Stanislas Dehaene

Life

• Stanislas Dehaene: Born in 1965, Roubaix, France; earned a Ph.D. in 1989 at École Normale Supérieure (Paris) under the supervision of Jacques Mehler.
• Appointed Professor at Collège de France in 2005, holding the Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology.
• Director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at NeuroSpin (CEA) since 2017.

People Who Influenced Their Thought

• Jacques Mehler: Pioneered cognitive psychology in France, shaping Dehaene’s focus on language and numerical cognition.
• Jean-Pierre Changeux: Collaborated on neural theories of consciousness, influencing Dehaene’s work on the global neuronal workspace.

Main Ideas and Publications

• The Number Sense: Published in 1997, argued for an innate "number sense" in humans.
• Consciousness and the Brain: Published in 2014, outlined the global neuronal workspace theory of consciousness.
• How We Learn: Published in 2020, synthesized neuroscience findings on education and plasticity.

Key People Influenced by Their Thought

• Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz: Collaborated on infant cognitive neuroscience, extending his work on early brain development.
• Brian Butterworth: Built on Dehaene’s numerical cognition research to study dyscalculia.

Conclusion

• Stanislas Dehaene’s integration of cognitive psychology, neuroimaging, and education theory has revolutionized understanding of the reading brain, consciousness, and learning.