In my dissertation, I argue that we should change the way we think about both perceptual constancy and perceptual objectivity (i.e. the capacity of perception to present the world as objective, independent of our viewpoint).
I defend an account of constancy rooted in a sort of pragmatic principle, that is, in the idea that we should start by looking at what constancy is for, what it does.
I reject the ‘standard’ account of constancy according to which constancy is achieved when the perceptual system ‘extracts’ a distal property from a largely underdetermined proximal stimulus, and ‘discounts’ contextual information. This approach, I think, is too visuo-centric and cannot fully capture the role that constancies play in providing perceptual stability for action.
My work is largely inspired by traditions such as ecological psychology, pragmatism, embodied cognitive science, and phenomenology.
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Here are my published papers:
Olympians and Vampires – Talent, practice, and why most of us ‘don’t get it’ (2020, Argumenta)
Enactivism and the ‘problem’ of Perceptual Presence (2020, Synthese)
Naturalizing Qualia (2017, Phenomenology and Mind)
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These other articles are currently under review (drafts available upon request):
- The Problem of Invariance
- Reconsidering Perceptual Constancy (co-authored with Tony Chemero)
- Perceptual science and the “measuring instrument analogy”
- Making the world “come alive”: Perception, Agency, and Playfulness
And here are a few more projects I have in the works (email me if you’d like to know more!):
- The ‘relational constructs’ of gloss and timbre (with Mazviita Chirimuuta)
- Issues on the nature of sounds
- Perception, belief, and officiating in basketball
- Constructivist psychology, computation, and perceptual content
- Autonomy, aesthetic experience, and cochlear implants
