Elektrine
EN
Log in Register
Paige Chat Timeline Communities Gallery Videos Email DNS VPN Uptime Kairo
Back to Timeline
Remote

Léo Varnet

@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
  • Open on fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss.
I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/
My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

1300 Followers
938 Following
20 Posts
Joined October 22, 2023
Institution:
CNRS, ENS Paris
Research topics:
Auditory perception, Speech perception, Psycholinguistics, Hearing loss, Experimental phonetics
Website:
https://dbao.leo-varnet.fr/about-me/
HAL:
https://cv.hal.science/leo-varnet

Posts

Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Jun 05, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

I just came across this 2024 multi-lab replication of a classic experiment aimed at testing the effect of masculine generic forms vs gender-fair forms on comprehension: When German participants are asked to "name 3 politicians" they mention less women when "politician" is written using a masculin generic ('Politiker') than a gender-fair form (‘Politikerinnen und Politiker'). The effect is highly replicable and quite strong (cohen's d = 0.84)
https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/server/api/core/bitstreams/94d89d24-4efa-406e-be63-3fc04a7c9c92/content

3
0
4
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 28, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Nouvelle illustration, s'il en fallait, de l'absurdité du financement de la recherche par compétition : toutes mes demandes de financement sont rejetées ou en passe de l'être (alors que les projets étaient objectivement de bien meilleure tenue que la précédente ANR que j'ai obtenue). Par contre j'hérite d'une post-doc sur 3 ans qui a été sélectionnée dans un autre appel à projet auquel je n'ai pas participé et que l'institution ne sait pas trop où placer.

2
1
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 27, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

One of my students presented her work on "spectral rotation" (i.e., flipping high and low-frequencies in a signal) at our group meeting today. I can't help sharing her slide about the two methods for generating spectrally-rotated speech (the first method being an approximation by an iterative method, the second one a perfect analytical solution)

11
0
4
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 23, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

La fête de LO #fetelo2026, un festival joyeux et qui laisse une place très importante aux sciences, avec un espace entier dédié à la "cité des sciences". En ce moment, Stéphane Tirard parle de l'émergence de la théorie de l'évolution.

0
0
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 20, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Aujourd'hui en discutant avec deux doctorants qui travaillent dans le même bureau que moi, on s'est aperçu qu'on suivait tous les trois méthodiquement les vidéos du cours de Zététique et autodéfense intellectuelle de @RichardMonvoisin@mastodon.social (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbx1DYyydS-ie6wXA3Qu5zHLPWhilejW&si=YKAULZHwLegSwt0L) ! Coïncidence incroyable ! Quoique le même Richard Monvoisin expliquerait sûrement cette coïncidence par une mauvaise intuition des probabilités, combinée avec un biais de sélection :)

1
1
1
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 08, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Un article stimulant de Daniel Elmiger dans GLAD! : que faire de tous les résultats convergents des études psycholinguistiques sur l'écriture inclusive, et quelles sont leurs limites ? "La recherche montre... quoi au juste ?" https://journals.openedition.org/glad/10131
#écritureinclusive #pdycholinguistique

2
0
2
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 04, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @Kraemer_HB@mastodon.social
@Kraemer_HB@mastodon.social Yes because they are recent linguistic innovations these forms differ between languages. In French, the use of parentheses ("les ami(e)s") was widespread before the middle dot took over. Now, it is also commonly replaced with a simple dot ("les ami.e.s") in informal documents or emails.
1
1
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · May 03, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

Au passage j'ai découvert un petit fun fact grammatical : il existe en réalité deux types de noms hybrides. Pour certains comme "idole" l'accord se fait ensuite avec le genre de la personne désignée ("C'est mon idole, il joue divinement bien de la guitare" ou "elle joue divinement bien de la guitare" selon qu'on parle d'un homme ou d'une femme). Pour d'autres, comme "personne", l'accord se fait avec le genre grammatical du nom indépendamment du référent ("Cette personne m'est familière. J'ai déjà dû la rencontrer quelque part" qu'il s'agisse d'un homme ou d'une femme)

