The cultural evolution of symbolic culture

Many tools that we use to think and communicate — letters, numbers, calendars, artistic forms, and other symbols — have a cultural history. They evolved by being transmitted from one mind to another, then another, and this process was shaped by cognitive constraints, some symbols being easier to learn than others. Cognitive science and cultural evolution make predictions about the structure of cultural symbols, which can be tested in two main ways. First, cultural evolution can be modeled and these models can be tested against historical or anthropological data.

Characterization of the role of cardiac interoception in neurofeedback efficacy

Characterization of the role of cardiac interoception in neurofeedback efficacy Context: In military environments, where high-stress situations are common, maintaining or enhancing cognitive performance is critical for ensuring both the safety and success of combat operations. Similar to physical training, emerging techniques like neurofeedback offer the potential to optimize cognitive abilities in soldiers. Neurofeedback relies on a brain-computer interface that allows individuals to consciously modulate specific brain activities, training their brains to function more efficiently1.

Listening Ahead: Beta-Mediated Prediction in the Brain Through Four Modelling Lenses

When we listen to speech, the brain constantly anticipates what comes next. Recent work suggests that beta-band oscillations (~13 to 30 Hz) carry these predictions, but their effect on behaviour may stay hidden when listening is easy. The question this project tackles is what beta activity actually looks like in the brain during clear, natural speech, and what mechanisms organise it.

Electrophysiological characterization of auditory memory reactivations in the ferret

How the brain consolidates auditory memories during sleep remains poorly understood. A key open question is whether the hippocampus contributes to this process via sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events, the fast oscillatory sequences that drive memory replay in spatial tasks, or whether auditory cortex operates through distinct, cortex-intrinsic mechanisms. Addressing this question requires combining large-scale recordings across the auditory system and hippocampus with reliable vigilance-state monitoring.

Sleep architecture and social modulation of vigilance-state dynamics in the freely moving ferret

Sleep is not a uniform state: it is organized into structured cycles of substages (wakefulness, NREM, and REM sleep) whose dynamics are shaped by both internal brain processes and external experience. How social context influences these transitions remains largely unexplored, particularly in carnivores whose sleep architecture more closely resembles that of humans than rodents. The ferret, a highly social species with a well-characterized auditory cortex and an extended postnatal development, offers a compelling model in which to address these questions.

Emergence of cortical speech representations during postnatal development in the ferret

The ability to perceive and categorize speech sounds develops early in life, well before language acquisition. The neural mechanisms underlying this early plasticity, and in particular the role of auditory experience in shaping the maturation of auditory cortical areas, remain poorly understood. Our group addresses these questions using the ferret as an animal model, whose protracted postnatal brain development makes it especially well suited for experimental investigation.

Communicative intention of gestures

Projet description: At 6 months of age, infants prefer speech over non-speech sounds (e.g., Vouloumanos & Werker, 2004) and recognize that speech can communicate information without accessing its lexical content (Vouloumanos, Martin & Onishi, 2014). It has been argued that attentional biases for speech together with an abstract understanding of its communicative function predict language development (Vouloumanos & Curtin, 2014; Salinas-Marchant & MacLeod, 2021).

When do children combine words?

Projet description: Previous studies have shown that infants understand their first words as early as six months of age (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). The question that then arises is: from what point can babies combine these different words to understand sentences? The current state of the literature shows that empirical data on infants’ understanding of linguistic compositionality are limited and often difficult to interpret.

Testing the MAGNETO (Mood As Global Net Expected Trade-Off) model

Two views on how emotions impact decisions have been opposed across centuries. The Cartesian view suggests that a rational decision-maker must ignore emotions, whereas the Darwinian view suggests that emotions help the decision-maker with valuating options. Our lab has conducted studies that confront these two perspectives, applied to mood fluctuations. Compared to emotions, moods are affective states that are not tight to a particular trigger and that last long enough to influence unrelated decisions.

Speech Intelligibility in Noise: Perception and Prediction Models

Topic: In noisy environments, our ability to spatially separate the voice we are trying to understand from competing sound sources can significantly improve intelligibility. This spatial unmasking is based on binaural listening, meaning we use both ears rather than the monaural signal in only one ear. Numerous models exist for predicting speech intelligibility. These models are crucial tools for evaluating and developing hearing aids and cochlear implants that restore some audibility to deaf people. They are also necessary to improve building accessibility for people with hearing impairments.
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