Colloques du Collège de France - Collège de France

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Neural Codes in Monkeys and Humans

Single-Neuron Correlates of Perception and Memory in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Colloque - Florian Mormann : Single-Neuron Correlates of Perception and Memory in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Florian Mormann

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Space, Time, and Number

The Perception and Understanding of Patterns and Graphics

Colloque - Lorenzo Ciccione : The Perception and Understanding of Patterns and Graphics

Lorenzo Ciccione

Résumé

Graphics are a cultural product, meaning that they are a human invention with defined rules and syntax. In this respect, they are very similar to written words and numbers, probably the two most famous cultural inventions. However, unlike them, graphics have been invented much more recently and they became widespread only in the last two centuries. Furthermore, graphicacy—the ability to read and understand graphics—has received little attention from cognitive psychology. In this talk, I will present some findings about the human ability to intuitively extract statistics and mathematical relations from graphical representations. Specifically, I will show that: graphics' intuitions are available early on in development, independently from formal education, and correlate with statistical and mathematical knowledge; judging the trends of noisy graphical displays recycles brain areas usually devoted to the detection of objects' orientation (in agreement with the neuronal recycling hypothesis) and also activates the brain network for mathematics; both children and adults can extrapolate non-linear mathematical patterns, with the notable exception of quadratic and exponential functions.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Space, Time, and Number

Space as the Fabric of Thought

Colloque - Manuela Piazza : Space as the Fabric of Thought

Manuela Piazza

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Space, Time, and Number

Network Coding in Grid Cells and Place Cells: From Space to Memory

Colloque - Edvard Moser : Network Coding in Grid Cells and Place Cells: From Space to Memory

Edvard Moser

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Perception and Consciousness

Neural Mechanisms of Conscious Visual Perception in Humans

Colloque - Biyu Jade He : Neural Mechanisms of Conscious Visual Perception in Humans

Biyu Jade He

Résumé

In this talk, I will discuss insights from our recent work probing the neural mechanisms underlying conscious visual perception in humans by leveraging multimodal neuroimaging and computational approaches. I will focus on the roles of slow cortical potentials and spontaneous ongoing brain activity as revealed by our recent empirical work. I will also discuss neural and computational mechanisms underpinning humans' remarkable one-shot learning capability in visual perception, as well as how lifelong prior knowledge influences conscious perception.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Perception and Consciousness

The Global Workspace Model of Consciousness: Then and Now

Colloque - Claire Sergent : The Global Workspace Model of Consciousness: Then and Now

Claire Sergent

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Infancy, Development, and Education

Discovering Combinatorial Affordances of Elements to Form Gestalts: Learning to "See Ideas via Groupitizing and Visual Word Forms

Colloque - Bruce McCandliss : Discovering Combinatorial Affordances of Elements to Form Gestalts: Learning to "See Ideas via Groupitizing and Visual Word Forms

Bruce McCandliss

Résumé

Early education is a time of transformation in the way children come to see ideas in the world in the world, partly by a process of learning to combine visual elements to form gestalts. In this talk, I will expand upon these combinatorial learning phenomena across two systems that are transformed in the mind and brain by education. First, I will review research on groupitizing, the ability of children to combine their knowledge of small subitizable sets to access the cardinal value of larger sets, and how this emerging ability is intrinsically linked to educational achievement and potentially linked to individual differences in the organization of cortical activity. Secondly, I will review research on the cognitive and neural basis of learning to see visual word forms via combinations of letters, a process also intrinsically linked to success in education. 

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Numerical and Mathematical Development

Pattern Codes for Numerical Quantity during Perception and Internal Computation in the Human Brain

Colloque - Evelyn Eger : Pattern Codes for Numerical Quantity during Perception and Internal Computation in the Human Brain

Evelyn Eger

Résumé

During the last two decades, neuroimaging has generated a wealth of knowledge on how number processing inserts itself into the functional neuroanatomy of the human brain. We understand quite well now what are the cortical areas involved, and the neural codes for individual quantities as perceptual entities. Still, we lack a general understanding of how quantity representations are transformed during mental computations, and how or even where results of such computations are coded in the brain. By using ultra-high-field (UHF) imaging during an approximate calculation task designed to disentangle in- and outputs of a computation from the operation, we uncovered a representation of internally generated quantities which was most prominent in higher-level regions like the angular gyrus and lateral prefrontal cortex, and the intra-parietal sulcus. Intraparietal sensory-motor integration regions were the only ones found to share the same representational space for stimulus-evoked and internally generated quantities. This suggests the transformation may occur in these regions, before result numbers are maintained for task purposes in higher-level areas in a format possibly detached from sensory-evoked inputs. Results illustrate the power of UHF imaging to finely characterize neural codes underlying human numerical abilities with non-invasive methods.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Perception and Consciousness

The Global Neuronal Workspace from the Molecular to the Cognitive Level: Consequences for Pathology and Pharmacology

Colloque - Jean-Pierre Changeux : The Global Neuronal Workspace from the Molecular to the Cognitive Level: Consequences for Pathology and Pharmacology

Jean-Pierre Changeux

Résumé

The global neuronal workspace (GNW) theory originates from decades-long productive dialogs between Dehaene & Changeux which aimed, in the late 80's, at the elaboration of formal neuronal networks of cognitive functions. They initially included birdsong learning by selection, the Wisconsin card sorting task, infants numerosity detection...All these models were grounded on a molecular level which included allosteric neurotransmitter receptors. In 1998, the "global neuronal workspace" was integrated into a formal organism in order to pass the effort-full, "conscious", Stroop task. It was postulated to consist of a brain-scale—multimodal & horizontal—network of widely distributed neurons with long axon neurons, distinct from modality-specific localized non-conscious processors, including neurons which included the prefontal, parieto-temporal, cingulate… areas. The access of an outside representation to the conscious workspace would manifest itself by an "ignition" of the workspace network. At this stage, an important number of imaging and electrophysiological data appear consistent with the GNW theory. In this contribution, emphasis shall be given to the bottomup contribution of the molecular level and its consequences for the understanding of neuropsychiatric diseases and rational drug design, in the larger context of a novel precision pharmacology.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Numerical and Mathematical Development

The Relationship Between The Approximate Number System (ANS) And Math Cognition—Evidence From Across Several Continents

Colloque - Justin Halberda : The Relationship Between The Approximate Number System (ANS) And Math Cognition—Evidence From Across Several Continents

Justin Halberda

Résumé

What might be the relationship between our fanciest, most-recent cognitive inventions (e.g., Formal Mathematics) and our most evolutionarily ancient abilities to approximate the world (e.g., The Approximate Number System)? I will review the field's evidence, highlighting data from across 4 Continents.