•  11
    Is the sense‐data theory, otherwise known as indirect realism, a form of representationalism? This question has been under‐explored in the extant literature, and to the extent that there is discussion, contemporary authors disagree. There are many different variants of representationalism, and differences between these variants that some people have taken to be inconsequential turn out to be key factors in whether the sense‐data theory is a form of representationalism. Chief among these are whet…Read more
  •  630
    Recently, the term ‘aphantasia’ has become current in scientific and public discourse to denote the absence of mental imagery. However, new terms for aphantasia or its subgroups have recently been proposed, e.g. ‘dysikonesia’ or ‘anauralia’, which complicates the literature, research communication and understanding for the general public. Before further terms emerge, we advocate the consistent use of the term ‘aphantasia’ as it can be used flexibly and precisely, and is already widely known in t…Read more
  •  199
    This volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, framed by an introductory overview of these topics. How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge? These are the two central questions that the contributors seek to address.
  •  290
    What Is It Like to Have Visual Imagery?
    In Susan Aldworth & Matthew MacKisack (eds.), Extreme Imagination: Inside the Eye's Mind. pp. 21-29. 2018.
    How does visual imagination differ from visual perceptual experience? And how should we describe experiences of visual imagery? Moreover how can people who have visual imagery convey what it is like to have it to those who have never had it – congenital aphantisics? This paper addresses these questions using examples of illusions and other perceptual phenomena to hone in on the answers.
  •  407
    Sensing Art and Artifacts: Explorations in Sensory Museology
    with David Howes, Eric Clarke, Beverly Best, and Rupert Cox
    The Senses and Society, 13 (3): 317-334. 2018.
    This article proposes a sensory studies methodology for the interpretation of museum objects. The proposed method unfolds in two phases: virtual encounter via an on-line catalog and actual exposure in the context of a handling workshop. In addition to exploring the écart between image and object, the “Sensing Art and Artifacts” exercise articulates a framework for arriving at a multisensory, cross-cultural, interactive understanding of aesthetic value. The case studies presented here involve fou…Read more
  •  406
    It is hoped that modern sensory substitution and augmentation devices will be able to replace or expand our senses. But to what extent has this been achieved to date? To what extent are the experiences created by sensory substitution devices like the sensory experiences that we are trying to replace? To what extent can we augment people’s senses providing them with new information and new experiences? The first aim of this introduction is to delve deeply into this question to discover the useful…Read more
  •  78
    Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour (edited book)
    Routledge. 2021.
    From David Hume's famous puzzle about 'the missing shade of blue' to current research into the science of colour, the topic of colour is an incredibly fertile region of study and debate, cutting across philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics as well as psychology. Debates about the nature of our experience of colour and the nature of colour itself are central to contemporary discussion and argument in philosophy of mind and psychology, and philosophy of perception. This outs…Read more
  •  39
    This chapter explores the evidence for the existence of such new colour experiences and what their philosophical ramifications would be. I first define the notion of ‘novel colours’ and discuss why I think that this is the best name for such colours, rather than the numerous other names that they have sometimes been given in the literature. I then introduce the evidence and arguments for thinking that experiences as of novel colours exist, along with objections that people have had to that evide…Read more
  •  336
    This essay is an introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour. Why has the examination of many different aspects of colour been a prominent feature in philosophy, to such an extent that the topic is worthy of a handbook? Here are two related answers. First, colours are exceedingly familiar, seemingly simple features that become enigmatic under scrutiny, and they are difficult to capture in any familiar-sounding, unsophisticated theory. Second, through colour one can confront va…Read more
  •  36
    Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Memory (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    This volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory. The central questions are: How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge?
  •  233
    Is perception cognitively penetrable? A philosophically satisfying and empirically testable reframing
    with Gary Lupyan, Dustin Stokes, Rasha Abdel Rahman, and Robert Goldstone
    Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 1 91-2. 2013.
    The question of whether perception can be penetrated by cognition is in the limelight again. The reason this question keeps coming up is that there is so much at stake: Is it possible to have theory-neutral observation? Is it possible to study perception without recourse to expectations, context, and beliefs? What are the boundaries between perception, memory, and inference (and do they even exist)? Are findings from neuroscience that paint a picture of perception as an inherently bidirectional …Read more
  •  119
    The Senses
    Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. 2018.
    Philosophers and scientists have studied sensory perception and, in particular, vision for many years. Increasingly, however, they have become interested in the nonvisual senses in greater detail and the problem of individuating the senses in a more general way. The Aristotelian view is that there are only five external senses—smell, taste, hearing, touch, and vision. This has, by many counts, been extended to include internal senses, such as balance, proprioception, and kinesthesis; pain; and p…Read more
  •  255
    The neural correlates of visual imagery: a co-ordinate-based meta-analysis
    with C. Winlove, F. Milton, J. Ranson, J. Fulford, M. MacKisack, and A. Zeman
    Cortex 105 (August 2018): 4-25. 2018.
    Visual imagery is a form of sensory imagination, involving subjective experiences typically described as similar to perception, but which occur in the absence of corresponding external stimuli. We used the Activation Likelihood Estimation algorithm (ALE) to identify regions consistently activated by visual imagery across 40 neuroimaging studies, the first such meta-analysis. We also employed a recently developed multi-modal parcellation of the human brain to attribute stereotactic co-ordinates t…Read more
  •  352
    Ambiguous Figures and the Content of Experience
    Noûs 40 (1): 82-117. 2006.
    Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counterexample to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or…Read more
  •  668
    Perception, Philosophical Perspectives
    In Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans & P. Wilken (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 2009.
    This paper provides an introduction to, and overview of, the Philosophy of Perception.
  •  272
    Novel colours and the content of experience
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (1): 43-66. 2003.
    I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore t…Read more
  •  218
    Colour inversion problems for representationalism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1): 127-152. 2005.
    In this paper I examine whether representationalism can account for various thought experiments about colour inversions. Representationalism is, at minimum, the view that, necessarily, if two experiences have the same representational content then they have the same phenomenal character. I argue that representationalism ought to be rejected if one holds externalist views about experiential content and one holds traditional exter- nalist views about the nature of the content of propositional atti…Read more
  •  173
    The Space of Sensory Modalities
    In Dustin Stokes, Mohan Matthen & Stephen Biggs (eds.), Perception and Its Modalities, Oxford University Press. 2014.
    Is there a space of the sensory modalities? Such a space would be one in which we can represent all the actual, and at least some of the possible, sensory modalities. The relative position of the senses in this space would indicate how similar and how different the senses were from each other. The construction of such a space might reveal unconsidered features of the actual and possible senses, help us to define what a sense is, and provide grounds that we might use to decide what is one token s…Read more
  •  427
    Synaesthesia
    In Mario de Caro, Francesco Ferretti & Massimo Marraffa (eds.), Cartography of the Mind: Philosophy and Psychology in Intersection, Kleuwer. 2007.
    Synaesthesia is most often characterised as a union or mixing of the senses. i Richard Cytowic describes it thus: “It denotes the rare capacity to hear colours, taste shapes or experience other equally startling sensory blendings whose quality seems difficult for most of us to imagine” ([1995] 1997, 7). One famous example is of a man who “tasted shapes”. When he experienced flavours he also experienced shapes rubbing against his face or hands. ii Such popular characterisations are rough and read…Read more
  •  18
    Philosophy of Mind
    Philosophical Books 45 (3): 255-257. 2004.
  •  362
    The 
senses,
 or
 sensory 
modalities,
 constitute 
the
different 
ways
 we
 have
 of
 perceiving 
the 
world,
such
 as 
seeing,
 hearing ,
touching, 
tasting, 
and
smelling.
 But
 what 
makes 
the 
senses 
different?
How 
many
 senses
 are 
there? 
How 
many 
could
 there
 be?
 Wha t
interaction
 takes
 place 
between
the
 senses?
 This 
introduction 
is
 a 
guide 
to
thinking 
about 
these 
questions.

  •  322
    The Admissible Contents of Experience (edited book)
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2011.
    Which objects and properties are represented in perceptual experience, and how are we able to determine this? The papers in this collection address these questions together with other fundamental questions about the nature of perceptual content. The book draws together papers by leading international philosophers of mind, including Alex Byrne (MIT), Alva Noë (University of California, Berkeley), Tim Bayne (St Catherine’s College, Oxford), Michael Tye (University of Texas, Austin), Richard …Read more
  •  171
    The Senses: Classic and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (edited book)
    Oxford University Press USA. 2011.
    The senses, or sensory modalities, constitute the different ways we have of perceiving the world, such as seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. But how many senses are there? How many could there be? What makes the senses different? What interaction takes place between the senses? This book is a guide to thinking about these questions. Together with an extensive introduction to the topic, the book contains the key classic papers on this subject together with nine newly commissioned es…Read more
  •  56
    Cognitive Penetration and Nonconceptual Content
    In John Zeimbekis & Athanassios Raftopoulos (eds.), The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception: New Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press. 2015.
    Abstract: This paper seeks to establish whether the cognitive penetration of experience is compatible with experience having nonconceptual content. Cognitive penetration occurs when one’s beliefs or desires affect one’s perceptual experience in a particular way. I examine two different models of cognitive penetration and four different accounts of the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content. I argue that one model of cognitive penetration—“classic” cognitive penetration—is compa…Read more
  •  151
    Redefining Illusion and Hallucination in Light of New Cases
    Philosophical Issues 26 (1): 263-296. 2016.
    In this paper, we present new cases of illusion and hallucination that have not heretofore been identified. We argue that such cases show that the traditional accounts of illusion and hallucination are incorrect because they do not identify all of the cases of non-veridical experience that they need to and they elide important differences between cases. In light of this, we present new and exhaustive definitions of illusion and hallucination. First, we explicate the traditional accounts of illu…Read more
  •  45
    On Picturing a Candle: The Prehistory of Imagery Science
    with Matthew MacKisack, Susan Aldworth, John Onians, Crawford Winlove, and Adam Zeman
    Frontiers in Psychology 7. 2016.
    The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical – and even psychological – reckoning with imagery and its parent concept ‘imagination’. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination’s intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for – and presen…Read more
  •  906
    Impossible Figures
    In E. B. Goldstein (ed.), SAGE Encyclopedia of Perception, Sage Publications. 2010.
    Provides an overview and examples of what impossible figures are, and explains their interest to many different disciplines including philosophy, psychology, art and mathematics.
  •  107
    Unlike those with type 1 blindsight, people who have type 2 blindsight have some sort of consciousness of the stimuli in their blind field. What is the nature of that consciousness? Is it visual experience? I address these questions by considering whether we can establish the existence of any structural—necessary—features of visual experience. I argue that it is very difficult to establish the existence of any such features. In particular, I investigate whether it is possible to visually, or mor…Read more