Friday, October 4, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Summer break
The Doc in Nicod is having a summer break. Sessions will resume in september 2013. There will be a new person in charge of the organization but you can still contact Guillaume [guillaume.dezecache [at] ens.fr] if you want to give a talk in september.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Max Seeger - 24/06/2013 - 3 pm
Max Seeger is a visiting student at the Institute, and a PhD student at the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf.
Title: "Authorship of Thoughts in Thought Insertion"
Date, Time, Place: 28/06/2013, 3pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: In thought insertion, a pathological phenomenon often found in schizophrenia, subjects experience thoughts which they claim not to be their own. This claim raises a conceptual puzzle: isn’t it outright incoherent to claim that one has a thought which is not one’s own? According to the standard view, we can give a coherent meaning to the claim by taking subjects to deny agency or authorship for the thought, while acknowledging ownership. However, very little has been said so far on what it is exactly to be the author of a thought. As a result, there is a tension in the debate. On the one hand, the debate proceeds on the assumption that subjects of inserted thoughts make a mistake in denying authorship; in other words, subjects are the authors of these thoughts. On the other hand, mental authorship is often compared to intentional (bodily) agency and hence construed as intentional or deliberate thinking. But given that inserted thoughts are typically not entertained intentionally, this view implies the contrary of the first assumption, namely that subjects are not the authors of inserted thoughts after all. I offer a solution to this tension by construing authorship in purely causal terms.
Title: "Authorship of Thoughts in Thought Insertion"
Date, Time, Place: 28/06/2013, 3pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: In thought insertion, a pathological phenomenon often found in schizophrenia, subjects experience thoughts which they claim not to be their own. This claim raises a conceptual puzzle: isn’t it outright incoherent to claim that one has a thought which is not one’s own? According to the standard view, we can give a coherent meaning to the claim by taking subjects to deny agency or authorship for the thought, while acknowledging ownership. However, very little has been said so far on what it is exactly to be the author of a thought. As a result, there is a tension in the debate. On the one hand, the debate proceeds on the assumption that subjects of inserted thoughts make a mistake in denying authorship; in other words, subjects are the authors of these thoughts. On the other hand, mental authorship is often compared to intentional (bodily) agency and hence construed as intentional or deliberate thinking. But given that inserted thoughts are typically not entertained intentionally, this view implies the contrary of the first assumption, namely that subjects are not the authors of inserted thoughts after all. I offer a solution to this tension by construing authorship in purely causal terms.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sara Packalén - 21/06/2013 - 5 pm
Sara Packalén is a visiting student at the Institute, and a PhD student at Stockholm University. She will present a work she has developed together with Emma Wallin (Stockholm University).
Title: "Episodic memory and imagination"
Date, Time, Place: 21/06/2013, 5pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: The talk addresses the relationship between episodic memory and other kinds of experiential representation, in particular imagination. Episodic memory and (imagistic) imagination involves the same kind of inner representation. The only difference seems to be that memories, unlike imaginations, are about the past. A straightforward explanation of this is obtained if we assume that episodic memory is simply a kind of imagination, with the distinctive trait of being causally dependent on past experiences in an appropriate way. We consider a weak and a strong interpretation of this claim, and argue against both. Although it has some appeal, the view that episodic memory is a subcategory of imagination is ultimately mistaken. Imagination and episodic memory have some features in common, but episodic memory is not imagination.
Title: "Episodic memory and imagination"
Date, Time, Place: 21/06/2013, 5pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: The talk addresses the relationship between episodic memory and other kinds of experiential representation, in particular imagination. Episodic memory and (imagistic) imagination involves the same kind of inner representation. The only difference seems to be that memories, unlike imaginations, are about the past. A straightforward explanation of this is obtained if we assume that episodic memory is simply a kind of imagination, with the distinctive trait of being causally dependent on past experiences in an appropriate way. We consider a weak and a strong interpretation of this claim, and argue against both. Although it has some appeal, the view that episodic memory is a subcategory of imagination is ultimately mistaken. Imagination and episodic memory have some features in common, but episodic memory is not imagination.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Margaux Larre-Perez (the sequel) - 14/06/2013 - 3 pm
Margaux Larre-Perez (Institut Jean Nicod & LPP) will be our next speaker (for the second time this year). She is jointly supervised by Pierre Jacob and Thérèse Collins.
Title: "Stroop-like
interference between structural and functional hand gestures within objects :
Part II"Date, Time, Place: 14/06/2013, 3pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: This talk is actually the follow-up of my last presentation given at the Doc'in Nicod in March (22/3). New data and theoretical implications for the study of hand gestures facilitation by visual objects will be presented.
Man-made objects elicit two kinds of hand gestures: structural (associated with the shape-based properties of objects) and functional (associated with their typical usage) hand gestures. We adapted a Stroop-like paradigm to assess whether they are both automatically activated when viewing an object and if they compete with each other. Participants learned to associate either a “clench” or a “poke” movement with a color, and then executed them in response to the color of pictures of objects associated with both actions. Objects were displayed either entirely or only partially colored, congruently or incongruently relative to the relationship between the color and the object part. Results show that planning any hand movement on an object is slower when attention is drawn to its functional part, suggesting that elicitation of hand gestures may depend on the allocation of visual attention.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Marie Pieron - 07/06/2013 - 4 pm
This talk will be given in french, exceptionally
Marie Pieron est doctorante à l'Institut Jean Nicod, sous la direction de Tiziana Zalla. Son travail porte l'exploration visuelle du visage dans le Syndrome d'Asperger.
