Luca Barlassina
LightNews LightNews
barlassina.bsky.social
Luca Barlassina
@barlassina.bsky.social
110 followers 140 following 15 posts
Philosopher of mind/cognition.
Senior Lecturer; University of Sheffield.
lucabarlassina.org
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
chazfirestone.bsky.social
This is a big one! A 4-year writing project over many timezones, arguing for a reimagining of the influential "core knowledge" thesis.

Led by @daweibai.bsky.social, we argue that much of our innate knowledge of the world is not "conceptual" in nature, but rather wired into perceptual processing. 👇
Screenshot of a paper abstract: “Core knowledge” refers to a set of cognitive systems that underwrite early representations of the physical and social world, appear universally across cultures, and likely result from our genetic endowment. Although this framework is canonically considered as a hypothesis about early emerging conception — how we think and reason about the world — here we present an alternative view: that many such representations are inherently perceptual in nature. This “core perception” view explains an intriguing (and otherwise mysterious) aspect of core-knowledge processes and representations: that they also operate in adults, where they display key empirical signatures of perceptual processing. We first illustrate this overlap using recent work on “core physics”, the domain of core knowledge concerned with physical objects, representing properties such as persistence through time, cohesion, solidity, and causal interactions. We review evidence that adult vision incorporates exactly these representations of core physics, while also displaying empirical signatures of genuinely perceptual mechanisms, such as rapid and automatic operation on the basis of specific sensory inputs, informational encapsulation, and interaction with other perceptual processes. We further argue that the same pattern holds for other areas of core knowledge, including geometrical, numerical, and social domains. In light of this evidence, we conclude that many infant results appealing to precocious reasoning abilities are better explained by sophisticated perceptual mechanisms shared by infants and adults. Our core-perception view elevates the status of perception in accounting for the origins of conceptual knowledge, and generates a range of ready-to-test hypotheses in developmental psychology, vision science, and more.
October 9, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
talboger.bsky.social
On the left is a rabbit. On the right is an elephant. But guess what: They’re the *same image*, rotated 90°!

In @currentbiology.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show how these images—known as “visual anagrams”—can help solve a longstanding problem in cognitive science. bit.ly/45BVnCZ
August 19, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
vayzenb.bsky.social
My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social ‬is now out in Science Advances!

We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime

doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children
The visual recognition abilities of preschool children rival those of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.
doi.org
July 2, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
katrinvogt.bsky.social
How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A multisensory, bidirectional, valence encoder guides behavioral decisions
A key function of the brain is to categorize sensory cues as repulsive or attractive and respond accordingly. While we have some understanding of how sensory information is processed in the sensory pe...
www.biorxiv.org
September 27, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
socphilpsych.bsky.social
🌟From Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols & Justin Halberda:

Logical concepts of (im)possibility guide young children's decision-making
Logical Concepts of (Im)possibility Guide Young Children's Decision‐Making
The human capacity for rational decisions hinges on modal judgment: the discernment of what could, has to, or cannot happen. This ability was proposed to be a late outcome of human cognitive develop.....
doi.org
September 9, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
science.org
Wild orangutans feast on fruit to prepare metabolically for famine, according to a new field-based study in #ScienceAdvances. https://scim.ag/3UQdXm0
August 29, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
chazfirestone.bsky.social
How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we see the world? Wonderful piece in @sciam.bsky.social by @norabradford.bsky.social, ft. an interview with @dorsaamir.bsky.social about our work on the 'cultural byproduct hypothesis'.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...
Why a Classic Psychology Theory about Vision Has Fallen Apart
The downfall of a long-standing theory in psychology raises a question: How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we literally see the world?
www.scientificamerican.com
August 22, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
chriskrupenye.bsky.social
When an animals' groupmates go out of sight, do they also go out of mind?

In a new paper in Proc B @royalsocietypublishing.org, Luz Carvajal and I show that a bonobo (Kanzi) can keep mental tabs on the whereabouts of multiple hidden social partners

royalsocietypublishing.org/eprint/4GI7G...
Mental representation of the locations and identities of multiple hidden agents or objects by a bonobo | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Humans are adept at navigating the social world in part because we flexibly map the locations and identities of agents around us. While field studies suggest primates can track individual conspecifics...
royalsocietypublishing.org
August 20, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
jacobtlevy.bsky.social
The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.
ketanjoshi.co Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Aug 19
Good thing no one uses Microsoft Excel for anything related to legal, regulatory or compliance business functions

www.theverge.com/news/761338/...
Microsoft Excel adds Copilot Al to help ... theverge.com The Verget-4.1-mini Al model | 5 successor to the LABS.GENERATIVEAI function Microsoft started experimenting with in 2023. Microsoft notes that you can combine its new Al function with other Excel functions, including IF, SWITCH, LAMBDA, or WRAPROWS. The company adds that information sent through Excel's COPILOT function is "never" used for AI training, as "the input remains confidential and is used solely to generate your requested output." The COPILOT function comes with a couple of limitations, as it can't access information outside your spreadsheet, and you can only use it to calculate 100 functions every 10 minutes. Microsoft also warns against using the AI function for numerical calculations or in “high-stakes scenarios” with legal, regulatory, and compliance implications, as COPILOT "can give incorrect responses." Copy Share Select all Web search Dictionary ...
August 19, 2025 at 6:09 PM
barlassina.bsky.social
Knowledge-first mindreading? Antilici & Mei say, "No".

