Hi There!
#1
Axel Cleeremans
Biographical sketch
#2
- 1978 Roadie for Iggy Pop
- 1986 Licence en Sciences Psychologiques, ULB
- 1991 Ph.D. (Psychology), Carnegie Mellon University
- 1993 Research Associate with the NFSR
- 1997 Coordinator, ULB Cognitive Science Program
- 1998 Head, Cognitive Science Research Unit
- 2001 Agrégation de l'Enseignement Supérieur, ULB
- 2001 Visiting Scholar, University of Colorado at Boulder
- 2002 Senior Research Associate, NFSR
- 2006- Research Director, NFSR
- 2007 Chair, COST Action BM0605 on Consciousness
- 2009- Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium
- 2012- Director, Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences
- 2012 Vice-Director, ULB Neuroscience Institute, 2012-2017
- 2015 Laureate of the F.R.S-FNRS Ernest-John Solvay Prize
- 2017 Director, ULB Neuroscience Institute, 2017-2021
- 2018 Featured in the VICE feature-length science documentary "The Most Unknown"
- 2047 Death by stroke right after having solved consciousness
Goodies:
- Download my full CV
- View my Wikipedia entry
Lab & Research
#3
Here is my lab @ ULB — the Consciousness, Cognition & Computation Group.
The group’s research has always been essentially focused on elucidating the mechanisms that subtend implicit and statistical learning, but its research interests have now broadened substantially to explore the differences between conscious and unconscious processing in domains such as voluntary action and the sense of agency, decision making (including pathological gambling), visual awareness and priming, conditioning and associative learning, skill acquisition, as well as hypnosis, placebo, and suggestion. Additional research lines focus on virtual reality, emotion, cognitive development, cognitive control, and eating behaviour. Some of these research lines take place through the COOL network, which we coordinate.
A second focus is on developing and testing a novel, dynamical theory of consciousness in which learning plays a central role. From this perspective ("The Radical Plasticity" project, funded by the European Research Council), consciousness arises as a result of the brain’s continuous attempts at predicting not only the consequences of action on the world and on other agents, but also the consequences of activity in one cerebral region on activity in other regions. By this account, the brain continuously and unconsciously learns to redescribe its own activity to itself, so developing systems of metarepresentations that characterize and qualify their target representations. To get an overall feel for my perspective on the problem of consciousness, read Consciousness: The Radical Plasticity Thesis and Learning to be conscious and consult this page.
In parallel with exploring the "HOW" of consciousness, a second ERC grant (EXPERIENCE) now leads us to look into the "WHY" of consciousness: What is the function of phenomenal experience? You can follow what we do by following the project's twitter account.
To explore these issues, the team combines the three main methods characteristic of contemporary cognitive neurosciences, namely behavioural, brain imaging, and computational modelling methods. CO3 has developed specific expertise in elaborating detailed neural network models of performance in various domains of cognition, and of designing and testing methods to explore the relationships between conscious and unconscious processing. The group has also recently acquired and installed a baby lab to initiate cognitive research on infants.
The lab's research is funded by different sources, including the ULB Neuroscience Institute, the F.R.S.-FNRS, BELSPO, Innoviris, the Walloon Region, the BIAL Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the European Research Council. The lab is part of the Fondation ULB's research portfolio. Check out our research on the CRCN website.
This is the 2014-2019, "RADICAL" lab:
Selected publications
#4
View full list of downloadable publications
- View publications on DI-FUSION
- View Google Scholar Profile
- View Loop Profile
- View ResearchGate Profile
- View my books on amazon
In the spotlight
Lanfranco, R.C., Canales-Johnson, A., Rabagliati, H., Cleeremans, A., & Carmel, D. (2024). Minimal exposure durations reveal visual processing priorities for different stimulus attributes. Nature Communications, 15:8524.
