Paoletti Foundation organizes a two-fold event on the brain mechanisms that regulate our lives: silence and psychophysics, ICONS and the Fechner Day

On the morning of October 22, 1850, psychologist and statistician Gustav Theodor Fechner, while in his bed recovering from an eye injury, had an insight that is considered the basis of modern psychophysics. The law Fechner formulated based on that insight was, “For the intensity of a sensation to grow in arithmetic progression, the stimulus must grow in geometric progression“. With this formulation – later revised and refined by subsequent research – Fechner established the basis for the discipline that investigates the mathematical relationship between stimulus and perception, psychophysics.

The Society of Psychophysics’ annual conference, Fechner Day, is dedicated to the influential scholar and this year organized by the Patrizio Paoletti Foundation and its Research Institute in Neuroscience Education and Didactics, RINED.

Fechner Day is an opportunity to share and discuss cutting-edge discoveries in the field of psychophysics, bringing together influential academic leaders and promising young researchers. This year it will be held September 10-14 at the Grand Hotel Assisi, while the gala dinner will be held at the charming Relais Monastero di San Biagio on Mount Subasio.

Thirty-three talks are scheduled by speakers from Germany (Kaiserslautern, Darmstadt), Japan (Kyushu University), US and UK, Italy (Bicocca, Sapienza) and Israel (Bar-Ilan, Ariel University). Speakers include Mark Elliott, Jospeh Glicksohn and Marc Wittmann, with talks on physical and psychological temporal perception.

In addition to the speakers’ talks, 31 research posters will also be presented.

In addition, this year Fechner Day joins ICONS, the international conference on the neurophysiology of silence now in its third year, which will be dedicated to the topic of neuroaesthetics. A day of scientific work introduced by Patrizio Paoletti to investigate the points of contact between aesthetic experience and silence from a neuroscientific perspective. An opportunity to investigate the role of art in the development of awareness, which will feature, among others, the participation of neuroscientist Margriet Sitskoorn, expert on neuroplasticity, Jean-Yves Beziau,creator of the UNESCO World Day of Logic, and Narayanan Srinivasan an expert in attention and perception, and will come to a close with a music workshop by harpist and music-therapist Marianne Gubri.

For more information on the events:

Fechner Day 2023

ICONS 2023