Design laboratory for the study of cognitive warfare - GECKO

The concept of cognitive warfare stems from the convergence of work on the one hand on the characteristics, limits and fragilities of individuals, and on the other on social and cultural influences and their manipulation for the purposes of war.

It is rooted both in a historical reflection on the evolution of disinformation and manipulation doctrines stemming from the Cold War and those born of the last two decades of counter-insurgency and hybrid confrontations, as well as in work on the militarization of neuroscience.

Cognitive warfare, in its current conception, proceeds from a number of postulates linked to the cognitive science approach to human cognition. Most research looks at cognition on an individual basis, studying how the subject processes information, listing the cognitive biases involved in errors of judgment in intelligence activities. Even when research looks at collective analysis and decision-making, it does so within a restricted framework without taking social, cultural and organizational factors into account.

While cognitive science has extended individual cognition to the non-human with the concept of HAT (human-autonomy teaming), it still lacks the integration of contextual factors, something that the collaboration between the skills of ENSC (IMS), Inalco (ERTIM and PLIDAM) and IRSEM aims to prospect.

The GECKO project thus offers a new perspective by exploring cognitive warfare through the prism of collective action and inter-individual collaboration, considering it as a socio-technical organization and cognition as an individual but also cultural process and very largely determined today by information and communication technologies. The project proposes the creation of a tool for exploring cognitive warfare in fictitious crisis situations, involving decision-making or operational actors, both civilian and military, and aimed at operations linked to national security.

Assuming the creation of a new human-centered field of operation, the aim will be to create a device for situating experts in a controlled scenario, implementing detection and situational awareness tools. It will be designed for awareness-raising, training and practice, enabling the study, characterization, treatment and preparation of various compliant and non-compliant cases. It will also be a venue for civilian and military researchers, including engineers-in-training and PhD students, working on the theme of cognitive warfare.

Start and duration of the scientific project

January 1, 2023-December 31, 2025 - 36 months

Project coordination

Mathieu Valette (ERTIM, Inalco)

Partners

IRSEM - Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l'Ecole Militaire
ERTIM - Equipe de Recherche : Textes, Informatique, Multilinguisme
PLIDAM - Pluralité des Langues et des Identités : Didactique - Acquisition - Médiations
ENSC - Bordeaux INP - Ecole nationale supérieure de cognitique de l'Institut polytechnique de Bordeaux

Bailleur

Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) & Agence Innovation Défense (AID) - ASTRID call 2022 edition