Visiting Researcher
Systems and Intervention Neuroscience Lab · Sungkyukwan University - IBS Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research
2025
- Project on brain-computer interfaces using fMRI and generative models supervised by Professor Hakwan Lau.
Bio
I am a PhD student working on bridging subjective experience and objective measurement through computational methods in brain and mental health research. My research interests include cognitive and computational neuroscience, machine learning, mental health modeling, fMRI analysis and AI-assisted psychometrics. I am particularly interested in how we can use large language models and other AI tools to better understand and quantify subjective experience in both healthy and clinical populations.
In my free time, I'm a hobbyist hacker and campfire guitar scratcher who enjoys eldritch horror and sci fi fantasy. I'm also a firm believer in Open Source Science, science communication and scientific literacy, and I try to incorporate these values into my work, such as through myXiv.
I don't have a substack, where I write about my thoughts on various subjects, like my approach to prompt engineering.
This website is my first and ongoing attempt at web development (vanilla HTML CSS JS with a bit of Three js), and I plan to use it as a portfolio for both my research and personal projects.
Education
Ph.D. Psychology
Research focus: Metacognition, anxiety disorders and subjective experience.
Methods: Psychophysics, signal detection theory, psychometrics, computational factor modeling, NLP, machine learning.
M.Sc. Biomedical Data Science
Thesis: Quantifying interindividual differences in subjective experience using artificial intelligence for the prediction of psychiatric symptoms
Methods: Psychometrics, computational factor modeling, NLP, machine learning.
B.Sc. Psychology (Honors)
Honors work: The influence of interoception on the distribution of concrete and abstract words in the latent structure of dictionaries.
Interests: Cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, open science.
Experience
Neuropsychological Assessment Assistant
ABCD Lab · McGill University Health Centre
2024 to present
- Administered and scored neuropsychological tests (e.g., WISC-V, D-KEFS) for a longitudinal study on neonatal encephalopathy, contributing critical data and collaborating with an interdisciplinary team, supervised by Professor Marie Brossard-Racine.
Behavioral Health Technician
Clinique ABA
2021 to 2025
- Implemented ABA techniques to support ASD patients with diverse needs, tracked progress through parent consultations, and fostered skill development in collaborative environments, supervised by Dr. Sylvie Bernard.
AI Data Trainer
Cohere
2025
- Audited, labeled, ranked and corrected annotator and machine learning data and recommended optimization opportunities while providing feedback to cross-functional team members.
Teaching Assistant
PST3100 Neurosciences, cognition and mental health · Université de Montréal
2024
- Graded midterm and final exams, ensuring rigorous evaluation and providing constructive feedback to support student success.
Research Assistant
Division de néphrologie · Centre de recherche de l'Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont
2020-2022
- Collected and managed clinical data for studies on mental health in hemodialysis patients, created and maintained databases, and prepared research protocols and ethics submissions, supervised by Dr. Annie-Claire nadeau-Fredette.
Publications
Preprints
1. Manuel, S., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (2025). From Deep Learning to Depth Psychology: A Review of Representation Learning Across the Mind Sciences. PsyArXiv. [Preprint]
Peer reviewed articles
3. Manuel, S., Gagnon, J., Gosselin, F., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (2025). Towards a Latent Space Cartography of Subjective Experience in Mental Health. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. [Paper]
2. Taschereau Dumouchel, V., Côté, M., Manuel, S., Valevicius, D., Cushing, C. A., Cortese, A., Lau, H. (2024). Interaction Between the Prefrontal and Visual Cortices Supports Subjective Fear. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. [Paper] [Preprint]
1. Berman, T., Cushing, C. A., Manuel, S., Vachon Presseau, É., Cortese, A., Kawato, M., Woo, C. W., Wager, T., Lau, H., Roy, M., and Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (2024). Modulating Subjective Pain Perception with Decoded MNI space Neurofeedback. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. [Preprint]
Science communication articles
2. Manuel, S., (2021). Opération Mind Control : Un historique du consentement en recherche, Journal étudiant le Psy Curieux.
