-
How Philosophical Reasoning and Neuroscientific Modeling Come TogetherIn Matthieu Fontaine, Cristina Barés-Gómez, Francisco Salguero-Lamillar, Lorenzo Magnani & Ángel Nepomuceno-Fernández (eds.), Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology: Inferential Models for Logic, Language, Cognition and Computation, Springer Verlag. 2019.
-
12Almost Faces? ;-) Emoticons and Emojis as Cultural Artifacts for Social Cognition OnlineTopoi 1-12. forthcoming.Emoticons and facial emojis are ubiquitous in contemporary digital communication, where it has been proposed that they make up for the lack of social information from real faces. In this paper, I construe them as cultural artifacts that exploit the neurocognitive mechanisms for face perception. Building on a step-by-step comparison of psychological evidence on the perception of faces vis-à-vis the perception of emoticons/emojis, I assess to what extent they do effectively vicariate real faces wi…Read more
-
23Feeling bad about mass murders: what does it tell us about moral psychology and emotion?Philosophical Psychology. forthcoming.Munch-Jurisic’s book thoroughly describes several cases of severe distresses reported and expressed by perpetrators of tremendous acts such as mass murders. Arguing against a simplistic reading according to which these signs of distress are straightforward manifestations of some innate moral nature, and against the optimistic reading according to which they will lead to prosocial behaviors, Munch-Jursic offers compelling reasons to adopt a more complex theory of emotion. In this commentary, I ai…Read more
-
27Real is the new sexy: the influence of perceived realness on self-reported arousal to sexual visual stimuliCognition and Emotion. forthcoming.As state-of-art technology can create artificial images that are indistinguishable from real ones, it is urgent to understand whether believing that a picture is real or not has some import over affective phenomena such as sexual arousal. Thus, in two pre-registered online studies, we tested whether 60 images depicting models in underwear elicited higher self-reported sexual arousal when believed to be (N = 57) or presented as (N = 108) real photographs as opposed to artificially generated. In b…Read more
-
Masked Faces: A Tale of Functional Redeployment between Biology and Material CultureIn Massimo Leone (ed.), The hybrid face: paradoxes of the visage in the digital era, Routledge. 2023.
-
378Retiring the “Cinderella view”: the spinal cord as an intrabodily cognitive extensionBiology and Philosophy 36 (5): 1-25. 2021.Within the field of neuroscience, it is assumed that the central nervous system is divided into two functionally distinct components: the brain, which does the cognizing, and the spinal cord, which is a conduit of information enabling the brain to do its job. We dub this the “Cinderella view” of the spinal cord. Here, we suggest it should be abandoned. Marshalling recent empirical findings, we claim that the spinal cord is best conceived as an intrabodily cognitive extension: a piece of biologic…Read more
-
66Designed to abuse? Deepfakes and the non-consensual diffusion of intimate imagesSynthese 201 (1): 1-20. 2023.The illicit diffusion of intimate photographs or videos intended for private use is a troubling phenomenon known as the diffusion of Non-Consensual Intimate Images (NCII). Recently, it has been feared that the spread of deepfake technology, which allows users to fabricate fake intimate images or videos that are indistinguishable from genuine ones, may dramatically extend the scope of NCII. In the present essay, we counter this pessimistic view, arguing for qualified optimism instead. We hypothes…Read more
-
24Seeing through the shades of situated affectivity. Sunglasses as a socio-affective artifactPhilosophical Psychology. forthcoming.Debates on situated affectivity have mainly focused on tools that exert some positive influence on affective experience. Far less attention has been paid to artifacts that interact with the expression of affect, or to those that exert some negative influence. To shed light on that shadowy corner of our affective social lives, I describe the workings of an atypical socio-affective artifact, namely, sunglasses. Drawing on insights from psychology and other social sciences, I construe sunglasses as…Read more
-
11Introduction: What’s so Special About Faces? Visages at the Crossroad Between Philosophy, Semiotics and CognitionTopoi 41 (4): 623-628. 2022.
