I am Fabrice, a #neuroscience#PhDstudent @ University of Padova🇮🇹
I am moving instances from sigmoid.social, where I've been staying as a deep learning scientist (too many still and only on X, little discussion outside LLMs, 🥱)
My research👨🏾💻 focuses on classic machine learning as well as self supervised neural networks applied to problems in neurology🧠, such as post-stroke rehabilitation.
I've been interested in #perception, #cognition, #reasoning in living and artificial systems since forever.
I naturally love online interactions, but most places I was used to were deeply toxic. I'm liking Mastodon for now!
Feel free to boost around a bit
The University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Psychology is hiring in perception and in cognitive or perceptual development! These searches are tenure track and open rank. Please share widely!
This colour perception illusion (a black&white photo made to look like a colour photo) was badly positioned at the #TwistMuseum. You had to cross paths with visiters looking at other optical illusions in a perpendicular direction
Many of the exhibits at the #TwistMuseum require participation of two or even three people. The best single participant illusion was this recreation of a "reverspective" artwork by Patrick Hughes. https://www.patrickhughes.co.uk/
Best viewed in person. The effect was jarring even with both eyes open.
Do we only hear sounds? Or can we also hear silence? These questions are the subject of a centuries-old philosophical debate between two camps: the perceptual view (we literally hear silence), and the cognitive view (we only judge or infer silence). Here, we take an empirical approach to resolve this theoretical controversy. We...
"In this study, we show that sensorimotor synchronization to music significantly amplifies the pain-reducing effects of music listening. Using pressure algometry to the fingernails, pain stimuli were delivered to n = 59 healthy adults either during music listening or silence, while either performing an active tapping task or a...
@stancarey Wow. And the colours listed there remind me of the Himba of Namibia, who don't see the sky as blue, likely due to their language (as opposed to perception of colour).
If you can't stop thinking that the 70s were 30 years ago, the 90s were 10 years ago, the year 2000 was also 10 years ago etc, there's nothing wrong with you per se. It's just our brains track time in very weird ways
Fascinating!
"#Auditory#perception is traditionally conceived as the perception of sounds—a friend’s voice, a clap of thunder, a minor chord. However, daily life also seems to present us with experiences characterized by the absence of #sound—a moment of #silence, a gap between thunderclaps, the hush after a musical performance. In these cases, do we positively hear silence? Or do we just fail to hear, and merely judge or infer that it is silent? This longstanding question remains controversial in both the #philosophy and #science of perception, with prominent theories holding that sounds are the only objects of auditory experience and thus that our encounter with silence is cognitive, not perceptual. However, this debate has largely remained theoretical, without a key empirical test. Here, we introduce an empirical approach to this theoretical dispute, presenting experimental evidence that silence can be genuinely perceived (not just cognitively inferred)." https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301463120
“The external world is functioning as part of our cognitive machinery. [...] If you ask what is a predictive brain for, the answer has to be: staying alive. Predictive brains are a way of staying within your viability envelope as an embodied biological organism: getting food when you need it, getting water when you need it."
Here's a cool interview with a large man who ran a marathon. A very large man. His name is Martinus Evans. Did I say 'a' marathon. Actually, he ran 8 marathons. This is all about fat people, our perceptions of fat people and one fat person who believes that every body is perfect.
UAPs (formerly UFOs) are in the news again today.
Here's some helpful guidance from astrophysicist David Spergel, discussing his NASA panel's initial analysis of UAPs: "The lesson of my career is, you want to address important questions with high-quality data and well-calibrated instruments." https://qz.com/emails/space-business/1850491255/space-business-nasa-vs-uap#UAP#aliens#NASA
Case in point about UAPs.
An analysis of this much-discussed "GOFAST" UAP, which seemingly moved at impossible speeds, revealed it's an illusion; the object was moving about 40 miles per hour. Even seasoned observers often misunderstand what they are seeing. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Go_Fast_Official_USG_Footage_of_UAP_for_Public_Release.webm#perception#reality#astronomy
Having one of those "it doesn't feel like Sunday" experiences. Tomorrow's a public holiday here (bank holiday) so Monday won't even feel like Monday. I may never actually readjust. #Sunday#time#perception#bodyclock
💁🏻♀️ It's my turn to make my #introduction: I’m Mélina Cordeau, PhD student in #neuroscience at Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone in #Marseille. 🙉 My PhD project is centered on the #voice#perception in #human and #macaque. I use #MRI : anatomical, functional and diffusion data, to understand the structure-function relationship involved in voice processing in primates brain.
🧠 I am interested in the #anatomy of the #brain, and more generally in its #evolution in different #species.
🥂 I also have a strong taste for #communication and science #vulgarization. I enjoy #social events and I like to organize #events for scientists. 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗻!
The perception of silence (www.pnas.org)
Do we only hear sounds? Or can we also hear silence? These questions are the subject of a centuries-old philosophical debate between two camps: the perceptual view (we literally hear silence), and the cognitive view (we only judge or infer silence). Here, we take an empirical approach to resolve this theoretical controversy. We...
Sensorimotor synchronization to music reduces pain (journals.plos.org)
"In this study, we show that sensorimotor synchronization to music significantly amplifies the pain-reducing effects of music listening. Using pressure algometry to the fingernails, pain stimuli were delivered to n = 59 healthy adults either during music listening or silence, while either performing an active tapping task or a...