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: Infancy, Development, and Education

Developmental Origins of Human Curiosity

Colloque - Lisa Feigenson : Developmental Origins of Human Curiosity

Lisa Feigenson

Résumé

Curiosity underpins the greatest of human achievements, from exploring the reaches of our solar system to discovering the structure of our own minds.  Where does this drive come from?  Here I suggest that far from being reliant on language and sophisticated metacognitive skills, curiosity is present from our earliest days.  In support of this claim, I discuss work showing that preverbal infants not only experience curiosity but harness it: when babies' predictions fail to accord with their observations, they look longer, learn more, and produce exploratory behaviors.  Critically, their exploration is guided by a desire to explain—long before they have the words to describe what they see, babies seek to understand why things happen as they do. In this sense, the curiosity that emerges in infancy lays the foundation for a lifetime of discovery. 

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Infancy, Development, and Education

The state of the State of the Arts of the Language of thought

Colloque - Luca Bonatti : The state of the State of the Arts of the Language of thought

Luca Bonatti

Résumé

I will revise the state of the art of the current evidence for Language of thought. I will focus on the identification of primitive operation in early infancy, and will speculate on the relation between natural language and logical primitives.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Perception and Consciousness

Building a Theory of Consciousness, One Collaboration at a Time

Colloque - Lucia Melloni : Building a Theory of Consciousness, One Collaboration at a Time

Lucia Melloni

Résumé

What does it take to transform consciousness from a philosophical puzzle into a scientific theory? Few frameworks have shaped this quest as deeply as Stanislas Dehaene's Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). By proposing that conscious access arises through large-scale broadcasting and ignition across fronto-parietal networks, GNWT provided both a conceptual framework and concrete, testable predictions

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Numerical and Mathematical Development

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Arithmetic Computation in the Human Brain

Colloque - Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas : Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Arithmetic Computation in the Human Brain

Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas

Résumé

Mathematics is among humanity's most remarkable achievements, yet we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how the brain performs even simple arithmetic. In this talk, I will present a series of studies investigating the encoding of elementary math, as well as the architecture, spatiotemporal dynamics, and causal role of the underlying brain networks. I will show that arithmetic computations selectively activate a distinct network in the human brain, which dissociates from language areas and overlaps with regions related to object recognition, visuospatial attention, working memory and relational reasoning. Next, using machine learning and intracranial recordings in humans, I will demonstrate how we can precisely track the cascade of unfolding representational codes during mental arithmetic, shedding light on the roles of each hub of the math network. Overall, this talk will provide insights into how elementary math concepts are implemented in the brain and, more broadly, show how the case study of math cognition can help us understand the algorithms of human intelligence.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Infancy, Development, and Education

Why Is Conceptual Learning so Hard?

Colloque - Véronique Izard : Why Is Conceptual Learning so Hard?

Véronique Izard

Résumé

Learning concepts can be very difficult, especially in science and mathematics. For instance, children continue to struggle with fractions even after several years of formal instruction on the topic; and adults display persistent difficulties with algebra, biology or physics. Why these failures—and what happens during the long periods of time during which learners are struggling? While most theories of conceptual learning contend that learning proceeds gradually, little step by little step, I will present evidence showing that people experience sudden Eureka moments while learning mathematics. During these episodes, an insight suddenly breaks into consciousness, leading to a leap in understanding. These findings invite us to reconsider learning mechanisms in light of theories of conscious and unconscious processing.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Theme: Numerical and Mathematical Development

Illuminating Fractions Learning: Neuronal Recycling of Non-Symbolic Ratios for Symbolic Fractions

Colloque - Edward Hubbard : Illuminating Fractions Learning: Neuronal Recycling of Non-Symbolic Ratios for Symbolic Fractions

Edward Hubbard

Résumé

Within mathematics, fractions hold a special place. They present perennial difficulties to students, and yet, mastering fractions is a critical stepping stone towards algebra and higher-order mathematics. More than 20 years ago, Stanislas Dehaene suggested that fractions are difficult because they lack the intuitive perceptual foundation that permits us to readily comprehend whole numbers and instead may depend on formal and symbolic processes. Here, I will present research from my lab showing that fractions may indeed have a perceptual foundation, and that this perceptual foundation may be recycled to allow us to understand symbolic fractions. Behaviorally, we have shown that symbolic fractions do not need to be processed componentially and instead can be represented on a coherent mental number. We show that wholistic fraction comparisons (and translation to decimals) does not require time consuming computations, and that non-symbolic ratio perception in college students and American elementary school children predicts formal fractions skills. Using fMRI, we have further shown that non-symbolic ratio perception reliable recruits right parietal cortex, even before the onset of formal schooling, and these parietal systems become tuned to symbolic fractions after as little as two years of formal education. Despite this evidence that fractions do, indeed, have a perceptual foundation, they still present significant difficulties. I will close by arguing that fractions (and other domains) may be difficult not due to a lack of foundational systems, but rather, due to educational methods that fail to align with these perceptual foundations. Furthermore, I will argue that research in numerical cognition can (and should!) provide new pedagogical approaches that better align with the foundational systems we have discovered to help students better grasp higher-order mathematical concepts. 

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Part 1: Seeing and Decoding the Mind

The Control of Sequence Working Memory in the Prefrontal Cortex

Colloque - Liping Wang : The Control of Sequence Working Memory in the Prefrontal Cortex

Liping Wang

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Part 2: Training and Educating the Brain

Seeing Syntax Everywhere: Syntactic Theory, Language Impairments, and the Brain

Colloque - Naama Friedmann : Seeing Syntax Everywhere: Syntactic Theory, Language Impairments, and the Brain

Naama Friedmann

Résumé

A key notion in linguistics is that of syntactic movement. I will show that this notion and the further theoretical observations and generalizations regarding movement are useful in accounting for language impairments. I will describe syntactic impairments of various sources: acquired (following stroke, tumour, tumor resection), developmental, and neurodegenerative (progressive aphasia, Parkinson's Disease, Machado Joseph Ataxia), and show how useful a good syntactic theory is in assessing, describing, and treating these impairments. 

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Part 2: Training and Educating the Brain

The Neuronal Basis of Numerical Cognition in Humans and Nonhuman Primates

Colloque - Andreas Nieder : The Neuronal Basis of Numerical Cognition in Humans and Nonhuman Primates

Andreas Nieder

Institut de neurobiologie, département de biologie, université de Tübingen, Allemagne

Résumé

Our understanding of numbers, vital to our scientifically and technically advanced culture, has deep biological roots. Research across developmental psychology, anthropology, and animal cognition suggests that our ability to count symbolically arises from more primitive non-symbolic number representations. By studying single-neuron activity in associative brain areas of awake human patients and monkeys, we aim to uncover the physiological principles behind how numbers are represented in the brain. In both species, we've identified "number neurons" that encode set sizes regardless of how the stimuli are presented. These neurons play a crucial role in processing numerical information during goal-directed behavior. Moreover, investigating how numbers are processed in working memory offers insights into high-level cognitive control functions. Comparative research in numerical cognition is uniquely positioned to unravel the brain processes enabling humans to transition from nonsymbolic to symbolic representations, a hallmark of our species.

Stanislas Dehaene

Chaire Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Année 2025-2026

Collège de France

Colloque : Seeing the Mind, Educating the Brain

Part 2: Training and Educating the Brain

Educability

Colloque - Elizabeth Spelke : Educability

Elizabeth Spelke