本周的ACX开放讨论区涵盖了广泛的社区活动和科学研究进展。全球各地将举行多场线下聚会，包括但不限于伦敦、东京和纽约等地。此外，波士顿的市政选举将有ACX社区成员提供的投票指南。本周的亮点还包括对最高法院跨性别者权利案件的深入讨论，以及一首AI辅助创作的诗歌。在科学领域，2024年ACX研究员Alexander Putilin分享了他关于脑电波同步（EEG entrainment）对学习影响的复制研究进展，该研究旨在验证在个体最高alpha频率（IAF）下进行刺激同步，尤其是在alpha波谷（T-match）时进行，是否比在alpha波峰（P-match）时进行更能提升学习效率。Putilin已开始收集数据，并在伦敦招募参与者，同时公布了研究代码，欢迎拥有EEG设备的用户参与测试和反馈。

🌍 **全球社区联动与地方活动**：ACX社区本周在全球范围内组织了多场线下聚会，覆盖了从欧洲到亚洲再到美洲的多个城市，如伦敦、东京、蒙特利尔等，并有 Vilnius、Haifa、Vegas 等地的最新加入。在波士顿，社区还为即将到来的市政选举提供了一份投票指南。

⚖️ **深入的观点交流与创意表达**：本周的讨论包括对最高法院关于跨性别者权利案件的分析，与 Bostock 案件进行类比，以及社区成员利用AI创作的诗歌，展现了社区在社会议题探讨和创意文化上的活跃度。

🧠 **脑电波同步研究进展**：2024年ACX研究员Alexander Putilin正在进行一项关于脑电波同步（EEG entrainment）对学习影响的复制研究。该研究的核心在于比较在个体最高alpha频率（IAF）的波谷（T-match）和波峰（P-match）进行刺激同步的效果差异，初步数据显示T-match条件下的学习表现更优。

🔬 **开放科学与参与机会**：Putilin的研究项目不仅公布了完整的源代码，鼓励拥有EEG设备的用户进行实验和反馈，还在伦敦招募研究参与者，并计划在当地ACX聚会上进行公开演示和问答，体现了对开放科学和社区参与的重视。

This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also:

1: Meetups this week include Abuja, Dublin, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Manchester, Montevideo, Montreal, Moscow, Munich, Nairobi, Ottawa, Rio, Santiago, Singapore, Stockholm, Tokyo, Baltimore, Berkeley, Madison, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and many others. And late additions to the meetup list include Vilnius, Haifa, Vegas, and Durham. See the list for more.

2: There is a Boston preliminary municipal election this Tuesday; the Boston ACX meetup group has put together a voting guide, which you can find here.

3: Comments of the week, in both cases on the links post: Byrel Mitchell challenges the analogy between the Skrmetti Supreme Court case on transgender and the Bostock case on homosexuality. And Ryan W. writes his own poem in the style of the yeti example, with some help from AI.

4: 2024 ACX grantee Alexander Putilin has an update on his EEG entrainment replication project. He is looking for study participants and he is publishing the project’s source code:

A quick recap. The study “Learning at your brain’s rhythm: individualized entrainment boosts learning for perceptual decisions” claims that entrainment (flashing a bright white light) at a person's individual peak alpha frequency (IAF) helps them learn to distinguish two types of patterns faster.

The project is to replicate one of the core claims of the paper: entrainment at IAF + timing the stimulus with a trough of the person’s alpha rhythm (T-match) is significantly better entrainment at IAF + timing the stimulus of a peak of the same rhythm (P-match).

I am seeing early signs of the effect on myself. My performance in the T-match condition is noticeably better than in the P-match condition (64% vs 58% on average). I also subjectively feel like I am ‘learning more’ in the T-match condition. So I’m very optimistic about the study actually replicating.

I am now starting to collect the data. If you are in London, please consider signing up. Also, I’ll be doing a public demo and a Q&A at the London ACX meetup on the 13th of September at 2PM.

The code is now published on Github. If you own an EEG headset and experiment with the code, your feedback will be greatly appreciated.

The full replication results will be published on my psychotechnology substack.