Nichole Bouffard
@nicholebouffard.bsky.social
postdocing @ WashU with Jeff Zacks and Zach Reagh | PhD @ UofT 🇨🇦 | memory, hippocampus, and fmri autocorrelation | nicholebouffard.com 🏳️🌈 she/her
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
How do changes in context influence how we organize our memories in time?
Faster contextual changes are associated with faster drift in hippocampal activity and reduced temporal clustering in recalled memories.
Elegant work led by @lindsayrait.bsky.social!
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Faster contextual changes are associated with faster drift in hippocampal activity and reduced temporal clustering in recalled memories.
Elegant work led by @lindsayrait.bsky.social!
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Hippocampal Drift Rate Reflects the Temporal Organization of Memories
When freely recalling past events, individuals tend to successively remember stimuli that were studied close together in time—a phenomenon known as temporal clustering. Temporal clustering is thought ...
www.jneurosci.org
November 20, 2025 at 2:37 PM
How do changes in context influence how we organize our memories in time?
Faster contextual changes are associated with faster drift in hippocampal activity and reduced temporal clustering in recalled memories.
Elegant work led by @lindsayrait.bsky.social!
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Faster contextual changes are associated with faster drift in hippocampal activity and reduced temporal clustering in recalled memories.
Elegant work led by @lindsayrait.bsky.social!
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Super excited to share my first preprint with Katherine Duncan and Morgan Barense (@barense.bsky.social) -- "Memory strength at reactivation, not memory age, governs prediction error driven updating of naturalistic event memory"! 🧠🎉https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/q9rkn_v1
OSF
osf.io
November 18, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Super excited to share my first preprint with Katherine Duncan and Morgan Barense (@barense.bsky.social) -- "Memory strength at reactivation, not memory age, governs prediction error driven updating of naturalistic event memory"! 🧠🎉https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/q9rkn_v1
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
I’m also on the job market! If you’re working on predictive processing, event cognition, or computational modeling — or know of exciting postdoc opportunities —please DM!
📄 Paper: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
🙏 With: Matt Bezdek, Tan Nguyen, Chris Hall and @jzacks.bsky.social
📄 Paper: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
🙏 With: Matt Bezdek, Tan Nguyen, Chris Hall and @jzacks.bsky.social
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
November 12, 2025 at 9:31 PM
I’m also on the job market! If you’re working on predictive processing, event cognition, or computational modeling — or know of exciting postdoc opportunities —please DM!
📄 Paper: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
🙏 With: Matt Bezdek, Tan Nguyen, Chris Hall and @jzacks.bsky.social
📄 Paper: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
🙏 With: Matt Bezdek, Tan Nguyen, Chris Hall and @jzacks.bsky.social
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Excited to share that our new paper, “Predictive Looking and Predictive Looking Errors in Everyday Activities,” is now out in JEP: General! 🧠
We examined how people’s eye movements reveal both their predictions and their prediction errors while they watch everyday actions.
👇
We examined how people’s eye movements reveal both their predictions and their prediction errors while they watch everyday actions.
👇
November 12, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Excited to share that our new paper, “Predictive Looking and Predictive Looking Errors in Everyday Activities,” is now out in JEP: General! 🧠
We examined how people’s eye movements reveal both their predictions and their prediction errors while they watch everyday actions.
👇
We examined how people’s eye movements reveal both their predictions and their prediction errors while they watch everyday actions.
👇
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
DeckerLab
www.deckerlab.com
October 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
The brain represents the world around us as a series of neural states - stable patterns of activity that change as we move from one event to the next.
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
Temporal dedifferentiation of neural states with age during naturalistic viewing - Communications Biology
Movie fMRI data reveals age-related lengthening of neural states in visual and prefrontal regions, reflecting reduced temporal differentiation while preserved alignment with perceived events suggests stable coarse event segmentation.
www.nature.com
September 30, 2025 at 4:03 PM
The brain represents the world around us as a series of neural states - stable patterns of activity that change as we move from one event to the next.
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky
nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)
To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
Sinclair Lab
The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:45 PM
🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)
To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
How might stories shed light on brain function? Check out this opinion piece by @alexbarnett.bsky.social and I about the DMN and "situation models" -- our understanding of the current "state of affairs" in a story (or even experience).
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
September 5, 2025 at 1:34 PM
How might stories shed light on brain function? Check out this opinion piece by @alexbarnett.bsky.social and I about the DMN and "situation models" -- our understanding of the current "state of affairs" in a story (or even experience).
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
How does the brain🧠 make causal inferences and use memories to understand narratives🎬?
We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do!
Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇
We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do!
Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇
A neural network with episodic memory learns causal relationships between narrative events
Humans reflect on past memories to make sense of an ongoing event. Past work has shown that people retrieve causally related past events during comprehension, but the exact process by which this causa...
www.biorxiv.org
September 5, 2025 at 12:26 PM
How does the brain🧠 make causal inferences and use memories to understand narratives🎬?