Theory
Cleeremans, A., & Tallon-Baudry, C. (2022). Consciousness matters: Phenomenal experience has functional value. Neuroscience of consciousness, 1: niac007
Cleeremans, A., Achoui, D., Beauny, A., Keuninck, L., Martin, J.-R., Muñoz-Moldes, S., Vuillaume, L., & de Heering, A. (2020). Learning to be conscious. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Preprint
Cleeremans, A. (2014). Connecting conscious and unconscious cognition. Cognitive science, 38(6), 1286-1315. PDF
Timmermans, B., Schilbach, L., Pasquali, A., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). Higher-order thoughts in action: Consciousness as an unconscious redescription process. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1594), 1412-1423. PDF
Cleeremans, A. (2011). The Radical Plasticity Thesis: How the brain learns to be conscious.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 1-12. PDF
Cleeremans, A. & Jiménez, L. (2002). Implicit learning and consciousness: A graded, dynamic perspective. In French, R.M. & Cleeremans, A. (Eds.), Implicit Learning and Consciousness: An empirical, philosophical and computational consensus in the making (pp. 1-40). Hove: Psychology Press. PDF
Cleeremans, A. (1997). Principles for implicit learning. In D.
Berry (Ed.), How implicit is implicit learning? , pp. 195-234. Oxford: OUP. PDF
Methods
Timmermans, B., & Cleeremans, A. (2015). How can we measure awareness? An overview of current methods. In M. Overgaard (Ed.), Behavioural Methods in Consciousness Research, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 21-46. PDF
Vermeiren, A., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). The validity of d’ measures. PLoS One, (7)2, e31595. PDF
Sandberg, C., Timmermans, B., Overgaard, M., & Cleeremans, A. (2010). Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other? Consciousness & Cognition, 19, 1069-1078. PDF
Seth, A.K., Dienes, Z., Cleeremans, A., Overgaard, M., & Pessoa, L. (2008). Measuring consciousness: Relating behavioural and neurophysiological approaches. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(8), 314-321. PDF
Controversial
Doyen, S., Klein, O., Pichon, C.-L., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). Behavioural priming: It’s all in the mind, but whose mind? PLoS One. PDF
Waroquier, L., Marchiori, D., Klein, O., & Cleeremans, A. (2010). Is it better to think unconsciously or to trust your first impression? A reassessment of Unconscious Thought Theory. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(2), 111-118. PDF
Funky
Caspar, E. Christensen, J.F., Cleeremans, A., & Haggard, P. (2016). Coercion changes the sense of agency in the human brain. Current Biology, 26, 1-8. Media coverage
Caspar, E., De Beir, A., Magalhães de Saladanha da Gama, P., Yernaux, F., Cleeremans, A., Vanderborght, B. (2014). New frontiers in the rubber hand experiment: When a robotic hand becomes one’s own. Behaviour Research Methods. PDF
Magalhães de Saladanha da Gama, P., Slama, H., Caspar, E., Gevers, W., & Cleeremans, A. (2013). Placebo-suggestion modulates conflict resolution in the Stroop Task. PLos One 8(10): e75701. PDF
Atas, A., Faivre, N., Timmermans, B., Cleeremans, A. & Kouider, S. (2013). Nonconscious learning from crowded sequences. Psychological Science, 25(1), 113–119. PDF
Windey, B., Gevers, W., & Cleeremans, A. (2013). Subjective visibility depends on level of processing. Cognition, 44(2), 404-409. PDF
Classic
Maquet, P., Laureys, S., Peigneux, P., Fuchs, S., Petiaux, C., Phillips, C., Aerts, J., Delfiore, G., Degueldre, C., Meulemans, T., Luxen, A., Franck, G., Van der Linden, M., Smith, C., & Cleeremans, A. (2000). Experience-dependent changes in cerebral activation during human REM sleep, Nature Neuroscience, 3(8), 831-836. PDF
Destrebecqz, A., & Cleeremans, A. (2001). Can sequence learning be implicit? New evidence with the Process Dissociation Procedure, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), pp. 343-350. PDF
Cleeremans, A., Destrebecqz, A., & Boyer, M. (1998).
Implicit learning: News from the front. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 406-416. PDF
Cleeremans, A. & McClelland, J.L. (1991). Learning the structure of event sequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology : General, 120, 235-253. PDF
Cleeremans, A., Servan-Schreiber, D., & McClelland, J.L. (1989). Finite State Automata and Simple Recurrent Networks. Neural Computation, 1, 372-381. PDF
Unpublished
Cleeremans, A. Hans le Malin: Les sciences cognitives à la croisée des chemins.