-
27Correction to: Core Affect Dynamics: Arousal as a Modulator of ValenceReview of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (4): 803-803. 2020.The initial online publication contained several typesetting errors.
-
20Beyond the Platonic Brain: facing the challenge of individual differences in function-structure mappingSynthese 199 (1-2): 2129-2155. 2020.In their attempt to connect the workings of the human mind with their neural realizers, cognitive neuroscientists often bracket out individual differences to build a single, abstract model that purportedly represents (almost) every human being’s brain. In this paper I first examine the rationale behind this model, which I call ‘Platonic Brain Model’. Then I argue that it is to be surpassed in favor of multiple models allowing for patterned inter-individual differences. I introduce the debate on …Read more
-
45Core Affect Dynamics: Arousal as a Modulator of ValenceReview of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (4): 783-801. 2020.According to several researchers, core affect lies at the foundation of our affective lives and may be characterized as a consciously accessible state combining arousal (activated-deactivated) and valence (pleasure-displeasure). The interaction between these two dimensions is still a matter of debate. In this paper we provide a novel hypothesis concerning their interaction, by arguing that subjective arousal levels modulate the experience of a stimulus’ affective quality. All things being equal,…Read more
-
39Neural Mechanisms: New Challenges in the Philosophy of Neuroscience (edited book)Springer. 2020.This volume brings together new papers advancing contemporary debates in foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues in cognitive neuroscience. The different perspectives presented in each chapter have previously been discussed between the authors, as the volume builds on the experience of Neural Mechanisms Online – webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience organized by the editors of this volume. The contributed chapters pertain to five core areas in current philosophy of neurosc…Read more
-
16Un dialogo tra neuroscienze e filosofiaRivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 9 (3): 208-212. 2018.
-
64Evaluation of Research(ers) and its Threat to Epistemic PluralismsEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 13 (2): 55-78. 2017.While some form of evaluation has always been employed in science (e.g. peer review, hiring), formal systems of evaluation of research and researchers have recently come to play a more prominent role in many countries because of the adoption of new models of governance. According to such models, the quality of the output of both researchers and their institutions is measured, and issues such as eligibility for tenure or the allocation …Read more
-
59The standard ontological framework of cognitive neuroscience: Some lessons from Broca’s areaPhilosophical Psychology 30 (7): 945-969. 2017.Since cognitive neuroscience aims at giving an integrated account of mind and brain, its ontology should include both neural and cognitive entities and specify their relations. According to what we call the standard ontological framework of cognitive neuroscience, the aim of cognitive neuroscience should be to establish one-to-one mappings between neural and cognitive entities. Where such entities do not yet closely align, this can be achieved by reforming the cognitive ontology, the neural onto…Read more
-
39L’agenda ontologica della neuroscienza cognitiva: le neuroscienze come “arbitro” delle categorie psicologicheRivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 7 (2): 144-165. 2016.Riassunto : Questo articolo ambisce a fornire una ricostruzione razionale dell’ontologia della neuroscienza cognitiva. Questa dovrebbe soddisfare tre desiderata : un’ontologia delle funzioni cognitive che descriva tutte le operazioni della mente; un’ontologia delle strutture neurali che descriva tutte le parti del cervello; una corrispondenza biunivoca tra ogni funzione cognitiva e una corrispettiva struttura neurale. Saranno brevemente esaminati i presupposti che stanno alla base di questi desi…Read more
-
513Some Remarks on the Division of Cognitive LaborRT. A Journal on Research Policy and Evaluation 3. 2015.Since the publication of Kitcher’s influential paper The Division of Cognitive Labor, some philosophers wondered about these two related issues: (1) which is the optimal distribution of cognitive efforts among rival methods within a scientific community?, and (2) whether and how can a community achieve such an optimal distribution? Though not committing to any specific answer to question (1), I claim that issue (2) does not depend exclusively on an invisible hand like mechanism, since both intra…Read more
-
University of TurinDepartment of Philosophy and Educational SciencesOther faculty (Postdoc, Visiting, etc)
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |