Alex Emmendorfer, PhD 🗣️〰️🧠 🟥

Finally my years of experience in this field are paying off
😬

Continuing through my cookbooks with some roasted vegetables and chickpeas from Sami Tami's Boutsany #veganuary

And just tonight we enjoyed some Burmese Curry with Split Pea Fritters from The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh! I love how this incredibly simple recipe was so full of flavor. #veganrecipes

Next cookbook of 2026 has been a favorite for a while, The Korean Vegan by Joanne Lee Molinaro. While about half the book has been bookmarked since I got it in 2021, I always wind up making the same recipe. This year I finally tried out a new one: Kkanpoongi (Spicy Crunchy Garlic Wings) 🤤🌶️ #vegan

Photo of the cover of the cookbook Peaceful Kitchen by Catherine Perez The Plant-Based RD

First up this year was Peaceful Kitchen by Catherine Perez @plantbasedrd.bsky.social. I've been following her for a while, so was already familiar with her recipes and very excited to get her cookbook as a Christmas gift!
#veganrecipes

Even though I have become more intentional in selecting cookbooks to add to the shelf, there are many that I have barely even opened. This year I aim to cook a (new-to-me) recipe from each of my ~30 cookbooks! The best part: I'm already ~10% there!

Not fooling myself to think I'm going to make it to the bottom of my "to read" folder in 2026, but as a (slightly) more feasible resolution, this year I'm aiming to get through my ever-growing collection of cookbooks!

The EEGManyPipelines Dataset: Metascientific Data on 168 Independent Analyses of a Single EEG Dataset: https://osf.io/c4xwg

🚨New #OSF #preprint alert! We test how 5 researcher choices affect divergence point analyses with bootstrapping in visual-world eye-tracking. Bin size and significance-window length matter most, and there's a consistent overestimation bias. See also osf.io/preprints/ps... for some recommendations.

Today - Tuesday - there are strikes against the planned budget cuts to higher education. These three UM'ers show up time after time: what drives them, does protesting run in their blood, and why is it sometimes hard to protest, even for them?

#Protest

www.observantonline.nl/english/Home...

Programma Stakingsactie 9 december / Programme Strike Action 9 December WOinActie is een beweging van studenten en medewerkers en maakt zich sterk voor de universiteit en haar toekomst.

Morgen de grote HO staking! Tot op de Dam!
Tomorrow the big HE strike! See you at Dam square!

woinactie.blogspot.com/2025/12/prog...

On my way to the Dam to protest the budget cuts to higher education! Will I see you there? #woinactie @woinactie.bsky.social 🟥

We're seeking the next Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics! Lead cutting-edge research in language & cognition. Nominations (incl. self) due 19 Dec 2025.
mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/nominations-and-self-nominations-sought-position-director-max

Never been to a conference concert before, but if not the International Conference on Auditory Cortex, where else? #icac2025 @icac2025.bsky.social

My son is calling this car blue and I'm having flashbacks to 2015 #thedress

You know it's time for vacation when you arrive in the office only to find that you left your laptop at home 🙃

That was a crazy note to end the day on! 🤯 Sad to be missing out on the conference dinner discussions!

Great poster session today, thanks to everyone who stopped by! If you're still curious about this, find me tomorrow (or online) for a chat! #isgs2025

Facial signals shape predictions about the nature of upcoming conversational responses - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Facial signals shape predictions about the nature of upcoming conversational responses

This study is a follow-up on our recent publication in Scientific Reports:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Making the trip up to Nijmegen again today for @isgs2025.bsky.social! Stop by today's poster session to see some new data on conversational expectations elicited by facial signals.

@judithholler.bsky.social
#isgs2025

Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia

Our demands, see link

Hello & HAPPY FRIDAY, as promised an open letter by my lovely colleagues and myself. Everybody, feel free to sign this even if you are not NL-based and ‼️ share ‼️ (anonymous signature is poss):

Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia

openletter.earth/open-letter-...

[Dyslexia] Emmendorfer et al.: "This is the first study to simultaneously assess neural sensitivity to phonological and temporal regularities in Dutch adult dyslexic readers and highlights distinct change detection for different sublexical features." doi.org/10.1016/j.cl...

Strike in Amsterdam June 10!

The Dutch cabinet may have fallen, but the future of higher education in the Netherlands is still uncertain. We need to let the caretaker government and all the political parties know that the recently adopted budget with its drastic cuts to higher ed cannot stand...

“Neurophysiological responses to phonological and temporal regularities in speech in dyslexic and typical readers” by Alexandra K. Emmendorfer, Bernadette M. Jansma, Sonja A. Kotz and Milene Bonte (May ’25) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨 New Paper!

Final chapter of my PhD at @maastrichtu.bsky.social is now (finally) out in Clinical Neurophysiology!

doi.org/10.1016/j.cl...

The book "seven and a half lessons about the brain" by Lisa Feldman Barrett

The book my toddler brought me to read this morning. Like mother like son? (He left to play with his cars as soon as I started reading)

🟥 CALL FOR A NATIONAL STRIKE - June 10 🟥

A week ago, we stood together on the Vrijthof to defend our universities.

On Friday, the cabinet announced its plans to cut another 400 million a year from primary and secondary education. Yesterday, the minister confirmed he will force universities...

Left: Four different avatars were used (two female avatars: AF1, AF2; and two male avatars: AM1, AM2) along with two real human observers (HF1, HM1). For privacy considerations, pictures of real human observers (HF1, HM1 in the top-right human panel) were replaced with AI-generated images which were created by using the AI Human Images. Right: Amygdala response to feedback uncertainty explains differential risk-taking in avatar and human conditions. Upper panel: Whole-brain subtraction analysis comparing avatar and human observer conditions revealed lower amygdala activity in the avatar condition. Peak activity was identified in the central amygdala. Lower panel: To find brain regions associated with differential valuation of feedback uncertainty the authors weighted differential activity correlated with feedback uncertainty (avatar–human) by the differential behavioral coefficient for feedback uncertainty. A significant correlation was observed in the central amygdala, with an FWE-corrected p-value of 0.039 at the peak.

How does our brain process interactions with an #avatar compared to another human being? This study shows that feedback from an avatar increases #RiskTaking behavior in humans and is associated with lower activity in the #amygdala & ventral #striatum @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3S3Esmw

For all the talk of avoiding academic conferences in US, it must also be recognised that if you host a conference in the UK this is no longer a safe place for trans people to be.

The march is underway. The crowd has left Vrijthof and is making its way through the city center.

The message: our region's economy is at risk! UM is the largest employer in Limburg. Citizens hold also a stake in defending all other educational institutions against these cuts!

#WOinActie