@mamassian.bsky.social
I’m studying visual perception, mostly using psychophysics. I work for the CNRS at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.
The CNRS (@cnrs.fr) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure/PSL University (@normalesup.bsky.social) is launching a 5-year International Research Project (IRP) with University College London (@ucl.ac.uk) on human perception and consciousness.
www.ucl.ac.uk/global/news/...
We're running a 5th edition of the always-exciting UCL Summer School on Consciousness and Metacognition this year, 8th-10th July 2026 in London. Accommodation and travel expenses are covered.
For more information and how to apply, check out metacoglab.org/summer-schoo...
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📢 Come study cognitive science in Paris!
The Master’s program in Cognitive Science at @ENS_ULM, @psl_univ, and @EHESS_fr is now accepting applications for the next academic year.
🗓 Deadline: February 24, 2026
💻 Apply here: master-cognitive-science.ens.psl.eu/en/applicati...
This renewed opportunity to transform our understanding of perceptual organization will require closer integration between segmentation experiments and algorithms. The examples discussed in this paper demonstrate encouraging initial steps towards this goal.
05.01.2026 12:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Ironically, this has happened at a time in which artificial networks have revolutionized automatic segmentation. Here we direct the spotlight on the convergence between new algorithms and experimental approaches to study segmentation of natural images.
05.01.2026 12:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Perceptual segmentation is central to how visual systems achieve their functional goals, yet research on human segmentation has fallen somewhat out of fashion in the last decade.
05.01.2026 12:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
An illustration of how human perceptual segmentation and integration (PSI) of natural stimuli and image segmentation algorithms can be bridged.
Are we ready to tackle perceptual segmentation of natural scenes?
Finally the review on perceptual segmentation you’ve been waiting for!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🎉 Excited to share this! Low-level, naturally formed priors influence our perceptual inferences, but do they impact our confidence in the same way? With @elifilevich.bsky.social and @mamassian.bsky.social we found: they influence confidence even more strongly! More👇 1/5
dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
This head is spinning continuously, but we see it rotating back and forth...
...presumably because of our strong prior expectation that faces are convex.
This is a very nice example of the Hollow-Face illusion promoted by Richard Gregory:
www.richardgregory.org/experiments/
Exposition Bridget Riley et Seurat au musée d’Orsay jusqu’au 26 janvier, l’artiste presque centenaire, gloire de l’art cinétique, eu la révélation des interactions des couleurs en copiant Seurat en 1959. L’occasion rare de faire l’expérience sensible des liens reliant ces 2 géants de la perception
20.12.2025 08:43 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1Congratulations Sara and Guido!
The two of you look beautiful!
Great new initiative from the editors of Perception: Philosophy Corner. A forum for "accessible reflections on the conceptual foundations of sensory/perception science where empirical insight meets philosophical inquiry". journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
12.12.2025 17:59 — 👍 25 🔁 13 💬 1 📌 0L’ancêtre du camouflage, crée pour la 1ere guerre mondiale, pour des navires de guerre. Les rayures empêchent de déterminer la vitesse, entraine la confusion et rend imprécis les tirs…
09.12.2025 18:17 — 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0Congratulations Dr Nadia Hosseinizaveh!
It was an honour to work with you.
And thank you to your PhD committee for the great discussion,
@nfaivre.bsky.social
Bahador Bahrami
@clairesergent.bsky.social
@opheliaderoy.bsky.social
Frédérique de Vignemont
We will address this through an integrated behavioural, computational, and neurophysiological approach, focusing on how endogenous perceptual traits interact with the external factors.
PhD and postdoctoral positions linked to this project will be advertised in the coming months.
Stay tuned!
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Pleased to share that a collaboration project between David Pascucci (UNIL/CHUV) and I has been selected for funding.
Our project asks a central question:
Why do individuals differ in how their perceptual judgments are shaped by temporal context?
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L'écriture de mon manuel de psychoacoustique #openaccess avance bien : chapitre 1 (méthodologie de la psychophysique) terminé, chapitre 2 (physiologie du système auditif) terminé pour ce qui concerne le système auditif périphérique, j'attaque le chapitre 4 !
leovarnet.github.io/psychoac-man...
🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
Learn more about the origins of Neurotree and how you can use it to explore trends in neuroscience.
25.11.2025 21:26 — 👍 14 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0This is such a bizarre illusion - the helmet leads to an expectation of a face inside and all I saw was a blurred out face until I realized what's really happening...
21.11.2025 17:24 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
The Ponizsa illusion - Kanizsa triangle produces Ponzo illusion, but oddly it inverts apparent depth: the longer line looks closer! Also has an inversion effect like we studied in Altan et al 2025 Proc Roy Soc (doi.org/10.1098/rspb...) but it's also in reverse! 🤔
#visionscience #psychscisky
Excellent chimeric face image showing off a left visual field bias for face processing - this image will tend to look more like John Travolta to observers, but the next one (see following post in this thread)... <1/2>
04.11.2025 21:18 — 👍 20 🔁 7 💬 4 📌 0
A static image of the Mainz-Linez illusion: 4 vertical wiggly lines, in the middle of each a red disk. A small black cross in the center.
A new addition to my “Visual Phenomena and Optical Illusions” collection: “Mainz-Linez”. Here's the live demonstration and explanation of the somewhat mysterious title: michaelbach.de/ot/mot-Mainz.... Enjoy!
31.10.2025 09:34 — 👍 12 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1
A new, Short and Sweet open-access paper on how briefly hiding the hand impedes goal-directed arm movements. Briefly is really brief: we find a decrease in performance in goal-directed movements due to just a few ms without vision of the hand (target remains visible). doi.org/10.1177/0301...
27.10.2025 10:49 — 👍 12 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 2
[PhD track in Cognitive Science at Département d'Études Cognitives, ENS-PSL]
Applications are now open for the PSL PhD Track 2026–2027 in Cognitive Science!
This 5-year integrated program is aimed at talented students eager to tackle the scientific challenges of the future and to start shaping 1/2
Heureux de venir parler des bases neuroscientifiques et psychologiques de la synesthésie (cette confusion des sens), le mercredi 15 octobre à 10h30, dans le cadre de l’exposition Kandinksy à la Philharmonie de Paris
philharmoniedeparis.fr/fr/activite/...
How about in this case?
Surprisingly, most people *predominantly see 180° motion*, while 360° motion is hardly, if ever, perceived – even though the rings move in the same way as above!
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"This integration supports the conclusion that time may be the fundamental dimension along which the brain organizes its sensorium..."
Fantastic review by Pawan Sinha and colleagues (@lukasvogelsang.bsky.social @marinv.bsky.social)
doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Responses to combinations of motion clouds were well explained by a simple summation mechanism of the individual components.
Finally, a subset of neurons exhibited responses that could distinguish different speeds.
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Graphical abstract of the main results of the study by Thomas Schaffhauser
We found that motion features were encoded in a temporally ordered sequence: orientation and spatial frequency emerged within 120 ms after stimulus onset, while temporal frequency and direction followed at later latencies.
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