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Presentation of the GECKO project, a design laboratory for the study of cognitive warfare
The GECKO project is positioned primarily within the call's thematic axis A: "New perspectives" through an interdisciplinary design thinking approach exploring the modalities of cognitive warfare. The concept of cognitive warfare, and more broadly that which can be referred to as "cognitive security", as it is currently understood in the Western world, 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 war purposes.
Cognitive warfare refers to all intentional offensives aimed at manipulating the cognition of individuals, groups or populations in order to alter or influence their way of thinking (reasoning, decision-making, etc.) for hostile purposes.
GECKO thus aims to develop devices for exploring cognitive warfare in the context of fictitious crises, to prepare decision-making or operational actors, both civilian and military, involved in operations linked to national security, in mainland France and overseas, for the risks involved.
It is led at Inalco by Mathieu Valette, professor of language sciences, member of the Texts, Informatics and Multilingualism research team (ERTIM), and the Plurality of Languages and Identities: Didactics - Acquisition - Mediation laboratory (PLIDAM), in partnership with the Institut de recherche stratégique de l'école militaire (IRSEM) and the Ecole nationale supérieure de cognitique de l'Institut polytechnique de Bordeaux (ENSC - Bordeaux INP).
It brings together a multidisciplinary team (psychologists, computer scientists, linguists, political scientists, etc.) with a view to developing tools for cognitive defense, security and resilience. Inalco's contribution is based in particular on the implementation of a Design Lab to explore these concepts across cultural areas, as well as the creation of experimental material (scenarios, role-playing games, workshops).
In an interview published in Polytechnique Insights, the journal of the Paris Polytechnic Institute, Bernard Claverie, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at ENSC Bordeaux-INP and a member of the GECKO project, sheds light on the concept of cognitive warfare and its issues.
Read the interview: Cognitive warfare, the new battlefield exploiting our brains (05/02/2025). Interview conducted by Anne Orliac.
Project achievements
Publication of a collective Cognitive Warfare, "Cognitive Engineering", 2024, vol. 7-1