6
0
1
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @zgou@diaspodon.fr
@zgou@diaspodon.fr exactement !
0
0
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @zgou@diaspodon.fr
@zgou@diaspodon.fr c'est une explication possible en effet. Une autre possibilité serait que notre resultat reflète en réalité la présence de deux biais qui se combinent : un biais vers le masculin qui s'applique toujours, indépendamment des mots utilisés, et un biais lié au genre grammatical. Dans le cas des noms masculins les deux s'additionneraient, mais dans le cas des noms féminins ils se compenseraient.
0
1
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @zgou@diaspodon.fr
@zgou@diaspodon.fr Ce n'est pas qu'on ne *peut* pas le dire -- après tout on peut dire ce qu'on veut tant que c'est compréhensible et "individue" est référencé dans le Wiktionnaire. Mais ces usages ne sont pas validés par la plupart des dictionnaires et sont extrêmement peu fréquents. A noter également que ça ne touche pas tous les mots : par exemple je n'ai jamais entendu "une nourrissonne". On parle de ce phénomène de féminisation dans l'article.
3
1
0
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
Bonus: thanks to @dmontagne@mapstodon.space I learned to contribute to the French Wiktionary and I updated the French hybrid nouns categories to include all the crowd-sourced suggestions: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Mots_masculins_en_fran%C3%A7ais_pouvant_d%C3%A9signer_des_femmes https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Mots_f%C3%A9minins_en_fran%C3%A7ais_pouvant_d%C3%A9signer_des_hommes (7/7)
11
2
2
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
Note that this does not mean you should stop using masculin hybrid nouns altogether. They are still less biased than generic masculine forms. Furthermore, there are other arguments in favor or against gender-fair language, this is not the whole story. But this study adds another piece to the puzzle of how grammatical gender shapes mental representations, even when this information is in fact totally irrelevant as in the case of hybrid nouns. (6/7)
7
1
1
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
Surprisingly, the results indicate that masculine hybrid nouns (such as "un être humain", "un nouveau-né", "un ange") introduced a masculine bias during reading, while feminine hybrid nouns (such as "une personne", "une vedette", "une recrue") did not! It takes the brain an average of 130 ms to update its default masculine representation and realize that "un être humain" can in fact be a woman (5/7)
11
2
11
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
Here, we decided to apply the exact same methodology to another form of gender-fair writing: hybrid nouns. Hybrid nouns are words with a fixed grammatical gender which can refer to either a man or a woman (e.g. "un individu", "une personne", etc.). They are very useful when you don't want to specify the gender of the person you're referring to. We started by crowd-sourcing a list of French hybrid nouns via a collaborative notepad on Mastodon. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed -- you are collectively acknowledged in the paper! (4/7)
9
11
1
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
One possible solution is gender-fair writing. In a previous study, we tested whether gender-unmarked forms (such as "l'athlète", which can be masculine or feminine) or middle dot forms efficiently reduce the masculine bias observed in generic masculine forms. We found that the middle dot forms eliminated masculine bias, but gender-unmarked forms still elicited slightly biased representations. See more about this study here: https://fediscience.org/@LeoVarnet/111311415635496811 (3/7)
5
15
1
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org
Replying to @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org
First, a quick recap. In French, generic masculine forms are theoretically neutral (for instance, you can use "les musiciens" to refer to a group of male and female musicians), but empirical studies show that they are not processed that way by the brain. When we read "les musiciens", our brains default to a masculine interpretation, and only later adjust to include women. (if you're interested, I wrote a blog post about this a while ago: https://dbao.leo-varnet.fr/2023/12/19/reponse-aux-reactions-sur-lecriture-inclusive/) (2/7)
15
17
12
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 30, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Our follow-up study on the psycholinguistics of gender-fair language is finally out! This was a long journey, so here's a thread to explain what we did and what we discovered.
The #openaccess article is here for those who want the full story: https://hal.science/hal-05607624 (1/7)

fediscience.org

FediScience.org

36
18
47
1
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 20, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Question à mes collègues enseignant·es dans le supérieur : je réfléchis pour l'année prochaine à mettre en place un mode d'examen qui ait plus de sens que le devoir sur table, en demandant un petit projet de rédaction par groupe d'une page manquante @wikipedia_fr@wikis.world sur un sujet proche du cours. Est-ce que certains ou certaines ont déjà tenté quelque chose de similaire ?

wikis.world

Wikipédia en français (@wikipedia_fr@wikis.world) - Wikis World

12
9
24
0
Open post
LeoVarnet
Léo Varnet @LeoVarnet@fediscience.org · Apr 01, 2026
Léo Varnet
@LeoVarnet@fediscience.org

CNRS researcher at École normale supérieure Paris. Auditory perception, psycholinguistics, hearing loss. I am also maintaining the list of Audition scientists on Mastodon: https://leovarnet.github.io/Mastodon-Audition/ My toots are searchable #tootfinder.

fediscience.org

Un de mes étudiants argentins vient de me signaler la situation préoccupante à la Maison de l’Argentine de la cité U :
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2026/03/09/l-extreme-droite-etend-sa-toile-a-partir-de-la-cite-internationale-universitaire-de-paris_6670128_3210.html

3
1
4
0

Remote instance

fediscience.org
Open on original server

Media

313k7r1n3
Elektrine

Tor hidden service

elekhj7afj4qnrr4yd3bkzslsyo5jgfxw3orgjkhlcxifueodybyiiad.onion

Platform

  • Email
  • Chat
  • Timeline
  • Communities
  • VPN
  • DNS

Company

  • About
  • Contact
  • FAQ

Legal

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Warrant Canary
  • Lite (no JS)
  • VPN Policy
  • Source code

Support

  • support@elektrine.com
  • Report Security Issue
Mail client setup IMAP mail.elektrine.com:993 POP3 mail.elektrine.com:995 SMTP mail.elektrine.com:465
© 2026 Elektrine. All rights reserved. Server: 04:48:23 UTC