared latent space! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
September 25, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Incredible study by Raut et al.: by tracking a single measure (pupil size), you can model slow, large-scale dynamics in neuronal calcium, metabolism, and brain blood oxygen through a shared latent space! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Finally, Huan Luo discussed how to dissociate content from structure of experiences, and how eye movements may signal these factors during retrieval. mgv.pku.edu.cn/english/peop... 4/4
September 19, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Finally, Huan Luo discussed how to dissociate content from structure of experiences, and how eye movements may signal these factors during retrieval. mgv.pku.edu.cn/english/peop... 4/4
First, Leda Cosmides discussed what it means to be rational. psych.ucsb.edu/people/facul...
"From an evolutionary biology perspective, the problem is not that our thinking is irrational. It's how psychologists defined rationality and tested for its presence" 2/4
"From an evolutionary biology perspective, the problem is not that our thinking is irrational. It's how psychologists defined rationality and tested for its presence" 2/4
September 19, 2025 at 4:50 PM
First, Leda Cosmides discussed what it means to be rational. psych.ucsb.edu/people/facul...
"From an evolutionary biology perspective, the problem is not that our thinking is irrational. It's how psychologists defined rationality and tested for its presence" 2/4
"From an evolutionary biology perspective, the problem is not that our thinking is irrational. It's how psychologists defined rationality and tested for its presence" 2/4
Multiple great talks in our department @vuamsterdam.bsky.social & @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social over the past week! A short thread! 🧵 1/4
September 19, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Multiple great talks in our department @vuamsterdam.bsky.social & @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social over the past week! A short thread! 🧵 1/4
To link gaze reinstatement & neural reactivation, we added camera & eye voxel-based #EyeTracking to the Sherlock Movie Watching #fMRI Dataset, widely used to study memory for narrative events.
This let us test key behavior-informed predictions in these data that were previously out of reach.
This let us test key behavior-informed predictions in these data that were previously out of reach.
August 25, 2025 at 9:41 AM
To link gaze reinstatement & neural reactivation, we added camera & eye voxel-based #EyeTracking to the Sherlock Movie Watching #fMRI Dataset, widely used to study memory for narrative events.
This let us test key behavior-informed predictions in these data that were previously out of reach.
This let us test key behavior-informed predictions in these data that were previously out of reach.
#CCN2025 was fantastic!! It was great to meet and catch up with many of you in Amsterdam – Feeling really inspired now by all the cool work I've seen over the past few days @cogcompneuro.bsky.social! Until next year!
August 15, 2025 at 4:29 PM
#CCN2025 was fantastic!! It was great to meet and catch up with many of you in Amsterdam – Feeling really inspired now by all the cool work I've seen over the past few days @cogcompneuro.bsky.social! Until next year!
Great visit & @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social Colloquium Talk today by Catherine Tallon-Baudry linking cognition, interoception & bodily signals! @vuamsterdam.bsky.social
April 10, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Great visit & @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social Colloquium Talk today by Catherine Tallon-Baudry linking cognition, interoception & bodily signals! @vuamsterdam.bsky.social
Excellent tutorial on fitting voxel-wise encoding models to #fMRI data by Dupré La Tour & @gallantlab.org! Check out their step by step walk through!
Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Code: github.com/gallantlab/v...
Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Code: github.com/gallantlab/v...
April 7, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Excellent tutorial on fitting voxel-wise encoding models to #fMRI data by Dupré La Tour & @gallantlab.org! Check out their step by step walk through!
Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Code: github.com/gallantlab/v...
Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Code: github.com/gallantlab/v...
