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matthiasmichel.bsky.social
Matthias Michel
@matthiasmichel.bsky.social
1.7K followers 440 following 170 posts
Assistant professor at MIT, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Philosophy of science and cognitive science of consciousness.
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matthiasmichel.bsky.social
Matthias Michel @matthiasmichel.bsky.social · Apr 21
Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS!! @smfleming.bsky.social and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S014.... A (long) thread 🧵
Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision
doi.org
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
neddo.bsky.social
Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 4h
Can Only Meat Machines be Conscious? New paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, free download until November 26 with this URL: authors.elsevier.com/a/1luwh4sIRv...
authors.elsevier.com
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
daweibai.bsky.social
Dawei Bai @daweibai.bsky.social · 5d
New paper: the ‘Double Ring Illusion’!
Does the visual system integrate *intuitive physics*? This new illusion developed by Brent Strickland and I offers a straightforward demonstration – one that you can experience yourselves!
Demos in thread👇
[1/6]
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ianbphillips.bsky.social
Ian Phillips @ianbphillips.bsky.social · 3d
@neddo.bsky.social's very nice commentary on @matthiasmichel.bsky.social and @smfleming.bsky.social's BBS target article also arguing that conscious perception may form fast even if postdiction suggests it only "vulcanizes" slowly.
neddo.bsky.social
Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 3d
Hmmm…my reply is somewhat similar drive.google.com/file/d/1cIUk...
2025.Michel.Fleming.response.pdf
drive.google.com
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
vayzenb.bsky.social
Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · Jul 2
My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social ‬is now out in Science Advances!

We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime

doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children
The visual recognition abilities of preschool children rival those of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.
doi.org
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
sampendu.bsky.social
Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 5d
Long time in the making: our preprint of survey study on the diversity with how people seem to experience #mentalimagery. Suggests #aphantasia should be redefined as absence of depictive thought, not merely "not seeing". Some more take home msg:
#psychskysci #neuroscience

doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
smfleming.bsky.social
Steve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · 6d
@matthiasmichel.bsky.social and I are beavering away reading and responding to all the excellent commentaries on our BBS paper outlining an evolutionary account of visual consciousness.

In the meantime, if you missed our target article, it's available here:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision
www.cambridge.org
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
jorge-morales.bsky.social
Jorge Morales @jorge-morales.bsky.social · 7d
Imagine an apple 🍎. Is your mental image more like a picture or more like a thought? In a new preprint led by Morgan McCarty—our lab's wonderful RA—we develop a new approach to this old cognitive science question and find that LLMs excel at tasks thought to be solvable only via visual imagery. 🧵
Artificial Phantasia: Evidence for Propositional Reasoning-Based Mental Imagery in Large Language Models
This study offers a novel approach for benchmarking complex cognitive behavior in artificial systems. Almost universally, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform best on tasks which may be included in th...
arxiv.org
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
ianbphillips.bsky.social
Ian Phillips @ianbphillips.bsky.social · 8d
What does postdiction show about the speed of consciousness? In this forth. piece in BBS, I respond to @smfleming.bsky.social + @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's claim that postdiction shows consciousness is slow -- too slow for its purpose to be online action guidance. 1/3 philpapers.org/rec/PHIPAT-14
philpapers.org
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quining.bsky.social
Julian Matthews @quining.bsky.social · 8d
🚨 Out now in @commspsychol.nature.com 🚨
doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Our #RegisteredReport tested whether the order of task decisions and confidence ratings bias #metacognition.

Some said decisions → confidence enhances metacognition. If true, decades of findings will be affected.
A picture of our paper's abstract and title: The order of task decisions and confidence ratings has little effect on metacognition. Task decisions and confidence ratings are fundamental measures in metacognition research, but using these reports requires collecting them in some order. Only three orders exist and are used in an ad hoc manner across studies. Evidence suggests that when task decisions precede confidence, this report order can enhance metacognition. If verified, this effect pervades studies of metacognition and will lead the synthesis of this literature to invalid conclusions. In this Registered Report, we tested the effect of report order across popular domains of metacognition and probed two factors that may underlie why order effects have been observed in past studies: report time and motor preparation. We examined these effects in a perception experiment (n = 75) and memory experiment (n = 50), controlling task accuracy and learning. Our registered analyses found little effect of report order on metacognitive efficiency, even when timing and motor preparation were experimentally controlled. Our findings suggest the order of task decisions and confidence ratings has little effect on metacognition, and need not constrain secondary analysis or experimental design.
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renrutmailliw.bsky.social
Will Turner @renrutmailliw.bsky.social · 8d
New BBS article w/ @lauragwilliams.bsky.social and Hinze Hogendoorn, just accepted! We respond to a thought-provoking article by @smfleming.bsky.social & @matthiasmichel.bsky.social, and argue that it's premature to conclude that conscious perception is delayed by 350-450ms: bit.ly/4nYNTlb
OSF
bit.ly
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patxelos.bsky.social
Patxi Elosegi @patxelos.bsky.social · 9d
1/Preprint Alert🔔: Across two experiments plus a computational model, we show the visual system compresses complex scenes into summary statistics that can guide behavior without conscious access to the task-defining features. We term this the Ensemble Blindsight effect.
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
kobedesender.bsky.social
Kobe Desender @kobedesender.bsky.social · 13d
Introducing hMFC: A Bayesian hierarchical model of trial-to-trial fluctuations in decision criterion! Now out in @plos.org Comp Bio.
led by Robin Vloeberghs with @anne-urai.bsky.social Scott Linderman

Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u... Thread ↓↓↓

#PsychSciSky #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
meganakpeters.bsky.social
megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 12d
Just accepted at BBS - a commentary on @smfleming.bsky.social and @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's Sensory Horizons article:
Reality monitoring decision policies and the slowness of consciousness
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
hakwan.bsky.social
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 12d
paper is up~

This study examines performance evaluation in perceptual detection tasks using response-time-based signal detection theory (SDT) analysis. A defining feature of detection tasks is the asymmetry between trials with stimulus presence and absence, often reflected in ....
hakwan.bsky.social
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 13d
detection d' is generally overestimated, coz we tend to be too lazy to collect the necessary data in order to correct for the unequal variance between target present vs absent distributions. turns out we can do this for free - using reaction times data. so, let's do it~

osf.io/preprints/ps...

🧠📈
OSF
osf.io
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kristorpjensen.bsky.social
Kris Jensen @kristorpjensen.bsky.social · 14d
I’m super excited to finally put my recent work with @behrenstimb.bsky.social on bioRxiv, where we develop a new mechanistic theory of how PFC structures adaptive behaviour using attractor dynamics in space and time!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
mamassian.bsky.social
Pascal Mamassian @mamassian.bsky.social · 14d
A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...
An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.
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marlenecohen.bsky.social
Marlene Cohen @marlenecohen.bsky.social · 15d
New preprint! How can you remember an image you saw once, even after seeing thousands of them? We find a role for humble mid-level visual cortex in high-capacity, one-shot learning. doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.22.677855 🧵🧪1/
Neuronal signatures of successful one-shot memory in mid-level visual cortex
High-capacity, one-shot visual recognition memory challenges theories of learning and neural coding because it requires rapid, robust, and durable representations. Most studies have focused on the hip...
doi.org
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
quiltydunn.bsky.social
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 16d
New publication forthcoming in BBS, co-authored with John Krakauer: a commentary on @smfleming.bsky.social & @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's groundbreaking target article.

We critique widespread assumptions in cognitive neuroscience about the role of internal models in implicit cognition. (1/7)
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earlkmiller.bsky.social
Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 17d
How the brain splits up vision without you even noticing
As an object moves across your field of view, the brain seamlessly hands off visual processing from one hemisphere to the other like cell phone towers or relay racers do, a new MIT study shows.
picower.mit.edu/news/how-bra...
#neuroscience
How the brain splits up vision without you even noticing
As an object moves across your field of view, the brain seamlessly hands off visual processing from one hemisphere to the other like cell phone towers or relay racers do, a new MIT study shows.
picower.mit.edu
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
earlkmiller.bsky.social
Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 19d
Welcome to the MIT Consciousness Club
sites.google.com/view/mit-con...
#neuroscience
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matthiasmichel.bsky.social
Matthias Michel @matthiasmichel.bsky.social · 19d
Yes, all the talks will be recorded.
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
earlkmiller.bsky.social
Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 19d
Join us tomorrow (9/19) at noon by Zoom for the first seminar of the MIT Consciousness Club
sites.google.com/view/mit-con...
#neuroscience
MIT Consciousness Club
The MIT Consciousness Club aims to foster interdisciplinary research on consciousness at MIT and in the broader Boston area by organizing a monthly event featuring an expert talk on consciousness foll...
sites.google.com
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Reposted by Matthias Michel
thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social
Thomas Luo @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social · 20d
How does the brain decide? 🧠

Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.

After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.

rdcu.be/eGUrv
Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature
Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...
www.nature.com
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matthiasmichel.bsky.social
Matthias Michel @matthiasmichel.bsky.social · 20d
The MIT Consciousness Club will have a Zoom option for those who would like to join online. First session Friday, Sept 19, 12pm-1:30pm. For more, see: sites.google.com/view/mit-con.... You can register to the email list here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F....
MIT Consciousness Club Mailing List
docs.google.com
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hakwan.bsky.social
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 21d
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

my wife (2nd author) just published in Cell

working from home is not without pressure you know?

#neuroscience
Distinct circuit motifs evaluate opposing innate values of odors
Evaluating the innate value of objects is critical for expressing adaptive behaviors. However, where and how this computation takes place in the brain…
www.sciencedirect.com
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