Fika-to-fika Workshop about research on how aspects of human, animal, or artificial cognition, through communication and other forms of interaction, influence behaviour in the individual, dyadic, or collective context.

When: 22 October 09.30 – 15.30 (CET)

Where: E:A, E-huset, Klas Anshelms väg 10* (Ole Römers väg 3), Lund, Sweden and online
Location in Google maps.

Registration

To participate is free of charge. Sign up for on-site or online participation at ai.lu.se/2024-10-22/registration/.

Programme

9.30 Registration, posters, fika & mingle

9.55 Online meeting opens

10.00 Research presentations

Invited talk: The Value of Consciousness by Axel Cleeremans, Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Abstract below

Thought for food - the endothermic brain hypothesis
Mathias Osvath, Cognitive Science

NextG2Com and NAC - Synergies and opportunities for collaboration
Maria Kihl, Electrical and Information Technology, Director of Vinnova Competence Centre NextG2Com

12.00 Lunch and poster session

13.10 Online meeting opens

13.15 Research presentations

Invited talk: Bad equilibrium: What mathematical models can tell us about everyday human behaviour by Professor Alexander J. Stewart, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews

Decoding the past: Insights into episodic memory through eye tracking and neural pattern analysis
Mikael Johansson, Psychology, Lund University

Dynamic integration of multisensory directional information:
how multiple sources of directional information can degrade steering
Marie Dacke, Biology, Lund Vision Group, Lund university

Data+Annotations, Synthetic Data, Transfer Learning and Foundation Models
Mikael Nilsson, Mathematics, Lund University.

15.00 Poster session, fika and mingle

15.30 end of workshop

Poster contributions

Gaze communication for large program comprehension; Designing a multi-modal IDE with developers: an exploratory study on next-generation programming tool assistance,
Peng Kuang, Computer Science

Quantitative ethograms of walking bumblebees, for detailed analysis of pesticide effects, 
Ana Zadel, Biology, Vision group

Identifying neuromodulatory input neurons to the fan-shaped body of the insect Central Complex, 
Matilda Langreiter, Biology, Vision group

Natural Language Response Formats for Assessing Depression, 
Zhuojun Gu, Psychology

Registration

To participate is free of charge. Sign up for on-site or online participation at ai.lu.se/2024-10-22/registration/.

Axel Cleereman abstract 
Why would we do anything at all if the doing was not doing something to us? In other words: What is consciousness good for? Does phenomenal experience have a function? Surprisingly, perhaps, many have answered “no”. In philosophy, epiphenomenalist and illusionist positions have gained strength, and so have panpsychist perspectives, which, while neither denying phenomenology nor its functions, paradoxically deflate it by ascribing it to all matter. The concept of free will has likewise been deconstructed to the point that it has become commonplace to think it simply does not exist. In psychology, while Freud’s influence has now waned, most relevant research nevertheless seems dedicated to documenting what we can do without awareness rather than because of it. This is reinforced by the stupefying advances of artificial intelligence research, which are suggestive that feeling things is simply unnecessary to carry out complex information processing. Finally, even consciousness research itself has fallen prey to deflationist views. The “search for the neural correlates of consciousness” — the main empirical program in consciousness research for over three decades — has been exclusively focused on identifying the neural basis of the differences between conscious and unconscious processing, so eluding the essential fact that experiences cannot exist independently of the subject whose experiences they are. Contra such views, we propose that subject-level experience—‘What it feels like’— is endowed with intrinsic value, and that it is precisely the value agents associate with their experiences that explains why they do certain things and avoid others. And because experiences have value and guide behaviour, consciousness has a function. Congruently, Block (2023) writes, about Global Workspace Theory, that “[..] it may be conscious phenomenology that promotes global broadcasting, something like the reverse of what the global workspace theory of consciousness supposes.” Perhaps then, is it the case that the functions associated with consciousness are a consequence, rather than the cause, of phenomenal experience. Under this hypothesis of ‘phenomenal primacy’, we argue that it is only in virtue of the fact that conscious agents ‘experience’ things and ‘care’ about those experiences that they are ‘motivated’ to act in certain ways and that they ‘prefer’ some states of affairs vs. others. Thus, phenomenal experience might act as a mental currency of sorts that not only endows conscious mental states with intrinsic value but also makes it possible for conscious agents to compare vastly different experiences in a common subject-centred space—a feature that readily explains the fact that consciousness is ‘unified’.

Organisation and contact

• Hanna Bäck, Political Science
• Stanley Heinze, Nano Lund, Lund Vision Group
• Magnus Oskarsson, Mathematics
• Marcus Stensmyr, Animal Physiology
• Jonas Wisbrant, AI Lund, NAC

*Since the summer 2024 buildings at LTH, Lund University have got new street addresses.