Matt Williams-Spooner

Australian behavioural neuroscientist interested in evolution and complex systems

[Jeansok Kim @Jeansok_Kim]

"The long and winding road" to publishing this study
https://t.co/GA41T3tDxK

[Abraham G. Beyene @BeyeneAbraham]

Here is a first of its kind visualization of evoked release from a dendritic process of a dopamine neuron:

[Dylan Burnette @MAG2ART]

The trafficking of a Golgi protein inside of a cell videoed through a microscope.
#Science #Biology #CellBiology

[Yohan J. John @DrYohanJohn]

I know the pandemic has been a disasteroid, but because of it, a wonderful ongoing collaboration emerged unexpectedly.

Our review of dynamical systems thinking for fMRI, with @kslays, Karthik Srinivasan, @eli_j_muller, @DrBMunn & @jmacshine is out now:

https://t.co/wtQn4QQeNG

[Anne Churchland @anne_churchland]

Have you been wondering what we've learned about behavior from all these large-scale recordings folks are always on about? I teamed up w/ @AnneEUrai @BrentDoiron & @AndrewLeifer to think about this in a cross-species way. Our 4 fave insights are below. https://t.co/5pkDTU2nkt

[Lisa Feldman Barrett @LFeldmanBarrett]

Our lab's new paper in @NatureComms examines how famous actors portray emotion with their faces. The findings have important implications for so-called "Emotion AI" systems. I'll summarize our novel method and findings. @AffectiveSciLab 1/13 https://t.co/Y6uXLsNnQm

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain The claim in affective neuroscience is that emotions are discrete and innate. The contrary view says they’re constructed, being a type of mental inference about learned emotion concepts and not innate. You seem to be making a different argument that I don’t quite understand

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain It would be interesting to see how much these biases emerge from experience versus being hardwired into biology. But I don’t think there’s good evidence that we are hardwired with discrete emotions, even if we’re biased to think this way.

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain Iris Berent’s lab have shown that we’re essentialistic about emotions, which we think of as innate, but not knowledge, which we think of as acquire. So we’re essentialistic about some aspects of our psychology but not others. If our essentialism is selective, is it really innate?

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain This is similar to the way many people think about race. We created the concept of different races of people and many believe that there are genetic bases to this, but it turns out that ‘race’ isn’t biologically real. It’s just a concept that we invented and mistook for reality

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain We use biases/heuristics that are often useful but can lead us into error. Emotion concepts are like that, useful in many situations, like to facilitate communication or make judgments about people, but lead us into error if we mistake them for natural kinds with biological bases

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain That seems unfalsifiable

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@MindiaWichert @nataliepeluso @PessoaBrain That seems contrary to the basic emotions view in affective neuroscience; more in line with the theory of constructed emotion

[Matt Williams-Spooner @MattJWS]

@whengoodenough The Triple Helix by RC Lewontin