Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 11/10/2026That's an analogy, not evidence. Recurrence & internal representations occur in brains and feature in theories of consciousness. Neither proves consciousness, but why would their artificial implementation rule it out? I'm not claiming AI is conscious; I'm asking what warrants such confidence. 010
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 10/10/2026I have the same question as Matan: How can you be so confident that AI isn't conscious? I'm not saying it is; I'm just curious about the evidence out there that makes you feel confident enough to say 'No.' My answer would be, 'It doesn't seem to be, but I don't know.' 210
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20267/7 Local ERP ampl & theta power did not reliably predict intelligence. Our findings therefore support a neural-efficiency account: higher cognitive ability may depend less on “more” neural activity and more on selective, economical coordination across task-relevant networks. doi.org/10.1016/j.dc...doi.orgRedirecting 000
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20266/7 Here comes the key result. Only nonlinear information sharing (wSMI) within the orienting network predicted Full-Scale IQ. And the relationship was negative: higher intelligence was associated with less distributed information sharing. 🧠 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20265/7 Conflict processing showed another canonical signature: increased frontal-midline theta for incongruent versus congruent trials. So behavioural, ERP, and oscillatory measures all confirmed robust engagement of the attentional networks. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20264/7 The EEG showed clear signatures of alerting and orienting. Spatial cues enhanced posterior activity, whereas alerting cues produced a distinct centro-parietal response, spanning preparatory and early target-processing periods. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20263/7 First, behaviour. We replicated the classic ANT effects: spatial cues sped responses, absence of a cue slowed them, and incongruent targets produced a strong conflict cost. So all three attentional networks were robustly engaged. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20262/7 The Attention Network Test lets us dissociate three components of attention within the same task: 🔔 Alerting 🧭 Spatial orienting ⚡ Conflict resolution This allowed us to ask which neural features of these networks relate to intelligence. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/20261/7 We studied 38 children aged 11–14 using EEG while they performed the Attention Network Test. We examined three attentional systems (alerting, orienting, and conflict) and compared local neural responses with nonlinear information sharing across the brain. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 22/09/2026🧠 New paper out in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience! Led by Boris Lucero & Andrés Canales-Johnson How does intelligence relate to the developing brain? We asked whether it reflects stronger local neural responses or more efficient communication across brain networks. doi.org/10.1016/j.dc...doi.orgRedirecting 110
Reposted by Renzo Lanfrancohakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026we started out just wanting to point out that, despite its popularity, comparing hits vs misses in detection tasks is actually not a very good way to study subjective experience / consciousness. but we ended up expanding it to make it relevant for clinical stuff too led by @tomnakamura.bsky.social 0189
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I had the same issue with a RSOS paper from early this year. They replied they recently migrated their journal platform to be hosted by a new supplier, and they're currently in the process of re-establishing their deposits to third-party repositories. No idea how long it'll take them, tho. 120
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoSteve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · 16/09/2026📖 New review out today in @natrevneuro.nature.com: Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition 🧠🧪 Full-text link to the paper is here: rdcu.be/9YK3mF7dYhFa 414058
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Worth reading, especially if you're a Beatles fan like me: "Need Help! writing a paper title? All you need is the Beatles" | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...science.orgNeed Help! writing a paper title? All you need is the BeatlesAt least 3200 scientific publications refer to the Fab Four’s music—by far the most of any top-selling artist 000
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Peeps who might be interested: @smfleming.bsky.social @axc.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social @matthiasmichel.bsky.social @hakwan.bsky.social @daniel-bor.bsky.social @canalesjohnson.bsky.social @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social @kobedesender.bsky.social @dobyrahnev.bsky.social @liadmudrik.bsky.social 020
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/20265/5 The aim is not to replace psychophysics, signal detection theory, or metacognitive models, but to complement them. Rather than asking only how well we perform a task, this framework asks how information is distributed and which parts become consciously accessible. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/20264/5 I also introduce Subjective Access Co-information, CoI(K;A;C): the information about task correctness K that is jointly shared with perceptual awareness A and confidence C. It provides a way to quantify how experience and performance-relevant information becomes available to subjective access. 130
