Open reviews

When solicited for peer review by academic journals—if the authors have posted a public preprint—I try to post an open review. I send the same review to the journal (usually signed) at the same time as posting the public review.


April 22, 2024 — Open review of Mischler, Li and colleagues: review PubPeer

Mischler, G., Li, Y. A., Bickel, S., Mehta, A. D., & Mesgarani, N. (2024). Contextual feature extraction hierarchies converge in large language models and the brain. arXiv. DOI


April 13, 2024 — Open review of Borovska & de Haas: review PubPeer

Borovska, P., & de Haas, B. Individual gaze shapes diverging representations in inferior temporal cortex. PsyArXiv. DOI


March 11, 2024 — Open review of Zhang and colleagues: review PubPeer

Zhang, Y., Fan, L., Jiang, T., Dagher, A., & Bellec, P. (2024). Connectome-constrained neural decoding reveals a representational hierarchy from perception to cognition to action. bioRxiv. DOI


January 16, 2024 — Open review of Im and colleagues: review PubPeer

Im, E. J., Shirahatti, A., & Isik, L. (2023). Early neural development of social perception: evidence from voxel-wise encoding in young children and adults. PsyArXiv. DOI


December 28, 2023 — Open review of Lin & Kriegeskorte: review PubPeer

Lin, B., & Kriegeskorte, N. (2023). The topology and geometry of neural representations. arXiv. DOI


October 5, 2023 — Open review of preprint by Vo, Jain and colleagues: review PubPeer

Vo, V. A.*, Jain, S.*, Beckage, N., Chien, H. Y. S., Obinwa, C., & Huth, A. G. (2023). A unifying computational account of temporal context effects in language across the human cortex. bioRxiv. DOI


September 25, 2023 — Open review of preprint by Kewenig and colleagues: review PubPeer

Kewenig, V., Edwards, C., DEstalenx, Q. L., Rechardt, A., Skipper, J. I., & Vigliocco, G. (2023). Evidence of human-like visual-linguistic integration in multimodal large language models during predictive language processing. arXiv. link


July 18, 2023 — Open review of preprint by Zimmerman and colleagues: review PubPeer

Zimmermann, M., Cusack, R., Bedny, M., Szwed, M. (2023) Auditory areas are recruited for naturalistic visual meaning in early deaf people. Research Square. DOI


May 5, 2023 — Open review of preprint by Fitzpatrick and colleagues: review PubPeer

Fitzpatrick, P. C., Heusser, A. C., & Manning, J. R. (2023). Text embedding models yield high-resolution insights into conceptual knowledge from short multiple-choice quizzes. PsyArXiv. DOI


April 24, 2023 — Open review of preprint by Vigliocco and colleagues: review PubPeer

Vigliocco, G., Conventino, L., De Felice, S., Gregorians, L., Kewenig, V., Mueller, M. A., Veselic, S., Musolesi, M., Hudson-Smith, A., Tyler, N., Flouri, E., & Spiers, H. (2023). Ecological brain: reframing the study of human behaviour and cognition. PsyArXiv. DOI


December 11, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Samara and colleagues: review PubPeer

Samara, A., Eilbott, J., Margulies, D. S., Xu, T., & Vanderwal, T. (2022). Cortical gradients during naturalistic processing are hierarchical and modality-specific. bioRxiv. DOI


November 25, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Dima and colleagues: review PubPeer

Dima, D. C., Hebart, M. N., & Isik, L. (2022). A data-driven investigation of human action representations. bioRxiv. DOI


September 25, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Yang and colleagues: review PubPeer

Yang, E., Milisav, F., Kopal, J., Holmes, A., Mitsis, G. D., Misic, B., Finn, E. S., & Bzdok, D. (2022). Bringing language to dynamic brain states: the default network dominates neural responses to evolving movie stories. bioRxiv. DOI


September 23, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Gwilliams and colleagues: review PubPeer

Gwilliams, L., Flick, G., Marantz, A., Pylkkanen, L., Poeppel, D., & King, J.-R. (2022). MEG-MASC: a high-quality magneto-encephalography dataset for evaluating natural speech processing. arXiv. link


July 24, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Amalric and Cantlon: review PubPeer

Amalric, M., & Cantlon, J. F. (2020). Entropy, complexity, and maturity in children’s neural responses during naturalistic mathematics learning. bioRxiv. DOI

June 16, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Caucheteux and colleagues: review PubPeer