1. Manuel, S., (2021). La folie donne-t-elle naissance à la créativité?, Journal étudiant Le Psy Curieux.
Presentations
Oral presentations
2. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (May 24 26, 2024). Cartographier les différences individuelles dans l'expérience subjective avec l'IA pour la prédiction des symptômes psychiatriques. 46e congrès annuel de la Société Québécoise pour la Recherche en Psychologie, Drummondville, QC, Canada. [Slides]
1. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (May 26 28, 2023). Quantifier les représentations mentales à l'aide du traitement du langage naturel. 45e congrès annuel de la Société Québécoise pour la Recherche en Psychologie, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada. [Slides]
Poster presentations
9. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (July 6 9 2025). Comparing Verbal Report Elicitation Methods for Psychiatric Symptom Prediction. 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Heraklion, Crete, Greece. [Poster]
8. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (October 1 3 2024). Towards a Latent Space Cartography of Individual Differences in Subjective Experience Using Large Language Models. Mila Workshop: NLP in the era of generative AI, cognitive sciences, and societal transformation, Montréal, QC, Canada. [Poster]
7. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (August 6 9 2024). Towards a Latent Space Cartography of Individual Differences in Subjective Experience Using Large Language Models. Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, Boston, MA, United States. [Poster]
6. Taschereau Dumouchel, V., Côté, M., Manuel. S., Valevicius, D., and Lau, H. (May 17 22 2024). Information transmission between the ventral visual stream and the prefrontal cortex supports the subjective experience of fear. Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL, United States.
5. Taschereau Dumouchel, V., Côté, M., Manuel. S., Valevicius, D., and Lau, H. (April 23 26 2024). Information transmission between the ventral visual stream and the prefrontal cortex supports the subjective experience of fear. Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, Toronto, ON, Canada.
4. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (July 6 8 2023). Quantifying High Level Representations Using Verbal Reports and Natural Language Processing. Computational Psychiatry Conference, Dublin, Ireland. [Poster]
3. Manuel, S., Gosselin, F., Gagnon, J., Taschereau Dumouchel, V. (July 17 21 2023). Quantifying High Level Representations Using Verbal Reports and Natural Language Processing. International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, Belfast, Northern Ireland. [Poster]
2. Manuel, S. (20 22 May 2021). L'influence de l'intéroception dans l'ancrage des concepts abstraits et concrets : une approche psycholinguistique. 44e congrès annuel de la Société Québécoise pour la Recherche en Psychologie, Mont Tremblant, QC, Canada.
1. Manuel, S., (21 November 2021). Qu'est ce qu'un mot concret versus un mot abstrait ? Journée scientifique du Centre de recherche en neurosciences cognitives de l'Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada. [Best poster presentation award]
Projects
Research: From Deep Learning to Depth Psychology: A Review of Representation Learning Across the Mind Sciences
TL;DR: To avoid over hyping AI, we should be careful about what is meant by better or more efficient representation learning.
Figures can be mostly reproduced from the repo, and an interactive version of the timeline can be explored on the companion web app.
Research: The Many Faces of Fear: Univariate, Predictive and Representational Perspectives on Fearful Neuroimaging
TL;DR: Neural data analysis project from Brainhack School 2025 comparing GLM, ML and RSA approaches for fMRI.
Code for this project is available here.
Research: Towards a Latent Space Cartography of Subjective Experience in Mental Health
Now published in Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
TL;DR: Master's project linking individual differences in verbal reports of subjective experience to transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom clusters.
Project data and code can be accessed on Github, and explored on the companion web app.
Personal: myXiv
TL;DR: BYOK paper summarizer and podcast generator that accounts for your desired tone and level of complexity, as well as your areas of expertise and blindspots.
Bring your own OpenAI API key.
Personal: SCP AutoArchivist
TL;DR: An email subscription service that sends a random SCP item from the SCP Foundation wiki daily, as well as a web app to browse random items and create SCP items with generative models.
