Biography and publications | Stanislas Dehaene - Experimental Cognitive Psychology

Biography

Stanislas Dehaene is an alumnus of the École normale supérieure and holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology. In September 2005, he was appointed professor at the Collège de France, to the newly created chair in Experimental Cognitive Psychology, after serving for nearly ten years as a research director at Inserm. His research aims to elucidate the neural basis of the most fundamental operations of the human brain: reading, calculation, reasoning, and consciousness. His work has been recognized with several awards and grants, including the Louis D. Prize from the Fondation de France (shared with D. Le Bihan), the Jean-Louis Signoret Prize from the Ipsen Foundation, and the Centennial Fellowship from the American McDonnell Foundation.

Career

2005: Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology
Director of the Inserm-CEA Joint Unit for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Orsay, 2002–2007; Saclay, since 2008
1997–2005: Research Director at Inserm
1992–1994: Postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, University of Oregon (USA), directed by Michael Posner
1989–1999: Inserm Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Cognitive and Psycholinguistic Sciences, Paris (Director: J. Mehler)
1984–1989: École normale supérieure, Mathematics Department
1982–1984: Preparatory School Sainte-Geneviève, Versailles (Mathematics Department)

Degrees

1999: Qualification to Supervise Research, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS)
1989: Doctoral dissertation in cognitive psychology, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)
1984–1989: École normale supérieure, Paris, Mathematics
1986: Advanced Studies Diploma in Cognitive Psychology, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS)
1985: Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Paris-VI

Scientific Honors and Awards

2014: Brain Prize
2011: Honorary Doctorate, University of Lisbon
2011: Knight of the Legion of Honor
2010: Honorary Professor, East China Normal University (Shanghai)
2010: Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
2010: Corresponding Member of the British Academy
2010: Member of the American Philosophical Society
2008: Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science
2008: Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
2008: Knight of the National Order of Merit
2007: Grand Gold Medal, Arts-Sciences-Lettres Association
2005: Member of the Academy of Sciences
2003: Grand Prize of the Louis D. Foundation of the Institut de France (with D. Le Bihan)
2002: Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
2002: Boehringer-Ingelheim Prize from the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS)
2001: Jean-Louis Signoret Prize from the Ipsen Foundation
2000: Villemot Prize from the French Academy of Sciences
1999: Centennial Fellowship from the McDonnell Foundation
1997: Jean Rostand Prize for the book La Bosse des maths
1996: Fanny Emden Prize from the French Academy of Sciences

Administrative Roles

2018–present: Chair of the Scientific Council of the French Ministry of National Education
2010–present: Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the General Directorate for School Education (DGESCO)
2009–2010: Member of the Council for the Development of the Humanities and Social Sciences (CDHSS)
2009–present: Member of the Board of Directors of the SARAH Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals (Brazil)
2009–present: Member of the Scientific Council of the Institut de la Vision, Paris
2008–2012: Member of the Scientific Council of Inserm
2005–2007: Steering Committee of the ANR Neurosciences Program
2001–present: Council of the International Association for the Study of Attention and Performance
2001–2005: Board of Directors of the French Society for Neuroscience
2001–2005: Inserm’s Avenir Commission
1999–present: Scientific Council of IFR 49 (Neuroimaging)
1999–2005: Scientific Advisor, OECD “Brain and Education” Program
1997–2005: Scientific Advisory Board of the Fyssen Foundation
1990–2000: Founder and co-leader, with L. Cohen, of the Paris Neuropsychology Club at the Salpêtrière Hospital

Editorial Responsibilities

2011–present: Editorial Advisor, Trends in Cognitive Science
2008–present: Board of Reviewing Editors, *Science*
2006–present: Editorial Advisor, Mind Brain and Education
2003–present: Editorial advisor, PLOS Biology
2001–present: Editorial Advisor, Neuroimage
1999–2000: Associate Editor, Cognition
1998–2003: Associate Editor, Cognitive Neuropsychology
1996–present: Editorial Advisor, Éditions Odile Jacob
1991–1997: Editorial Advisor, *Mathematical Cognition*

Research

Numbers in the Brain

Stanislas Dehaene is a renowned expert on the neural basis of mathematical operations, a field in which he has been a pioneer. He has developed new psychological tests for calculation and number comprehension and has applied them to patients with brain injuries and those suffering from calculation disorders. His work has led to the discovery that number intuition involves specific brain circuits, particularly those in the parietal lobe. Stanislas Dehaene used brain imaging methods to analyze not only the anatomical organization of these circuits but also their temporal dynamics, demonstrating in particular in a 1999 article published in Science that approximate calculation involves regions that are partially different from those used in exact calculation. In collaboration with neurologist Laurent Cohen, he observed new pathologies in these regions, which cause certain “acalculic” patients to lose all sense of number. He also demonstrated striking similarities between how numbers are processed in humans and animals. Thus, the foundations of our arithmetic abilities have their origins in the evolution of the brain.

Stanislas Dehaene’s research shows that conditions affecting the parietal lobe—whether caused by trauma or genetics—can occur in children. These conditions lead to “dyscalculia”—an early-onset developmental disorder comparable to dyslexia, but one that affects numerical intuition. The diagnosis, understanding, and remediation of dyscalculia through educational game software are major objectives of the laboratory. Stanislas Dehaene provided an abstract of his research on the brain and mathematics in a book intended for the general public: La Bosse des maths (Odile Jacob; winner of the 1997 Jean Rostand Prize), a revised edition of which was published in 2010.

The Impact of Education on the Brain

In the late 1990s, Stanislas Dehaene expanded his research on arithmetic to address the broader question of the impact of education in written symbols on the brain. This research led to the discovery and analysis, in collaboration with Laurent Cohen, of the visual word form area—a region of the left occipito-temporal cortex that, during the process of learning to read, becomes specialized for the invariant recognition of written characters. A comparison of the brains of literate and illiterate individuals demonstrated that not only this region, but also certain visual and auditory areas and their connections, undergo radical changes during the process of learning to read.

Subliminal Reading and Awareness

Stanislas Dehaene conducted the first brain imaging experiments on the subliminal processing of numbers and words. These experiments demonstrated that words or numbers presented too briefly for conscious awareness nevertheless activate a series of specialized brain regions. Is it therefore possible to identify “brain signatures of consciousness”—that is, brain events that are specifically present when sensory information or a mental operation enters consciousness? Research suggests that becoming aware of a word is associated with the sudden and coordinated activation of multiple additional regions, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. Together with Jean-Pierre Changeux, Stanislas Dehaene is developing mathematical models of this “cortical burst” that allows conscious information to be stored and recalled. Clinical applications related to comas and vegetative states are the focus of close collaboration with Dr. Lionel Naccache at the Salpêtrière Hospital.

Toward Deciphering the Neural Codes of Language

Stanislas Dehaene’s current research seeks to push the boundaries of brain imaging. The goal is to decipher the unique code of each cortical region and to understand its origin during development. Brain imaging of reading, sentence comprehension, and bilingualism; visualization of brain activity in infants; brain variability from one person to another. In these fields, where brain imaging bridges the gap between psychology and neuroscience, the new research being conducted by Stanislas Dehaene and Denis Le Bihan at the CEA’s NeuroSpin imaging center in Saclay is opening up new avenues for understanding the human brain.