Nothing like the smell of fresh data in the morning! 😍
Proud of the students that just recorded our first combined EEG + Eye Tracking + Voice Recordings data in the lab! 🧠👀🗣️🥳
Proud of the students that just recorded our first combined EEG + Eye Tracking + Voice Recordings data in the lab! 🧠👀🗣️🥳
April 4, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Nothing like the smell of fresh data in the morning! 😍
Proud of the students that just recorded our first combined EEG + Eye Tracking + Voice Recordings data in the lab! 🧠👀🗣️🥳
Proud of the students that just recorded our first combined EEG + Eye Tracking + Voice Recordings data in the lab! 🧠👀🗣️🥳
For those interested in imaging the MTL & other low-signal regions, I wrote this #fMRI guide some time ago with tips & tricks. Happy imaging!
osf.io/nxtkv
osf.io/nxtkv
March 20, 2025 at 8:20 PM
For those interested in imaging the MTL & other low-signal regions, I wrote this #fMRI guide some time ago with tips & tricks. Happy imaging!
osf.io/nxtkv
osf.io/nxtkv
Yes! Here is a figure from the #DeepMReye paper showing that it works for a wide range of TRs and voxel sizes. Note that the Y-axis starts at r=0.8, so the differences you see in this figure are tiny.
February 27, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Yes! Here is a figure from the #DeepMReye paper showing that it works for a wide range of TRs and voxel sizes. Note that the Y-axis starts at r=0.8, so the differences you see in this figure are tiny.
Incredible diversity of eyes and vision across animals! These reviews really make you appreciate the evolution of the eyes and their perfect adaptation to the animal's lifestyle. Mice don't have a fovea, Hawks have two!
Review 1: doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Review 2: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Review 1: doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Review 2: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 24, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Incredible diversity of eyes and vision across animals! These reviews really make you appreciate the evolution of the eyes and their perfect adaptation to the animal's lifestyle. Mice don't have a fovea, Hawks have two!
Review 1: doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Review 2: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Review 1: doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Review 2: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Like science podcasts? 🎧 #NotebookLM transforms any paper into a live conversation between two people! You can even ask questions and get real-time responses! Just tried it out with my own work and was both amazed and shocked! 1/2
notebooklm.google.com
notebooklm.google.com
February 22, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Like science podcasts? 🎧 #NotebookLM transforms any paper into a live conversation between two people! You can even ask questions and get real-time responses! Just tried it out with my own work and was both amazed and shocked! 1/2
notebooklm.google.com
notebooklm.google.com
Excited to have Martin Rolfs @rolfslab.bsky.social with us today in Amsterdam to share his work on active vision at the #iBBAColloquium @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social!
A key conclusion: To understand perception, we need to embrace the study of action kinematics! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A key conclusion: To understand perception, we need to embrace the study of action kinematics! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
February 20, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Excited to have Martin Rolfs @rolfslab.bsky.social with us today in Amsterdam to share his work on active vision at the #iBBAColloquium @ibbamsterdam.bsky.social!
A key conclusion: To understand perception, we need to embrace the study of action kinematics! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A key conclusion: To understand perception, we need to embrace the study of action kinematics! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Here is a Gibson quote relevant to this point though (taken from the review).
January 31, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Here is a Gibson quote relevant to this point though (taken from the review).
Nice review of the affordance hypothesis by @edbaggs.bsky.social & @diovicen.bsky.social!
Especially liked how it situates Gibson’s ideas within their historical context while linking them to today. Great read for those interested in the link between perception and action! osf.io/preprints/ps...
Especially liked how it situates Gibson’s ideas within their historical context while linking them to today. Great read for those interested in the link between perception and action! osf.io/preprints/ps...
January 31, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Nice review of the affordance hypothesis by @edbaggs.bsky.social & @diovicen.bsky.social!
Especially liked how it situates Gibson’s ideas within their historical context while linking them to today. Great read for those interested in the link between perception and action! osf.io/preprints/ps...
Especially liked how it situates Gibson’s ideas within their historical context while linking them to today. Great read for those interested in the link between perception and action! osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper with @lexkidder.bsky.social, Ed Silson, and @cibaker.bsky.social! We show that recall of people, places, and objects engages distributed cortical regions, with medial parietal & ventral temporal cortices showing distinct functional organizations. 1/2 doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...
January 14, 2025 at 8:26 AM
New paper with @lexkidder.bsky.social, Ed Silson, and @cibaker.bsky.social! We show that recall of people, places, and objects engages distributed cortical regions, with medial parietal & ventral temporal cortices showing distinct functional organizations. 1/2 doi.org/10.1523/ENEU...