Minds in skilled performance: Explanatory framework and comparative study. This project aims to develop an explanatory framework to characterise states of mind necessary for skilled performance, and show how intelligence and emotion affect performance. The theoretical grounding of skilled performance is controversial. This project will use and refine core ideas from enactivist approaches to embodied cognition to address philosophical challenges that block understanding of its basis. The project ....Minds in skilled performance: Explanatory framework and comparative study. This project aims to develop an explanatory framework to characterise states of mind necessary for skilled performance, and show how intelligence and emotion affect performance. The theoretical grounding of skilled performance is controversial. This project will use and refine core ideas from enactivist approaches to embodied cognition to address philosophical challenges that block understanding of its basis. The project will draw on Phenomenology, Pragmatism and Japanese "do". clarifying and recontextualising what they have to offer to contemporary thinking about skilled performance.Read moreRead less
Changing your mind by changing your brain: An interventionist perspective on cognitive neuroscience. Functional neuroimaging provides a tremendous amount of information about the brain, but what it shows about the mind is less clear. Addressing this fundamental philosophical question requires developing a detailed account of theory-testing in cognitive neuroscience. This project aims to connect neuroimaging to theories of explanation that focus on the way one variable can make a difference to an ....Changing your mind by changing your brain: An interventionist perspective on cognitive neuroscience. Functional neuroimaging provides a tremendous amount of information about the brain, but what it shows about the mind is less clear. Addressing this fundamental philosophical question requires developing a detailed account of theory-testing in cognitive neuroscience. This project aims to connect neuroimaging to theories of explanation that focus on the way one variable can make a difference to another. By linking neuroimaging to facts about manipulable relationships between the brain and the mind, it will also provide a bridge between neuroimaging and complementary technologies for directly intervening on the brain. This, in turn, will provide a platform from which to explore the theoretical and ethical consequences of direct brain manipulation.Read moreRead less
The structure and function of self-representation. Recent psychology and neuroscience suggests that human beings are very bad at knowing themselves. This project changes that debate by arguing that our self-examination is not designed to increase self-knowledge, but to help us navigate the social world.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100115
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$328,092.00
Summary
Living to tell, telling to live: Experience, narrative, and the self. A robust sense of self is crucial for our mental wellbeing. This sense of self, philosophical research shows, is constituted by our experiences and the socio-culturally shaped stories we tell about us. However, the fundamental role of these self-narratives remains poorly understood: are they merely retrospective accounts of our experiences, or can they influence them? By analysing the biological underpinnings of the human mind ....Living to tell, telling to live: Experience, narrative, and the self. A robust sense of self is crucial for our mental wellbeing. This sense of self, philosophical research shows, is constituted by our experiences and the socio-culturally shaped stories we tell about us. However, the fundamental role of these self-narratives remains poorly understood: are they merely retrospective accounts of our experiences, or can they influence them? By analysing the biological underpinnings of the human mind and defining the core features of self-narratives, this project will lead to a novel theory about the sense of self. This theory will enhance our understanding of the power of self-narratives and has the potential to provide theoretical foundations for future applied research on the self and its disturbances.Read moreRead less
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL130100141
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,996,807.00
Summary
The origins of inequality, hierarchy, and social complexity. Despite obvious failures, humans cooperate far more than other mammals. This project explains how we came to be so unlike other animals; how our cooperative practices transformed us; and how those practices changed, as human societies became increasingly complex after the invention of farming.
Mindful bodies in action: a philosophical study of skilled movement. Skilled experts in sport or dance perform extraordinary actions in perfect time, with exquisite control, and display resilient coping under pressure: their mindful bodies blend cognition and emotion in action. This project in the philosophy of psychology integrates disconnected research on skilled movement in a new account of embodied intelligence.
Cognitive ecologies: a philosophical study of collaborative embodied skills. This project aims to develop a new theory of embodied collaboration and interaction in expert groups, asking how individuals with diverse technical and emotional skills align and cue their actions, or recover together from challenges. It combines foundational philosophical analysis and cognitive theory with empirical studies of experts in sport and music. The project will extend knowledge of how groups under pressure wo ....Cognitive ecologies: a philosophical study of collaborative embodied skills. This project aims to develop a new theory of embodied collaboration and interaction in expert groups, asking how individuals with diverse technical and emotional skills align and cue their actions, or recover together from challenges. It combines foundational philosophical analysis and cognitive theory with empirical studies of experts in sport and music. The project will extend knowledge of how groups under pressure work in socially and culturally significant settings.Read moreRead less
Point of view in personal memory: a philosophical study of perspective in remembering and imagining. Remembering the personal past is a key part of mental life, vital for identity and social sharing as well as for tracking the truth: but why do we sometimes remember past events from an external or 'observer' perspective, seeing ourselves in the remembered scene? This project in philosophy of mind develops a new theory of psychological perspective.
Changing philosophical perceptions of belief in a post-truth world. This project aims to investigate and illuminate the processes underlying belief formation by using the tools of philosophy and cognitive science. Recent events have led many commentators to suggest that we live in a post-truth world. Beliefs seem decreasingly sensitive to evidence and instead, we believe what we want to believe. By developing a deeper understanding of the nature of belief and of the mechanisms that cause belief ....Changing philosophical perceptions of belief in a post-truth world. This project aims to investigate and illuminate the processes underlying belief formation by using the tools of philosophy and cognitive science. Recent events have led many commentators to suggest that we live in a post-truth world. Beliefs seem decreasingly sensitive to evidence and instead, we believe what we want to believe. By developing a deeper understanding of the nature of belief and of the mechanisms that cause belief change, the project will develop concrete proposals for making beliefs more responsive to evidence, and to assess the ethical permissibility of utilising these proposals. It will develop tools that allow for better informed decision-making.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102055
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Agent tracking and its disorders: a theory of the cognitive mechanisms, errors, and ethics involved in the identification of human individuals. This project will develop and test a multidisciplinary theory of the means used by people and social institutions to gather information about human individuals. Its expected outcome is a better understanding of the successes and errors in tracking and identifying individuals and of the ethical issues related to such processes of identification.