Alex Holcombe
@alexh
Science-ing, trying to improve science. Metascience, open access, reforming scholarly authorship practices. Cognitive and perceptual psychologist. Mastodon: @alexh@fediscience.org
“Within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen in Germany, carried on by experimental methods, asking of course every moment for introspective data, but eliminating their uncertainty by operating on a large scale and taking statistical means." #psychophysics
Just scanning the map of New South Wales and I'll be damned, Aussies are cheeky. I suppose England should have a Benedict Arnold National Park.
Thanks to my university's unit testing protocol, all our time travel occurs with nary a hitch! We've never, for example, re-materialized inside of a wall, or co-located with an ancestor.
Reading a different old paper in Science, I noticed a very short letter replying to a different Science paper, which exemplifies how scientists used to let their humanity shine through more in their papers. "O'Keefe has given me much negative credit". "All right, attack if you wish."
Some of you know about Mitroff's work in which his interviews with moon rock scientists highlighted the extent to which "they took it personal" (as Michael Jordan 🏀 would say), exploding the notion that scientists are generally disinterested.
Maybe I'm not irritating enough people in my field with my lengthy responses to academic editors inviting me to edit for Elsevier 🤔 So I've added this to my own invitation letter, inviting people to review for @collabrapsychology.bsky.social (the official journal of #SIPS2026).
I myself have a practice of avoiding reviewing for Springer Nature, asking editors to reconsider their work for them
Thus, universities and funders have trouble tallying how many successful research projects they contribute to, and what type of projects. We make the case for the three reforms pictured here.
A problem is that those named in Acknowledgments sections, often technical staff such as in psychology those who maintain and set up neuroimaging) do not make it into scholarly databases such as Web of Science.
#VSS2026 This morning I have the privilege to present @jyemarchant.bsky.social's poster, "Understanding the Negative Flash-Lag and Flash-Grab Effects", which we hope will shift you away from the predictive extrapolation theory of motion 🏃 and position processing. Come talk to me, in Pavilion!
Decentralised evaluation of preprints, including @metaror.bsky.social Metaror.org (where I am an editor)
@katiecorker.bsky.social talking about @asapbio.bsky.social trying to reform the scientific publishing system #wcri2026
@elisabethbik.bsky.social describing her first project spotting image duplications. Important message about how in certain areas such as cancer research, fraud or at least very low quality / questionable practice research is flooding the field because it builds people's careers. #wcri2026
Thanks for breakfast, PLOS! And all the support for research integrity, of course 😄 #wcri2026
Interesting agitprop poster here at #wcri2026, rather more colourful than most of the posters. Good on Lancashire West magazine! Hadn't heard of them before.
Update: in addition to @jfkominsky.bsky.social's recommendation of postersmith.com, someone told me they had a good experience with www.quickprintflorida.com . Also, anyone else taking Spirit Airlines to Florida?
Anyone else heading to Vancouver in a couple weeks for the World Congress on Research Integrity? Looking to meet up with peeps!
As in many NYT articles, the real information is at the very end www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u...
Was reading the Wikipedia article on Protestantism yesterday and found out that fundamentalism (literal reading of the Bible) wasn't invented until some Americans came up with it in the 20th century. Sheesh. Embarrassing!
This is from Trump's proposed 2027 federal budget. Could have been a good policy, if they had also provided funds for alternative non-profit infrastructure. #openaccess I think those funds will be buying bombs and missiles instead (they propose a 40% increase in the military budget)