Titre: "Inhibition de retour saccadique dans les troubles du spectre autistique"
Date, Heure, Salle: 07/06/2013, 4pm, Salle 235A (29 rue d'Ulm)
Abstract: Lorsque nous explorons notre environnement visuel, nous sommes soumis à plus de stimuli que ce que nous sommes en capacité de traiter. Il nous faut donc effectuer une sélection des informations pertinentes en fonction, par exemple, des actions que nous engageons. Un des phénomènes qui contribue à rendre notre exploration visuelle efficace est l'inhibition de retour. L'inhibition de retour (IOR) est un phénomène d'inhibition automatique servant à nous protéger d'une redirection de l'attention vers un endroit déjà exploré au préalable. Il facilite donc la nouveauté lors de recherche visuelle. Expérimentalement, l'IOR est observé dans une tâche d'orientation spatiale de Posner avec une réponse manuel ou saccadique. Il se caractérise alors par une augmentation de temps de réaction lorsqu'une cible apparait au même endroit qu'un signal apparu précédemment plutôt qu'à une localisation différente. Dans les troubles du spectres autistiques (TSA), des atypies dans le domaine de la perception visuelle ont été retrouvé se traduisant en fonction des tests soit par des déficits soit par de meilleures performances que les individus typiquement développés. Mottron et Burack (2001) ont d'ailleurs émis l'hypothèse d'un surfonctionnement perceptif pour expliquer ces meilleures performances dans les tâches impliquant un bas-niveau de perception. L'étude du phénomène d'IOR peut apporter des éléments de compréhension sur l'exploration visuelle atypique retrouvée dans cette population.
Marie Pieron est doctorante à l'Institut Jean Nicod, sous la direction de Tiziana Zalla. Son travail porte l'exploration visuelle du visage dans le Syndrome d'Asperger.
Titre: "Inhibition de retour saccadique dans les troubles du spectre autistique"
Date, Heure, Salle: 07/06/2013, 4pm, Salle 235A (29 rue d'Ulm)
Abstract: Lorsque nous explorons notre environnement visuel, nous sommes soumis à plus de stimuli que ce que nous sommes en capacité de traiter. Il nous faut donc effectuer une sélection des informations pertinentes en fonction, par exemple, des actions que nous engageons. Un des phénomènes qui contribue à rendre notre exploration visuelle efficace est l'inhibition de retour. L'inhibition de retour (IOR) est un phénomène d'inhibition automatique servant à nous protéger d'une redirection de l'attention vers un endroit déjà exploré au préalable. Il facilite donc la nouveauté lors de recherche visuelle. Expérimentalement, l'IOR est observé dans une tâche d'orientation spatiale de Posner avec une réponse manuel ou saccadique. Il se caractérise alors par une augmentation de temps de réaction lorsqu'une cible apparait au même endroit qu'un signal apparu précédemment plutôt qu'à une localisation différente. Dans les troubles du spectres autistiques (TSA), des atypies dans le domaine de la perception visuelle ont été retrouvé se traduisant en fonction des tests soit par des déficits soit par de meilleures performances que les individus typiquement développés. Mottron et Burack (2001) ont d'ailleurs émis l'hypothèse d'un surfonctionnement perceptif pour expliquer ces meilleures performances dans les tâches impliquant un bas-niveau de perception. L'étude du phénomène d'IOR peut apporter des éléments de compréhension sur l'exploration visuelle atypique retrouvée dans cette population.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Asya Passinsky - 17/05/2013 - 4 pm
Asya Passinsky is a PhD student at NYU and a visiting student at the IJN.
Title: "Metaphysics of Social Objects"
Date, Time, Place: 17/05/2013, 4pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: Ordinary experience suggests that under certain circumstances, we can create things like money, boundaries, stocks, governments, nation-states and corporations by mere declaration. But we cannot likewise create other kinds of objects in this way. For example, we can cannot create H2O molecules, trees, tables or numbers by mere declaration. So how is it that we can create social objects in this way? I will argue against a reductivist answer to this creation-by-declaration puzzle which identifes every token social object with a token physical object, and against an eliminativist answer which maintains that social objects do not exist. I will conclude with some speculative remarks about a realist answer to the puzzle.
Title: "Metaphysics of Social Objects"
Date, Time, Place: 17/05/2013, 4pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: Ordinary experience suggests that under certain circumstances, we can create things like money, boundaries, stocks, governments, nation-states and corporations by mere declaration. But we cannot likewise create other kinds of objects in this way. For example, we can cannot create H2O molecules, trees, tables or numbers by mere declaration. So how is it that we can create social objects in this way? I will argue against a reductivist answer to this creation-by-declaration puzzle which identifes every token social object with a token physical object, and against an eliminativist answer which maintains that social objects do not exist. I will conclude with some speculative remarks about a realist answer to the puzzle.
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