Caucheteux, C., Gramfort, A., & King, J. R. (2021). Long-range and hierarchical language predictions in brains and algorithms. arXiv. link


April 3, 2022 — Open review of preprint by Assouline and Mendelsohn: review

Assouline, A., & Mendelsohn, A. (2019). Weaving a story: narrative formation over prolonged time scales engages social cognition and fronto-parietal networks. bioRxiv. DOI


November 23, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Chowdhury and colleagues: review PubPeer

Chowdhury, P. R., Wadhwa, A., & Tyagi, N. (2021). Brain inspired face recognition: a computational framework. arXiv. link


November 4, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Di and colleagues: review PubPeer

Di, X., Zhang, Z., Xu, T., & Biswal, B. B. (2021). Dynamic and stable brain connectivity during movie watching as revealed by functional MRI. bioRxiv. DOI


August 14, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Shahdloo and colleagues: review PubPeer

Shahdloo, M., Çelik, E., Urgen, B. A., Gallant, J. L., & Çukur, T. (2021). Task-dependent warping of semantic representations during search for visual action categories. bioRxiv. DOI


July 28, 2021 — Open review of preprint by De Angelis and colleagues: review PubPeer

De Angelis, L., Gazzola, V., & Keysers, C. (2021). Parametric tests for leave-one-out inter-subject correlations in fMRI provide adequate type I error control while providing high sensitivity. bioRxiv. DOI


July 17, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Liu and colleagues: review PubPeer

Liu, L., Li, H., Ren, Z., Zhou, Q., Zhang, Y., Lu, C., Qiu, J., Chen, H., & Ding, G. (2021). The “two-brain” approach reveals the active role of task-deactivated default mode network in speech comprehension. bioRxiv. DOI


June 18, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Chen and colleagues: review PubPeer

Chen, A. A., Beer, J. C., Tustison, N. J., Cook, P. A., Shinohara, R. T., Shou, H. & the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (2020). Removal of scanner effects in covariance improves multivariate pattern analysis in neuroimaging data. bioRxiv. DOI


May 22, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Lee Masson and Isik: review PubPeer

Lee Masson, H. & Isik, L. (2021). Functional selectivity for naturalistic social interaction perception in the human superior temporal sulcus. bioRxiv. DOI


May 11, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Dominey: review PubPeer

Dominey, P. F. (2021). Narrative event segmentation in the cortical reservoir. bioRxiv. DOI


April 18, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Azhari and colleagues: review PubPeer

Azhari, A., Bizzego, A., & Esposito, G. (2020). Father-child dyads exhibit unique inter-subject synchronisation during co-viewing of animation video stimuli. bioRxiv. DOI


February 6, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Naumann and colleagues: review PubPeer

Naumann, S., Byrne, M. L., de la Fuente, L. A., Harrewijn, A., PhD, Nugiel, T., Rosen, M. L., Dziobiek, I., van Atteveldt, N., & Matusz, P. J. (2020). Assessing the degree of ecological validity of your study: Introducing the Ecological Validity Assessment (EVA) Tool. PsyArXiv. DOI


January 6, 2021 — Open review of preprint by Bazeille, DuPre, and colleagues: review PubPeer

Bazeille, T., DuPre, E., Poline, J. B., & Thirion, B. (2020). An empirical evaluation of functional alignment using inter-subject decoding. bioRxiv. DOI


December 31, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Kaiser and colleagues: review PubPeer

Kaiser, D., Haeberle, G., & Cichy, R. M. (2020). Coherent natural scene structure facilitates the extraction of task-relevant object information in visual cortex. bioRxiv. DOI


December 27, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Xu and colleagues: review PubPeer

Xu, Y., Vignali, L., Collignon, O., Crepaldi, D., & Bottini, R. (2020). Brain network reconfiguration for narrative and argumentative thought. bioRxiv. DOI


November 28, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Toneva and colleagues: review PubPeer

Toneva, M., Mitchell, T. M., & Wehbe, L. (2020). Combining computational controls with natural text reveals new aspects of meaning composition. bioRxiv. DOI


November 9, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Maffei and Sessa: review PubPeer

Maffei, A., & Sessa, P. (2020). Event-related network changes unfold the dynamics of cortical integration during face processing. bioRxiv. DOI


October 29, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Di and Biswal: review PubPeer

