Lea Moncoucy

👾 Our team is expanding! 👾
We are very glad to welcome Dr.Gabriel Brandolini as our second postdoctoral researcher.
His work on valence dimensionality will complement Dr. Medha Shekhar’s computational approach, further advancing our investigation of the functional role of phenomenal experience. 🧩

✨We are glad to announce that Inès Mentec, Ivan Ivanchei and Axel Cleeremans’ paper “Exploring the Role of Micro-Valence in the Phenomenal Space: Insights from Similarity Judgments and Deep Learning Models” has been accepted in Neuroscience of Consciousness! 👇Check the feed for highlights

Hey @mini-rhy.bsky.social, I also would have preferred a real artist. Not only for the ethical reason, but also a scientific one: this cover only mimics a phylogenetic tree, but is erroneous.
To put it shortly, I had nothing to do with this choice and was not consulted by the editor- smth I regret.

The value of consciousness: experiences worth having | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DC. Dennett (2020,personal communication) asked: ‘How do we go from doing things for reasons to having reasons for doing things?’. This question targets a fundamental shift in nature: while all organisms act in the way they do for reasons that are shaped ...

5/ ...not only according to the objective value of an extrinsic evolutionary cost function, but is also shaped by the preference-driven subjective value associated with items, situations, events or other agents.

Do not hesitate to check out this proposal; and the other of this Special Issue!

4/ Our answer: We argue that phenomenal experience—what it feels like—is what gives intrinsic value to such behaviour.
We propose that phenomenal experience expands an organism’s ability to act.

overweighted cat in grass

3/ The question: How do organisms go from acting upon reasons explained by extrinsic evolutionary cost functions to acting for reasons of their own—even engaging in behaviour that may be detrimental to their own existence?

2/ « How do we go from doing things for reasons to having reasons for doing things? » asked DC. Dennett (personal communication, 2020).

We took this question one step further, building on a proposal from Cleeremans and Tallon-Baudry (2022)...

The value of consciousness: experiences worth having | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DC. Dennett (2020,personal communication) asked: ‘How do we go from doing things for reasons to having reasons for doing things?’. This question targets a fundamental shift in nature: while all organi...

1/Paper out today in Phil Trans B @royalsocietypublishing.org alsocietypublishing.org in a Special Issue «Evolutionary functions of consciousness», by @axc.bsky.social, Catherine Tallon-Baudry, @krysdolega.bsky.social and myself.

👉Open-access at this link: doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

⬇️ Summary below:

And with that, #ASSC28 is over!
Thank you all for the wonderful discussions, and shared time. See you next year! 🧠✌️

🚨09/07, 16h30 at #ASSC28: check out posters 389 and 373. Inès Mentec will present her EEG study, with a strong claim: Neutrality doesn’t exist! 🤯
And @leamoncoucy.bsky.social’s experimental phil. studies is show that Unfelt Pains are Felt anyways.. 🤕

See you there!🧠
(Please bring them fresh water…)

Success, yarrr!

Activities of our team of #ASSC28
Starting with the poster n.13 for Anastassia Loukianov on conflict adaptation. 😵
Tomorrow join us for Lena Lange’s talk at the Concurrent Session 15! She will present her work on the role of perceptual awareness in motivation.💪
And later, watch out for a pirate… ☠️

🚨 Do not miss this event! 🧠

Our workshop is filling up fast—registration closes tomorrow at midnight! ⏳

Grab one of the last spots by filling out the form here: survey2.ulb.be/index.php/41...

We’re also thrilled to announce two new speakers: Johan Wagemans and Martin Skov @mskov01.bsky.social ! 🎤

Next Wednesday, we are happy to host @nfaivre.bsky.social ! 🤩
He will talk about the relationship between phenomenal, access and perceptual consciousness 👀

More information & abstract on the following link:
bit.ly/4ipD2y7 👈

Join us (on site only), @crcnulb.bsky.social in Brussels!

🚨ALERT🚨

Do not miss the deadline for abstract submission, on the 26th of February!

Looking forward to meet you at our event in Brussels 🧠

Here's the link for abstract submission & registration! 🔖
survey2.ulb.be/index.php/41...

Very glad to co-organise this second workshop of the ERC project with @krysdolega.bsky.social, @axc.bsky.social, Inès Mentec, Lena Lange & Anastasia Loukianov 🤌

Looking forward to meeting new fellows there ☺️

We are excited to announce our 2nd workshop, “Value, Valence, and Consciousness”!

📌 Where? Brussels, Belgium
📆 When? April 7–8, 2025
📢Call for abstracts? until Feb. 26
💸 Registration? Free but mandatory, until Mar. 12

More infos ⬇️
erc-xp.ulb.be/2025/01/20/t...

Looking forward to see you there! 🤩