Matthias Michel
@MatthiasMichel_
Assistant professor at MIT, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Philosophy of science and cognitive science of consciousness.
Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS! Steve Fleming and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S01405…. A thread🧵
AI vision is insanely good nowadays—but is it really like human vision or something else entirely? In our new pre-print, we pinpoint a fundamental visual mechanism that's trivial for humans yet causes most models to fail spectacularly. Let's dive in👇🧠 [arxiv.org/abs/2504.05253]
Virtually all neuroscience research on visual mental imagery—including my own!—may rest on false assumptions. Time to rethink the foundations. New paper with Margherita Arcangeli in @Brain1878. @aphantasia
Excited to share this preprint on the possibilities of using transcranial focused ultrasound for identifying the neural substrate of conscious perception: arxiv.org/abs/2507.08517 With Daniel K. Freeman, Seung-Schik Yoo, and @MatthiasMichel_
What Is Analog Computing? You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them. quantamagazine.org/what-is-analog… #neuroscience Your brain computes without 1s and 0s
🎈 Out now: 🎈 "The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination" (by Balaban & me) of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more nature.com/articles/s4146…
Submit your proposal to comment by EOD tomorrow: cambridge.org/core/journals/… Read the full paper: cambridge.org/core/services/…
Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS! Steve Fleming and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S01405…. A thread🧵
five excellent talks from the NYU workshop on functions of consciousness last month. speakers: dylan ludwig (who also organized), joshua shepherd (@ERC_Conscious), @MatthiasMichel_, marisa carrasco (@carrasco_lab), and @axelcleeremans. youtube.com/playlist?list=…
The deadline for commentary proposals (just ~500 words) for our paper @BBSJournal is June 28! You can submit it here: cambridge.org/core/journals/….
Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS! Steve Fleming and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S01405…. A thread🧵
1/ Can AI be conscious? My @BBSjournal target article on ‘Conscious AI and biological naturalism’ is now open for commentary proposals. Deadline is June 12. Take-home: real artificial consciousness is very unlikely along current trajectories. cambridge.org/core/journals/…
You can now submit a commentary on our paper here: cambridge.org/core/journals/…. We're very much looking forward to reading your commentaries and discussing our hypothesis with you!
Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS! Steve Fleming and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S01405…. A thread🧵
Our new discovery reveals how anesthesia causes unconsciousness. This advances our understanding of consciousness and can help make anesthesia safer.
A new study by @MillerLabMIT finds that an easily measurable shift of brainwave phase may be a universal marker of unconsciousness under anesthesia picower.mit.edu/news/different… #neuroscience #anesthesia #consciousness @mitbrainandcog @ScienceMIT