SAVE THE DATE!
"Understanding the neural code for conscious symbolic thought: A challenge for human cognitive neuroscience"
Stanislas Dehaene, Collége de France
Mind and Brain Lecture (Era Chair CogBooster)
June 20, 2025, 14H00, at FPCE-UC
Open to the public and also streaming live at youtube.com/@fpceuc
Abstract:
According to the global neural workspace hypothesis, the mechanisms of conscious access are similar in human and non-human species. Wherein, then, lies the singularity of the human brain? In this talk, I will propose that the contents of consciousness became markedly richer in humans as our brains acquired a capacity for compositional thought using discrete symbols. Recent comparative data from my lab show that humans possess unique abilities for symbolic learning and a mathematical “language of thought”. Even the mere perception of a square or a zig-zag involves a short mental program that captures the observed data in an internal language of geometry. Behavioral and brain-imaging experiments indicate that the perception of geometric shapes is poorly captured by current convolutional neural network models of the ventral visual pathway, but involves a symbolic geometrical description within the dorsal parieto-prefrontal network. I will argue that existing connectionist models do not suffice to account for even elementary human perceptual data, and that neural codes for symbols and syntax remain to be discovered.