We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do!
Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇
We built an RNN🤖 with key-value episodic memory that learns causal relationships between events and retrieves memories like humans do!
Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
w/ @qlu.bsky.social, Tan Nguyen &👇
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Next up, from @atabk.bsky.social and @wouterkool.bsky.social: Free recall is shaped by inference and scaffolded by event structure. In sum, Ata stuck hidden (and shifting) rules into a word list learning task, creating "events" that influenced the structure of recall.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
September 3, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Next up, from @atabk.bsky.social and @wouterkool.bsky.social: Free recall is shaped by inference and scaffolded by event structure. In sum, Ata stuck hidden (and shifting) rules into a word list learning task, creating "events" that influenced the structure of recall.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
I'm a behind on shouting out new papers!
From Angelique Delarazan: Narrative Coherence Warps the Timeline of Recalled Naturalistic Events. In sum, when recalling stories, people systematically deviate from temporal organization to follow the narrative threads.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
From Angelique Delarazan: Narrative Coherence Warps the Timeline of Recalled Naturalistic Events. In sum, when recalling stories, people systematically deviate from temporal organization to follow the narrative threads.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
September 3, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I'm a behind on shouting out new papers!
From Angelique Delarazan: Narrative Coherence Warps the Timeline of Recalled Naturalistic Events. In sum, when recalling stories, people systematically deviate from temporal organization to follow the narrative threads.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
From Angelique Delarazan: Narrative Coherence Warps the Timeline of Recalled Naturalistic Events. In sum, when recalling stories, people systematically deviate from temporal organization to follow the narrative threads.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
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
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
September 3, 2025 at 1:39 AM
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
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
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
How do the brain’s event representations change as we gain familiarity with an experience?
Brain regions’ representations can become coarser or finer as event familiarity increases. Fine-tuning predicts memory recall.
Excited to share this work with Narjes Al-Zahli & @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social!
Brain regions’ representations can become coarser or finer as event familiarity increases. Fine-tuning predicts memory recall.
Excited to share this work with Narjes Al-Zahli & @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social!
Repeated Viewing of a Narrative Movie Changes Event Timescales in The Brain
Many experiences occur repeatedly throughout our lives: we might watch the same movie more than once and listen to the same song on repeat. How does the brain modify its representations of events when...
www.biorxiv.org
September 2, 2025 at 1:37 PM
How do the brain’s event representations change as we gain familiarity with an experience?
Brain regions’ representations can become coarser or finer as event familiarity increases. Fine-tuning predicts memory recall.
Excited to share this work with Narjes Al-Zahli & @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social!
Brain regions’ representations can become coarser or finer as event familiarity increases. Fine-tuning predicts memory recall.
Excited to share this work with Narjes Al-Zahli & @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social!
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
New preprint from Yining Ding @liliand.bsky.social! People use semantic event knowledge and grouping to remember the temporal order of events.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
August 25, 2025 at 2:27 PM
New preprint from Yining Ding @liliand.bsky.social! People use semantic event knowledge and grouping to remember the temporal order of events.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Is the hippocampus best understood in term of discrete subfields or functional gradients?
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Discrete Subfields and Continuous Gradients Coexist: A Multi-Scale View of Hippocampal Organization
The human hippocampus is studied via two competing frameworks: one dividing it into discrete anatomical subfields with distinct computational processes, and another describing it as a continuous, func...
www.biorxiv.org
August 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Is the hippocampus best understood in term of discrete subfields or functional gradients?
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Functional gradients are recapitulated within each hippocampal subfield, supporting a role for both discrete & continuously changing computations.
Neat work by Bouffard, @barense.bsky.social, & Moscovitch!
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Discrete Subfields and Continuous Gradients Coexist: A Multi-Scale View of Hippocampal Organization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671141v1
August 20, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Discrete Subfields and Continuous Gradients Coexist: A Multi-Scale View of Hippocampal Organization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671141v1
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Preprint⭐
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Geometry of neural dynamics along the cortical attractor landscape reflects changes in attention
The brain is a complex dynamical system whose activity reflects changes in internal states, such as attention. While prior work has shown that large-scale brain activity reflects attention, the mechan...