Goodies:
- The best reprint request I ever got
Teaching
#5
I teach the Philosophy of Cognitive Science (Philosophie des Sciences Cognitives, PHILB-315) class in the Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences Sociales, together with philosopher Jean-Noël Missa. This class is accessible to any master-level student from the Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences Sociales or from the Faculté des Sciences Psychologiques et de l'Education.
Scientific Societies
#6
- European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), President 2009-2011
- Belgian Association for Psychological Science (BAPS), President 2005-2008
- National Committee for the Psychological Sciences, Secretary-General
- Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC), President 2019-2021
- Cognitive Science Society (COGSCI), Member
- Association for Psychological Science (APS), Fellow
- Experimental Psychology Society (EPS), Member
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Senior Fellow
- Royal Academy of Belgium, Member
Goodies:
- I spend a lot of time going to the different meetings these societies organise. I keep all the badges. I am a strange badge.
- At ASSC19 I got a poster. I hate posters, so I turned mine into an ad for a pirate talk I gave in the hallways. This is not a poster.
Editorial Work
#7
- Field Editor-in-Chief, Frontiers in Psychology (2009-)
- Associate Editor, Consciousness and Cognition (2009-)
- Editor, Psychologica Belgica (2000-2005)
- Associate editor for the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (1997-2000)
- Associate editor for the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology (1997-2000)
- Consulting editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: LMC (1997-1999)
- Ad Hoc referee for several major psychology journals and funding agencies
Small Talk
#8
I have spoken in public on many different occasions and in hundreds of different places over the years, from scientific lectures delivered in stately lecture halls to interviews in television studios.
A fraction of these interventions have been recorded and are available on youtube.
My talk "Solving Consciousness" for the 2021 Frontiers Forum has attracted 1M+ views and you can view it too here!
The Royal Academy of Belgium also has a terrific "TV" website containing a substantial collection of audio and video recordings of lectures delivered within its stately walls. I have my own little channel there.
Goodies:
Code
#9
Download Mac OS X application
Download Windows application
View Source Code
Rumelhart, D.E., McClelland, J.L., and the PDP research group (1986).Parallel Distributed Processing Volume 1: Foundations, MIT Press.
- Read more about the model
Pointers
#10
Here is a list of all sorts of interesting places on the web:
- Kottke [blogging pioneer; content always interesting]
- The Retraction Watch store [retraction watch merchandise!]
- Daring Fireball [intelligent analysis of the state of the mac and the computer industry]
- Books read by Christof Koch [I found many interesting books there]
- Letters of Note [a curated collection of interesting letters]
- Feltron [graphic design + personal data mining]
- Tufte [a classic. Edward Tufte's books on graphic design for (mostly) scientific applications are bar none]
- Neuroconscience [Micah Allen's blog on cognitive neuroscience]
- Aeon [good papers in there]
- Processing [a tool for algorithmic graphic design]
- Wellcome collections online (inc. the stunning Mindcraft)
- Midnight Planets [a raw feed of curiosity images]
- BoingBoing ["A directory of mostly wonderful things"]
- Res Obscura ["A catalog of obscure things"]
Leisure
#11
Not really. My philosophy about hobbies is embodied in this Andrew Carnegie quote:
"My heart is in the work"
I still remember the moment I first saw it engraved on the ceiling of Carnegie Mellon's Baker Hall and breaking out a sweat getting all anxious about finishing the Ph.D. I hadn't started yet. My concept of a vacation is when I am alone in my office while everybody thinks I am on vacation. In light of the above, here is another quote (from Lily Tomlin) I've grown to appreciate:
"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win it, you're still a rat"
Other than that, I like zombies, koalas, rollercoasters, ferris wheels, psychotronic videos, Octomore, and books.
The Cabinet of Natural Philosophers
#12
If you made all it the way down here you deserve to know about my collection of photographic portraits of friends and esteemed colleagues, — my ever-expanding Cabinet of Natural Philosophers. In the spirit of the Victorian-Era fashion for "Cabinets of Natural Curiosities" — elaborate private collections of wonders from the world —, this flickr set contains pictures of famous and not-so famous scientists and philosophers. Many are friends; most work on consciousness. Enjoy!
