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Dr James Dunn

@jamesdunn

Cognitive ScientistπŸ‘¨β€πŸ”¬ studying #facerecognition at UNSW. Are you a #SuperRecognizer? Find out at http://unswfacetest.com

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11.11.2024
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Latest posts by Dr James Dunn @jamesdunn

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UNSW Face Test - AI-Face Research See how your face recognition skills compare to others with our free tests. Find out for free if you are a super-recogniser or face-blind.

You can also try our free AI-face demo: facetest.psy.unsw.edu.au/aifaces.html

19.02.2026 04:27 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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<em>British Journal of Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library The AI revolution has produced synthetic faces that often appear more human than photos of real people. We tested whether individual differences in human face recognition ability explain variation in....

Link to full print: bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

19.02.2026 04:26 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
LinkedIn This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

My new research found when trying to distinguish real faces from AI-generated ones, people with average face-recognition ability performed at chance, and while super-recognisers performed better than other participants, it was only by a slim margin.

Read more πŸ”— www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/new...

19.02.2026 04:26 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

13.02.2026 22:08 πŸ‘ 6726 πŸ” 2177 πŸ’¬ 98 πŸ“Œ 185
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Gavan McNally (@gavanmcnally) Australia is sleepwalking into scientific irrelevance Β  Australia is living through a dangerous contradiction: we publicly praise science while systematically dismantling the conditions required for...

substack.com/@gavanmcnall... scathing piece on the state of research funding in Australia

13.12.2025 04:09 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I am definitely more than 5 years by the clock, I might be a tick over 5 now with career interruptions, I've lost track.

10.12.2025 04:37 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

But I am only just outside of 5 years post-PhD with some career interruptions.

09.12.2025 23:24 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes, I am an ECR and just started a DECRA and was asked to review a FF for the current round.

09.12.2025 23:23 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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AI study gives insights into why super-recognisers excel at identifying faces Research uses eye-tracking data to examine some people’s extraordinary recognition ability

πŸ§ πŸ‘€ Dr Rachel Bennetts, our expert in face processing at Brunel psychology, shared her thoughts in @theguardian.com on a fascinating new study exploring what makes some people exceptional at recognising faces πŸ˜Άβ€πŸŒ«οΈ

πŸ”— πŸ‘‡

06.11.2025 12:57 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Super-recognizers sample visual information of superior computational value for facial recognition royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #ProcB #Cognition #FaceRecognition

07.11.2025 15:02 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

New research out today is written up in The Guardian!
We show that the basis of super-recognisers advantage for face recognition is not just about looking everywhere – it’s about looking smarter, at more useful information for identification.
Read the full text here: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

05.11.2025 00:22 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Our team just secured an ARC Discovery Project funding for "The Psychology of Perceiving Artificial People", where we ask how human cognition adapts to spotting AI-generated people?

Glad to be a part of this all-star team led by Amy Dawel.

Stay tuned for Postdoc opportunities!

#ARCDiscovery

28.10.2025 23:39 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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International psychology researchers converge on UNSW

A very nice write-up by UNSW of our recent joint meeting of the Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology and the Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision, which we hosted at UNSW

www.unsw.edu.au/news/2025/07...

10.07.2025 09:39 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Proud to have been part of the small but mighty team behind this year’s EPC/APCV with @sbmost.bsky.social, Branka Spehar & @popwatson.bsky.social.

Pulling off a 400+ person event with just a few academics wasn’t easy, but we managed to do it while keeping that classic EPC warmth and supportiveness.

23.06.2025 05:25 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Great talk by @bethanygrowns.bsky.social looking at overlap between face super-recognizers and object super-matchers #epc2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

20.06.2025 04:12 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Amy Dawel kicking off the #epc2025 Face Perception session off with great work looking at how difficult it is to identify AI-generated faces, especially across different races @expsyanz.bsky.social

20.06.2025 04:05 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Great talk by @dongwonoh.bsky.social demonstrating improved detection of AI faces using different visual attention strategies #epc2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

20.06.2025 04:43 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Kateryna Marchenko showing perceptions of face pareidolia follows the classic three dot pattern in noise images #epc2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

20.06.2025 05:41 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Fantastic talk by David White showing that super-recognizers don't pay extra attention to all social cues (e.g. bodies), just to faces #ecp2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

20.06.2025 05:45 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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And that's a wrap!! #epc2025 is in the books, with a lovely closing speech from @visnerd.bsky.social.

SO many thanks to the organising committee for building such a successful conference πŸ™Œ

We'll see you next year in Auckland πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

20.06.2025 09:47 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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This year's David Badcock EMC lecture, given by Rachel Searston, talking about conducting research that has both theoretical impact and practical applications #epc2025

19.06.2025 06:54 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Great talk by Julia Haile showing that indirect eye gaze impacts the believability of expressions in both static and dynamic expressions #epc2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

19.06.2025 23:29 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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David White kicking us off at the EPC Face and Person Perception preconference πŸŽ‰

16.06.2025 23:07 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A terrific opening day to our conference! Welcome, everyone!

17.06.2025 13:46 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Hey ECRs at @expsyanz.bsky.social this week - if you're interested in object perception and/or neural decoding, come find me for a chat about an upcoming postdoc spot at the @marcsinstitute.bsky.social πŸ‘€

18.06.2025 23:20 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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EPC President @sbmost.bsky.social officially opening the conference

17.06.2025 07:51 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Fascinating talk by Ben Steward at #epc2025 looking at how emotional faces and bodies are weighted in judgements. @expsyanz.bsky.social

17.06.2025 23:36 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Awesome talk at #epc2025 by @kyepalmer.bsky.social talking about how parents and children recognize each other's expressions. @expsyanz.bsky.social

18.06.2025 03:34 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Super interesting talk by Imogen Holdsworth looking at whether AQ score influences children's emotion recognition! #epc2025 @expsyanz.bsky.social

18.06.2025 03:37 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A great talk by Ishi Jamdagni at @expsyanz.bsky.social - the main takeaway: participants' rate the cold-pressor task as less stressful than everyday stressors; ethics board might need to reconsider their assumptions around pain and stress!

18.06.2025 00:44 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0