LSP-ENS

Congrats to Jun Yang for defending his PhD on “Visual detection of elementary image features during natural behaviour”. 🎉 Well done Dr Jun on this amazing accomplishment.🥳

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Credits for the pictures to @mengtingj.bsky.social

JNeurosci cover

The latest research by Alain de Cheveigné from our lab is featured on the cover of the Journal of Neuroscience! https://www.jneurosci.org/content/46/7.cover-expansion

BAMB! 2026 | Barcelona Summer School for Advanced Modeling of Behavior Intensive training for experienced researchers in cognitive science, computational neuroscience and neuro-AI. Five interconnected modules, expert faculty, hands-on projects. July 12-23, 2026.

Applications for BAMB! 2026 are officially open!

Join us in Barcelona (July 12–23) to master the art of behavioral modeling with our incredible faculty:

@meganakpeters.bsky.social
@marcelomattar.bsky.social
@khamascience.bsky.social
@thecharleywu.bsky.social

Apply now here: www.bambschool.org

Modulation statistics of natural soundscapesa) - PubMed Modulation statistics of "natural soundscapes" were estimated by calculating the modulation power spectrum (MPS) of a database of acoustic samples recorded in nine pristine terrestrial habitats for four moments of the day and two contrasting periods, differing in precipitation level. In particular, …

A forest, a desert, have unique acoustic signatures in frequency and time. A study from our lab (N.Miller, C.Lorenzi) shows that soundscapes recorded over different continents distinguish habitats and follow the global biodiversity decrease from tropical to polar regions. @cognitionens.bsky.social

Illustration celebrating the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11, featuring a stylized female scientist in a lab coat and glasses.

Happy international day for women and girls in science! #WomenInScience

Only a few days left to apply to the Cognitive Science Master’s. !!!! Deadline: Feb 24 !!!!

UCL launches landmark European collaboration on perception science UCL is working with top French partners CNRS and ENS – PSL on a major European research initiative to advance understanding of human perception and consciousness.

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/...

Modeling how contextual and structural biases shape duration perception Human time perception is flexible and shaped by both structural constraints and contextual influences. Disentangling these sources of bias is essential for understanding the predictive mechanisms unde...

Preprint out, from my work with @mamassian.bsky.social and Anne! We show that time perception is shaped not only by context but also by structural constraints, by extending classical Bayesian models by explicitly quantifying a structural prior impacting duration discrimination.
shorturl.at/q8bE6

Conference poster, titled "speech in noise workshop"

Group photo of all attendees

Lively poster session

Coffee break with many people chatting

That's it, #SPIN2026 is over, thank you to all attendees for two great days of thought-provoking talks, amazing poster sessions... and actual speech-in-noise demo during coffee breaks!

Cover of the booklet. Title: Speech in Noise Workshop, Abstracts. With a colorful picture of the Eiffel Tower.

The program booklet for the SpiN workshop is now ready to download! Two days of intense discussions on psychoacoustics and psycholinguistics await at ENS Paris next week! https://2026.speech-in-noise.eu/files/SPIN2026-Programme.pdf

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.04.638661v1
Well done, Dr. Miller!

Nicole Miller and her jury in front of her title slide: "Auditory perception of natural soundscapes"

Huge congratulations to Nicole Miller for successfully defending her PhD, concluding our lab’s 2025 defense season! You can check some of her work on auditory perception of natural soundscapes here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10658775/

Outstanding achievement in coffee consumption 1st Alejandro (385) 2nd Thomas S. (358) 3rd Hortense (310)

8/8
And of course...
"Outstanding achievement in coffee consumption"

Social Ferret of the Year “After two years of being friends exclusively with Kukulu, Chistera decided to extend her social circle and finally mingle with other ferrets !!” Chistera

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"Social Ferret of the Year"

The graph displays average FME values with bar and line plots for different categories. The x-axis is labeled with icons of a bird, a tree, a weightlifting symbol, musical notes, and a hedgehog,

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"Best x-axis of the year"

Best field-work with a view The photos deserve their own slide Matthieu, Robin, Christian

A tripod with a fluffy windshield microphone is set up outdoors on a grassy hilltop. In the background, scenic view of rolling hills and mountains under a clear blue sky with scattered clouds.

A lightweight camping tent is pitched on a hilltop at dawn. The tent is silhouetted against a breathtaking view of a sunrise, with the sky transitioning from deep blue to warm orange.

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"Best field-work with a view"

Longest Experiment / best foster mother of the Year Raising ferrets with 5 months of human speech Elmina

Longest & shortest Experiment of the Year 3333 participants for 1 minute each Matthieu & Christian

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"Longest Experiment of the Year" price (continued)

Longest Experiment of the Year (hours of hands-on data collection) 1.5 hour fMRI scan, plus 2 x 5 hour sessions in 29 participants Izel & Vasileia

Longest Experiment of the Year (consecutive hours of data collection) 24h recordings from the Olfactory Bulb Arsenii

Longest Experiment of the Year (Number of natural stimuli) 7800 images Jun

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There were many categories for the "Longest Experiment of the Year" price

"Prettiest Figure of the year" price awarded to Ljubica "A sophisticated model made to look understandable"

A schematic diagram illustrating the computational model of neuronal response, highlighting the interaction between the drive and pool components.

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"Prettiest Figure of the year"

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Yesterday, we gathered for our annual end-of-year meeting, and as tradition dictates we awarded the most prestigious and coveted titles of the year.
From ferret socializing to coffee consumption, here’s who took home the trophies. ⬇️

Nadia Hosseinizave in front of her first slide

Congratulations to @nadiahosseinizaveh.bsky.social on a brilliant PhD defense: "Evolution and Dynamics of Perceptual Confidence: From Perceptual Learning to Global Confidence Formation". Impressive work advancing our understanding of perception and metacognition.

Frontiers | FastACI: a toolbox for investigating auditory perception using reverse correlation The fastACI toolbox provides a compilation of tools for collecting and analyzing data from auditory reverse-correlation experiments. These experiments involv...

New article published in @frontiersin.bsky.social #Psychology! We introduce fastACI, an #openaccess toolbox that enables researchers to design auditory reverse-correlation experiments and analyze the resulting data. www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... @cognitionens.bsky.social @lsp-ens.bsky.social

A new paper co-authored by Daniel Pressnitzer, from @lsp-ens.bsky.social!

We are remarkably good at recognizing natural auditory “textures”, such as the soothing sound of a running brook or fire crackling in a chimney. But do you think you could remember the exact rain texture that opens “Riders on the Storm”?

Laurie Heller in front of her "thank you" slide

Laurie Heller (@cmu-neuroscience.bsky.social, @cmu.edu) gave an excellent seminar for @cognitionens.bsky.social invited by the LSP.

Michael Tarr in front of his first slide titled "Data-driven visual discovery via AI"

LSP thanks Michael Tarr (@cmu-neuroscience.bsky.social
@cmu.edu) for an excellent seminar today on Data-driven Visual Discovery Using AI

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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This work was done with Yves Boubenec at the @lsp-ens.bsky.social

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RT @mamassian.bsky.social‬:
Delighted to share this work led by Thomas Schaffhauser on the processing of rich natural-like motion stimuli (“motion clouds”) in the visual cortex of the ferret:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.23.678183v1