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/20263/5 Figure 1 summarises the central idea: rather than treating awareness as a single outcome, we can study how stimulus information is distributed across objective behaviour and subjective access. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/20262/5 The framework uses mutual information, conditional mutual information, and co-information to quantify how much information is present, how much is shared, and how these relationships change when other variables are taken into account. 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/20261/5 Most behavioural approaches ask whether awareness changes performance. But they often tell us less about how information is distributed across the stimulus, perceptual decisions, awareness reports, and confidence. Information theory lets us ask exactly that. 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 14/09/2026How much information about a stimulus is available to a perceptual system, and how much of that information becomes consciously accessible? In this new Perspective, “Perceptual awareness as an information-distribution problem,” I propose an information-theoretic framework. 🧵Preprint: osf.io/zmf5hosf.ioOSF 1206
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoBiyu Jade He @biyuhe.bsky.social · 01/09/2026📣 My lab at NYU currently has two open post-doc positions. We are interested in understanding perception, thinking, and hallucinations. We employ a range of cutting-edge techniques in human neuroscience (e.g., 7T fMRI, MEG, iEEG/DES) and computational approaches (e.g., DNN modeling). 26649
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoHeleen Slagter @haslagter.bsky.social · 19/08/2026PhD position (4 years, paid) on an NWO-funded project on the Role of Foveal Processing in Spatial Attention at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands, supervised by Dr. Mieke Donk (main PI) and me! For more information: workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/ph...workingat.vu.nlVacancy — PhD position (4 years) on the Role of Foveal Processing in Spatial AttentionAre you interested in understanding how attention shapes what we see? Would you like to combine behavioural experiments, psychophysics, and eye tracking to uncover how the brain selects and prioritise... 03934
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoNicolás Sánchez-Fuenzalida @n41c0.bsky.social · 21/07/2026well on time for my bi-yearly post I'm sharing the final version of this very cool work we started with @cjungerius.bsky.social @smfleming.bsky.social @svangaal.bsky.social @fahrenfort.bsky.social in 2021, when I was young and full of hope. Now out in @natcomms.nature.com 1/11nature.comThe act of detecting a stimulus contaminates measures of conscious experience with decision biases - Nature CommunicationsA central challenge in consciousness research is determining whether people truly experience a stimulus. Here, the authors show that context biases traditional detection measures, whereas continuous r... 35224
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoDevin Terhune @devinterhune.bsky.social · 24/07/2026Our new chapter on the cognitive neuroscience of hypnosis, led by @renzolanfranco.bsky.social I think it provides a balanced overview of where the field is at. 012
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Our chapter “Cognitive neuroscience of hypnosis,” with @devinterhune.bsky.social, is out in "Consciousness: A Comprehensive Reference". We review how suggestion shapes perception, cognition & agency, & why hypnosis is a powerful tool for consciousness research: www.sciencedirect.com/science/chap... 010
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoAndres Canales-Johnson @canalesjohnson.bsky.social · 16/07/2026Happy to share our new pre-print "Attention reshapes the information dynamics of thalamic and cortical prediction-error learning" led by the great Juho Äijälä, Thread below👇 12110
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoSara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026🧵1/10 New paper out! In collaboration with @brainself.bsky.social and Karin Jensen! We systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed studies testing whether the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), the classic body ownership illusion, reduces pain in healthy participants. Short answer: the evidence says no. 173
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoBrain, Body, and Self Lab @brainself.bsky.social · 11/07/2026New paper: A systematic review and meta-analysis (k = 22) found no evidence that the rubber hand illusion modulates pain in healthy participants (Hedges’ g = 0.036). These findings challenge claims that body ownership illusions attenuate pain. Thread by lead author @saracoppi.bsky.social below. 151
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Original paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comMinimal exposure durations reveal visual processing priorities for different stimulus attributes - Nature CommunicationsMinimal exposure durations required for visual processing of stimulus attributes can reveal the system’s priorities. Here, the authors show a distinct sequence of minimal exposures needed for face pro... 000
