Several evidences indicate that visual experience during development is fundamental to acquire long-term spatial capabilities. Specifically, it has been hypothesized that vision is crucial to acquire the ability to code space according to allocentric frames of reference, namely based on external landmarks compared to our own body. For instance, the first attempts of sighted children to code space by relying on allocentric landmarks have been reported at 8.5 months of age, with constant improvements throughout primary school years.

In this talk I will describe studies that explored the spatial distribution of attention with a measurement that is independent of performance - the pupillary light response (PLR), thereby avoiding various obstacles and biases involved in more traditional measurements of spatial covert attention. Previous studies demonstrated that when covert attention is deployed to a bright area the pupil contracts relative to when attention is deployed to a dark area, even though display luminance levels are identical and central fixation is maintained.

Deafness in early childhood is known to lead to lasting changes in how sounds are processed in the brain, but new research published today in eLife shows that even mild to moderate levels of hearing loss in young children can lead to similar changes. 

Researchers say that the findings may have implications for how babies are screened for hearing loss and when hearing aids are recommended.

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The world teems with complex sounds that animals have to interpret in order to survive. To do so, their brain must represent the richness of the sounds' acoustic structure, from simple to high-order features. Understanding how it does it, however, remains filled with challenges. In this thesis, these questions were explored through a new technical prism, namely functional UltraSound imaging (fUSi). First, fUSi was used to investigate with a high fidelity the topographical organization of the auditory system, as well as its connectivity with other brain areas.

Keith's presentation will be largely based on his recent PNAS paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/20/10113.short

Integration-to-boundary is a prominent normative principle used in evidence-based decisions to explain the speed-accuracy trade-off and determine the decision-time. Despite its prominence, however, the decision boundary is not directly observed, but rather is theoretically assumed, and there is still an ongoing debate regarding its form: fixed vs. collapsing.

La Fête de la Science est une manifestion gratuite, ouverte à tous, qui se déroule sur dix jours en France métropolitaine, en Outre-mer et à l'international. Elle est organisée par le Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation, en lien avec de nombreux acteurs du paysage scientifique et culturel français.

Les chercheurs de l'ENS vous ouvrent les portes de leurs laboratoires ! Venez découvrir leurs recherches à travers des visites, des ateliers, des conférences et des expositions. 

La Fête de la Science est une manifestion gratuite, ouverte à tous, qui se déroule sur dix jours en France métropolitaine, en Outre-mer et à l'international. Elle est organisée par le Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation, en lien avec de nombreux acteurs du paysage scientifique et culturel français.

Les chercheurs de l'ENS vous ouvrent les portes de leurs laboratoires ! Venez découvrir leurs recherches à travers des visites, des ateliers, des conférences et des expositions. 

The ability to precisely time one’s motor output to that of others is critical to behaviours involving interpersonal coordination such as music performance, speech or dance. Previous studies have shown that endogenous rhythms (spontaneous rates) influence interpersonal synchrony between musicians performing a joint musical task. Our primary goal was to investigate the combined influence of spontaneous production rates and musical training on the size and direction of asynchronies in a music production task.