www.biorxiv.org
August 12, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Preprint⭐
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Proud to share the first preprint of my PhD w/ @barense.bsky.social & Mursal Jahed:
“Putting the testing effect to the test in the wild: Retrieval enhances real-world memories and promotes their semantic integration while preserving episodic integrity”
See thread! 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
“Putting the testing effect to the test in the wild: Retrieval enhances real-world memories and promotes their semantic integration while preserving episodic integrity”
See thread! 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
June 19, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Proud to share the first preprint of my PhD w/ @barense.bsky.social & Mursal Jahed:
“Putting the testing effect to the test in the wild: Retrieval enhances real-world memories and promotes their semantic integration while preserving episodic integrity”
See thread! 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
“Putting the testing effect to the test in the wild: Retrieval enhances real-world memories and promotes their semantic integration while preserving episodic integrity”
See thread! 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Out now in @nathumbehav.nature.com: Cuts to NIH funding will impact the economy and employment nationwide. We visualize these losses and advocate for a theory-driven approach to communicating local, self-relevant impact. w/ @joshuasweitz.bsky.social + SCIMaP team:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment - Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour - NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment
www.nature.com
June 2, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Out now in @nathumbehav.nature.com: Cuts to NIH funding will impact the economy and employment nationwide. We visualize these losses and advocate for a theory-driven approach to communicating local, self-relevant impact. w/ @joshuasweitz.bsky.social + SCIMaP team:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Pandemic project ready to share! Short movies (many of which are emotional) you can use as stimuli:
rdcu.be/ekNMo
Stimuli, data, and code:
osf.io/hk32g/?view_...
#psynomBRM
rdcu.be/ekNMo
Stimuli, data, and code:
osf.io/hk32g/?view_...
#psynomBRM
The Second Database of Emotional Videos from Ottawa (DEVO-2): Over 1300 brief video clips rated on valence, arousal, impact, and familiarity - Behavior Research Methods
We introduce an updated set of video clips for research on emotion and its relations with perception, cognition, and behavior. These 1380 brief video clips each portray realistic episodes. They were s...
link.springer.com
May 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Pandemic project ready to share! Short movies (many of which are emotional) you can use as stimuli:
rdcu.be/ekNMo
Stimuli, data, and code:
osf.io/hk32g/?view_...
#psynomBRM
rdcu.be/ekNMo
Stimuli, data, and code:
osf.io/hk32g/?view_...
#psynomBRM
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
This study examines how events structured recall, which was impaired for items after event boundaries. A reinforcement learning model showed that decision certainty predicts recall success.
@atabk.bsky.social @wouterkool.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
@atabk.bsky.social @wouterkool.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Free recall is shaped by inference and scaffolded by event structure - Communications Psychology
This study examines how event boundaries affect recall of items in a decision-making task. Events structured recall, which was impaired for items after boundaries. A reinforcement learning model showe...
www.nature.com
April 28, 2025 at 9:27 AM
This study examines how events structured recall, which was impaired for items after event boundaries. A reinforcement learning model showed that decision certainty predicts recall success.
@atabk.bsky.social @wouterkool.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
@atabk.bsky.social @wouterkool.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
A collection of modules, datasets, and other resources for learning to program in R, geared toward students in psychology and neuroscience: ritcheym.github.io/ppn/
Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience – PPN
ritcheym.github.io
April 25, 2025 at 1:10 PM
A collection of modules, datasets, and other resources for learning to program in R, geared toward students in psychology and neuroscience: ritcheym.github.io/ppn/
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Hi friends, the Spark Society's NSF funding has been terminated. We are dedicated to continuing our work and hope we can rely on you for support.
If you want to help support our mission, you can donate here buy.stripe.com/3cs03h1be38D...
Stripe Checkout
buy.stripe.com
April 21, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Hi friends, the Spark Society's NSF funding has been terminated. We are dedicated to continuing our work and hope we can rely on you for support.
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
Excited that we are recruiting for a new postdoctoral program in Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience at #WashU! Get in touch if you have questions!
sites.wustl.edu/systemsneuro...
sites.wustl.edu/systemsneuro...
CCSN Postdoctoral program | McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience | Washington University in St. LouisWashU Medicine
CCSN Postdoctoral Funding Now OpenFace Page & Mentor FormApplications Due by 5:00 pm Friday, May 2, 2025.Funding expected to start July 1, 2025....
sites.wustl.edu
April 16, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Excited that we are recruiting for a new postdoctoral program in Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience at #WashU! Get in touch if you have questions!
sites.wustl.edu/systemsneuro...
sites.wustl.edu/systemsneuro...
Reposted by Nichole Bouffard
New preprint 🎉: How do episodic memory, emotions, and schemas for caregiver experiences come together in kids’ brains and verbal recall? Check out our new results showing how past and present childhood experiences shape perception and memory for movies: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Past and present caregiving experiences impact prefrontal connectivity and recall for attachment-schema narratives
We investigated how past and current caregiving experiences impacted emotional event processing by examining inter-subject functional correlation in 7- to 15-year-olds during narrative movies depictin...
www.biorxiv.org
April 10, 2025 at 1:47 PM
New preprint 🎉: How do episodic memory, emotions, and schemas for caregiver experiences come together in kids’ brains and verbal recall? Check out our new results showing how past and present childhood experiences shape perception and memory for movies: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...