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Work with @pietroamerio.bsky.social @canalesjohnson.bsky.social @axc.bsky.social Hugh Rabagliati, and David Carmel. 010
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 09/07/2026What is the minimal exposure required to process facial features? In our reply to Mamassian & Wexler in Nat Comm, we address important questions about the limits of this approach and explain why manipulating exposure duration can offer advantages over other common visibility manipulations.nature.comREPLY TO “The meaningfulness of searching for minimal exposure duration to understand visual perception” - Nature CommunicationsNature Communications - REPLY TO “The meaningfulness of searching for minimal exposure duration to understand visual perception” 232
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Thanks, Pietro! Yep, just like in this 2024 paper (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). It seems when you control for low-level features, the advantage for fear disappears. It makes sense since papers with CFS found such an advantage in both upright and inverted faces (psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-...) 010
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/202611/11 Neuro-friends who might be interested: @timostein.bsky.social @matthiasmichel.bsky.social @canalesjohnson.bsky.social @liadmudrik.bsky.social @smfleming.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social @vincenttd.bsky.social @pietroamerio.bsky.social @lenalange.bsky.social @drkatiegray.bsky.social 230
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/202610/11 Overall: the visual system can register socially relevant gaze information from remarkably sparse input, with less visual stimulation than is needed for conscious access to gaze direction. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20269/11 We also found that higher autistic traits were associated with a smaller direct-gaze localisation advantage in neurotypical adults, although this correlation should be interpreted cautiously. 100
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20268/11 In a second experiment, the earliest eye-contact advantage depended mainly on low spatial frequencies. Coarse visual information seems especially important for registering eye contact at the limits of vision. 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20267/11 Information-theoretic analyses told the same story: localisation responses carried stimulus-location information before explicit categorisation and subjective awareness became informative. 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20266/11 So the key finding is not simply that people consciously saw direct gaze better. Instead, direct gaze changed objective face localisation before explicit gaze report and metacognitive access became reliable. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20265/11 Crucially, this happened before participants could reliably categorise gaze direction, and before their awareness ratings reliably tracked the evidence supporting localisation. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20264/11 Direct-gaze faces needed less visual input to be localised than averted-gaze faces. In signal-detection terms, localisation sensitivity was higher for direct gaze from 3 ms onward. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20263/11 Participants saw an intact face and a phase-scrambled face for only 1–5 ms. On each trial, they reported where the face was, its emotion, its gaze direction, and how clearly they saw it. 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20262/11 Eye contact is a powerful social signal. But most studies ask whether direct gaze reaches awareness more easily. We asked a more basic question: how little visual input is enough for gaze to affect perception? 110
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/20261/11 New preprint! Can we register eye contact before we consciously see gaze direction? We flashed faces for just 1–5 ms and found that direct gaze facilitates face detection before explicit gaze awareness. 🧵 doi.org/10.64898/202... Work with: @axc.bsky.social & @arvidguterstam.bsky.socialdoi.orgConscious and unconscious eye contact at the limits of visionEye contact is one of the most potent social signals, but it remains unclear how little visual input is sufficient to register direct gaze, and whether such registration requires conscious awareness. ... 1277
Reposted by Renzo LanfrancoAndres Canales-Johnson @canalesjohnson.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Thrilled to share our @natcomms.nature.com article: "Broadband synergy versus oscillatory redundancy in the visual cortex", a cross-species research effort led by Louis Roberts. Thread below! 2136
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 03/04/2026Hey Nika. Yes, "Green Open Access". You can upload the accepted version of your manuscript to a repository (e.g., OSF, PsyArXiv, etc) and add that link wherever you list the published paper. Just be careful in case the journal has an embargo period. I did that with an APA journal paper once. 120
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 01/04/2026Thanks, Natalie. Hope things we great down in Australia! :) 000
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 01/04/2026I thank my collaborators Henrik Ehrsson @brainself.bsky.social, Marie Chancel @mariechancel.bsky.social, and Brigit Hasenack 000
Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 01/04/2026Click here for a full thread: bsky.app/profile/renz... 110