World's Largest Consciousness Science Conference Heads to Santiago — First Time in South America
World's Largest Consciousness Science Conference Heads to Santiago — First Time in South America
The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) will hold its 29th annual conference from June 30 to July 3, 2026, at Casa Central, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago — marking the first time the flagship event has been hosted on South American soil.
The conference arrives at a moment of unusual ferment in consciousness studies. Recent years have seen the publication of the landmark COGITATE adversarial collaboration, which tested Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory against each other in head-to-head experiments. While neither theory emerged with its predictions fully confirmed, the methodology itself — rigorous, collaborative, open to disconfirmation — has set a new standard for the field.
What to Expect
ASSC 29 will bring together empirical and theoretical researchers from psychology, neuroscience, medicine, computer science, philosophy, biology, and mathematics. The programme includes keynote addresses, symposia, poster sessions, and workshops designed to foster the cross-pollination that has long defined ASSC's unique role in the sciences of mind.
The choice of Santiago as host city is itself significant. Consciousness research has traditionally been dominated by North American and European institutions. By moving the conference to South America, ASSC signals a commitment to internationalising the field — both in terms of who participates and whose philosophical traditions inform the questions being asked.
The COGITATE Legacy
Published in Nature in April 2025, the COGITATE study involved 256 participants using fMRI, magnetoencephalography, and intracranial EEG. IIT's prediction of localised posterior cortical activity was partially confirmed, but the predicted maximum of integrated information was not found. GNWT's predicted "ignition" pattern appeared in prefrontal cortex during stimulus onset but the expected offset responses were absent.
As the consortium noted: "No single experiment would decisively refute either theory, as the theories are too different in their assumptions and explanatory goals." Further adversarial collaborations are now underway, testing Higher-Order Theories, Recurrent Processing Theory, and Attention Schema Theory.
Sources: Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, COGITATE consortium (Nature, 2025)
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