•  7
    Recent years have seen a surge of interest in applying mechanistic thinking to computational accounts of implementation and individuation. One recent extension of this work involves so-called ‘wide’ approaches to computation, the view that computational processes spread out beyond the boundaries of the individual. These ‘mechanistic accounts of wide computation’ maintain that computational processes are wide in virtue of being part of mechanisms that extend beyond the boundary of the individual.…Read more
  •  14
    An idealised account of mechanistic computation
    Synthese 203 (99): 1-23. 2024.
    The mechanistic account of computation offers one promising and influential theory of computational implementation. The aim of this paper is to shore up its conceptual foundations by responding to several recent challenges. After outlining and responding to a recent proposal from Kuokkanen (2022a), I suggest that computational description should be conceptualised as a form of idealisation (selectively attending to modified subsets of model features) rather than abstraction (selectively attending…Read more
  •  176
    Predicting the Body or Embodied Prediction? New Directions in Embodied Predictive Processing (2nd ed.)
    In Larry Shapiro & Shannon Spaulding (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition, Routledge. pp. 1-17. forthcoming.
    This chapter wades into the growing discussion surrounding embodied cognition and predictive processing. After surveying a recent debate between Jakob Hohwy and Andy Clark, it articulates two outstanding issues facing discussions of compatibility. It argues that headway on these issues can be made by drawing on the resources of philosophy of science.
  •  59
    Predictive processing (PP) and embodied cognition (EC) have emerged as two influential approaches within cognitive science in recent years. Not only have PP and EC been heralded as “revolutions” and “paradigm shifts” but they have motivated a number of new and interesting areas of research. This has prompted some to wonder how compatible the two views might be. This paper looks to weigh in on the issue of PP-EC compatibility. After outlining two recent proposals, I argue that further clarity can…Read more
  •  46
    There is a longstanding debate between those who think that cognition extends into the external environment and those who think it is located squarely within the individual. Recently, a new actor has emerged on the scene, one that looks to play kingmaker. Predictive processing says that the mind/brain is fundamentally engaged in a process of minimising the difference between what is predicted about the world and how the world actually is, what is known as ‘prediction error minimisation’. The goa…Read more
  •  26
    Wide Computation: A Mechanistic Account
    Dissertation, University of Edinburgh. 2020.
    This Ph.D. thesis explores a novel way of thinking about computation in cognitive science. It argues for what I call ‘the mechanistic account of wide computationalism’, or simply wide mechanistic computation. The key claim is that some cognitive and perceptual abilities are produced by or are the result of computational mechanisms that are, in part, located outside the individual; that computational systems, the ones that form the proper units of analysis in cognitive science, are particular typ…Read more
  •  41
    How to be concrete: mechanistic computation and the abstraction problem
    Philosophical Explorations 23 (3): 251-266. 2020.
    This paper takes up a recent challenge to mechanistic approaches to computational implementation, the view that computational implementation is best explicated within a mechanistic framework. The challenge, what has been labelled “the abstraction problem”, claims that one of MAC’s central pillars – medium independence – is deeply confused when applied to the question of computational implementation. The concern is that while it makes sense to say that computational processes are abstract (i.e. m…Read more
  •  156
    The Narrow Conception of Computational Psychology
    In Glenn Gunzelmann, Andrew Howes, Thora Tenbrink & Eddy Davelaar (eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science Society, . pp. 2389-2394. 2017.
    One particularly successful approach to modeling within cognitive science is computational psychology. Computational psychology explores psychological processes by building and testing computational models with human data. In this paper, it is argued that a specific approach to understanding computation, what is called the ‘narrow conception’, has problematically limited the kinds of models, theories, and explanations that are offered within computational psychology. After raising two problems f…Read more
  •  330
    Resolving Two Tensions in 4E Cognition Using Wide Computationalism
    with George Deane and Joe Dewhurst
    In Glenn Gunzelmann, Andrew Howes, Thora Tenbrink & Eddy Davelaar (eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science Society, . pp. 2395-2400. 2017.
    Recently, some authors have begun to raise questions about the potential unity of 4E (enactive, embedded, embodied, extended) cognition as a distinct research programme within cognitive science. Two tensions, in particular, have been raised:(i) that the body-centric claims embodied cognition militate against the distributed tendencies of extended cognition and (ii) that the body/environment distinction emphasized by enactivism stands in tension with the world-spanning claims of extended cognitio…Read more
  •  278
    Leveling the Field: Talking Levels in Cognitive Science
    with Andrew Brook and Robert West
    In A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman & J. C. Trueswell (eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 432-437) Cognitive Science Society., Cognitive Science Society. pp. 2399-2404. 2016.
    Talk of levels is everywhere in cognitive science. Whether it is in terms of adjudicating longstanding debates or motivating foundational concepts, one cannot go far without hearing about the need to talk at different ‘levels’. Yet in spite of its widespread application and use, the concept of levels has received little sustained attention within cognitive science. This paper provides an analysis of the various ways the notion of levels has been deployed within cognitive science. The paper begin…Read more
  •  201
    One method for uncovering the subprocesses of mental processes is the “Additive Factors Method” (AFM). The AFM uses reaction time data from factorial experiments to infer the presence of separate processing stages. This paper investigates the conceptual status of the AFM. It argues that one of the AFM’s underlying assumptions is problematic in light of recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. Discussion begins by laying out the basic logic of the AFM, followed by an analysis of the challen…Read more
  •  86
    Extended music cognition
    Philosophical Psychology 30 (8): 1078-1103. 2017.
    Discussions of extended cognition have increasingly engaged with the empirical and methodological practices of cognitive science and psychology. One topic that has received increased attention from those interested in the extended mind is music cognition. A number of authors have argued that music not only shapes emotional and cognitive processes, but also that it extends those processes beyond the bodily envelope. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the case for extended music cognition. Two a…Read more
  •  449
    A Mechanistic Account of Wide Computationalism
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (3): 501-517. 2017.
    The assumption that psychological states and processes are computational in character pervades much of cognitive science, what many call the computational theory of mind. In addition to occupying a central place in cognitive science, the computational theory of mind has also had a second life supporting “individualism”, the view that psychological states should be taxonomized so as to supervene only on the intrinsic, physical properties of individuals. One response to individualism has been to r…Read more
  •  18
    A commentary on: Seeing changes: How familiarity alters our perception of change by Tovey, M., and Herdman, C. (2014). Vis. Cogn. 22, 214–238
  •  690
    The Sound of Music: Externalist Style
    American Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2): 139-154. 2016.
    Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Sega…Read more
  •  459
    A commentary on: The Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy and the Mature Sciences by Ross, D., and Ladyman, J. (2010). The Extended Mind, ed R. Menary (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 155–166.
  •  417
    Music and Cognitive Extension
    Empirical Musicology Review 9 (3-4): 193-202. 2014.
    Extended cognition holds that cognitive processes sometimes leak into the world (Dawson, 2013). A recent trend among proponents of extended cognition has been to put pressure on phenomena thought to be safe havens for internalists (Sneddon, 2011; Wilson, 2010; Wilson & Lenart, 2014). This paper attempts to continue this trend by arguing that music perception is an extended phenomenon. It is claimed that because music perception involves the detection of musical invariants within an “acoustic arr…Read more