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 7, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
mehr.nz
my review 'core systems of music perception' is on the cover of TICS this month (algorithmic art by @kennyvaden.bsky.social)

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
Cover of TICS with vertical beige toned sound waves
August 5, 2025 at 5:44 PM
barlassina.bsky.social
Evidence of mood states in reptiles | Animal Cognition
share.google/fi900djWYTjX...
Evidence of mood states in reptiles - Animal Cognition
There is increasing evidence that non-human animals experience ‘free-floating’ mood states, but such evidence is lacking in reptiles, hindering the debate as to their affective capacity and with subse...
share.google
July 9, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
d-melnikoff.bsky.social
A key takeaway from 20+ years of computational RL is: model-free=automatic, model-based=deliberate. My new paper w/ @benedek.bsky.social challenges this view, suggesting that MB algos are more ubiquitous, & automatic processing more sophisticated, than currently thought: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Model-based algorithms shape automatic evaluative processing | PNAS
Computational theories of reinforcement learning suggest that two families of algorithm—model-based and model-free—tightly map onto the classic dis...
www.pnas.org
June 21, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
tomerullman.bsky.social
Out now in TiCS, something i've been thinking about a lot:

"Physics vs. graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition"

(by Balaban & me)

relevant for many people, related to imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, aphantasia, and more

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lBaC4sIRv...
June 2, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
elife.bsky.social
Turns out, two of pain’s most famous messengers — Substance P and CGRPα — might not be so essential after all. Mice missing both still felt pain just fine, challenging decades of assumptions about how pain signals travel.
buff.ly/ypISrtx
different coloured mice on a white background
June 1, 2025 at 8:21 AM
barlassina.bsky.social
The first teeth were sensory organs on the skin of ancient fish
Teeth are good for chewing and biting, but they are also sensitive – and that may have been their original function hundreds of millions of years ago
www.newscientist.com
May 22, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
ianbphillips.bsky.social
5 years since our first pilot, and 25,000 participants later, I'm super happy this work with Makaela Nartker, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and Howard Egeth on inattentional blindness is now out in eLife! A little 🧵 of what we found... 1/12 elifesciences.org/articles/100...
Sensitivity to visual features in inattentional blindness
As a group, inattentionally blind participants can successfully report the location, color, and shape of stimuli they deny noticing, and exhibit a systematic bias to report not noticing.
elifesciences.org
May 20, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
science.org
Researchers have known for decades that chimpanzees drum, but two new studies show that the animals drum to a distinct beat—which varies across their societies.

Learn more: scim.ag/3YJ7R9r
May 14, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
randynesse.bsky.social
The essay by @awaisaftab.bsky.social does a fine job of describing how cliff-edge fitness functions may explain vulnerability to some diseases. For an accessible Psychology Today article on the topic, see the link below. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
May 11, 2025 at 11:11 AM
barlassina.bsky.social
Laurenz Casser on whether objective pain measurement is possible. He says, "No, it is not" #philsky #psysky #pain
Objective pain score? Here’s the problem with that
The problem of pain measurement is not technological, but philosophical. Biomarkers won’t solve it.
theconversation.com
May 8, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
andrewcurry.com
Between 1637 and 1697, people who died at Milan's biggest hospital were dropped into underground vaults. Now their remains (including nearly 3 million bones & preserved brains) are helping archaeologists reconstruct the lives, diet and drug habits of people historians often overlook. @science.org
Thousands buried in 17th century Italian crypt reveal lives of working poor
Remains recovered from beneath a Milan hospital shed light on health, diet, and drug habits during the 1600s
www.science.org
May 2, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Luca Barlassina
thatadammorris.bsky.social
Are we “strangers to ourselves”? Classic theories say people have limited insight into how they decide. Our new paper at @natcomms.nature.com challenges this view. With @rcarl.bsky.social sky.social, @hedykober.bsky.social y.social, and @mjcrockett.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵
Introspective access to value-based multi-attribute choice processes - Nature Communications
People routinely choose between multi-attribute options, such as which movie to watch. Here, the authors show people often have accurate insight into their choices, challenging the notion that people ...
www.nature.com
April 30, 2025 at 2:16 PM