Di, X., & Biswal, B. B. (2020). Dissecting individual differences in responses to naturalistic stimuli in functional MRI: effects of development and gender. bioRxiv. DOI


July 23, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Hawco and colleagues: review PubPeer

Hawco, C. S., Dickie, E. W., Jacobs, G., Daskalakis, Z. J., & Voineskos, A. N. (2020). Moving beyond the mean: subgroups and dimensions of brain activity and cognitive performance across domains. bioRxiv. DOI


June 8, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Coutanche and colleagues: review PubPeer

Coutanche, M. N., Akpan, E., & Buckser, R. R. (2020). Representational connectivity analysis: identifying networks of shared changes in representational strength through jackknife resampling. bioRxiv. DOI


May 15, 2020 — Open review of preprint by Papale and colleagues: review PubPeer

Papale, P., Leo, A., Handjaras, G., Cecchetti, L., Pietrini, P., & Ricciardi, E. (2019). Shape coding in occipito-temporal cortex relies on object silhouette, curvature and medial-axis. bioRxiv, 814251. DOI


August 29, 2019 — Open review of preprint by Chen and colleagues: review PubPeer

Chen, G., Taylor, P. A., Qu, X., Molfese, P. J., Bandettini, P. A., Cox, R. W., & Finn, E. S. (2019). Untangling the relatedness among correlations, part III: inter-subject correlation analysis through Bayesian multilevel modeling for naturalistic scanning. bioRxiv, 655738. DOI


August 20, 2019 — Open review of preprint by Nili and colleagues: review PubPeer

Nili, H., Walther, A., Alink, A., & Kriegeskorte, N. (2016). Inferring exemplar discriminability in brain representations. bioRxiv, 080580. DOI


August 8, 2019 — Open review of preprint by Hudson and colleagues: review PubPeer

Hudson, M., Seppälä, K., Putkinen, V., Sun, L., Glerean, E., Karjalainen, T., Hirvonen, J., Nummenmaa, L. (2019) Dissociable neural systems for unconditioned acute and sustained fear. bioRxiv, 676650. DOI


June 29, 2019 — Open review of preprint by DuPre and colleagues: review PubPeer

DuPre, E., Hanke, M., & Poline, J. (2019). Nature abhors a paywall: how open science can realize the potential of naturalistic stimuli. PsyArXiv. DOI


March 27, 2019 — Open review of software by Kent and Herholz: GitHub

Kent, J. D., Herholz, P. (2019). NiBetaSeries: task related correlations in fMRI. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(41), 1295. DOI


November 12, 2018 — Open review of software by Vallat: GitHub

Vallat, R. (2018). Pingouin: statistics in Python. Journal of Open Source Software, 3(31), 1026. DOI


May 19, 2018 — Open review of preprint by Esteban and colleagues: review

Esteban, O., Markiewicz, C. J., Blair, R. W., Moodie, C. A., Isik, A. I., Erramuzpe, A., Kent, J. D., Goncalves, M., DuPre, E., Snyder, M., Oya, H., Ghosh, S. S., Wright, J., Durnez, J., Poldrack, R. A., Gorgolewski, K. J. (2018). FMRIPrep: a robust preprocessing pipeline for functional MRI. bioRxiv, 306951. DOI


March 29, 2018 — Open review of preprint by Pallarés and colleagues: review

Pallarés, V., Insabato, A., Sanjuan, A., Kuehn, S., Mantini, D., Deco, G., & Gilson, M. (2018). Extracting orthogonal subject- and behavior-specific signatures from fMRI data using whole-brain effective connectivity. bioRxiv, 201624. DOI


January 2, 2017 — Open review of preprint by Gorgolewski and colleagues: review

Gorgolewski, K. J., Alfaro-Almagro, F., Auer, T., Bellec, P., Capota, M., Chakravarty, M. M., Churchill, N. W., Cohen, A. L., Craddock, R. C., Devenyi, G. A., Eklund, A., Esteban, O., Flandin, G., Ghosh, S. S., Guntupalli, J. S., Jenkinson, M., Keshavan, A., Kiar, G., Liem, F., Raamana, P. R., Raffelt, D., Steel, C. J., Quirion, P.-O., Smith, R. E., Strother, S. C., Varoquaux, G., Yarkoni, T., Wang, Y., Poldrack, R. A. (2017). BIDS Apps: improving ease of use, accessibility, and reproducibility of neuroimaging data analysis methods. bioRxiv, 079145. DOI