Research Overview
My work to date has delved into two intriguing aspects of perception: the accompanying feeling of presence and its cognitive influence. I challenge the common assumption that the feeling of presence is intrinsic to perception, propose the role of sensory imagining in cognitive influence, and investigate the implications of these accounts for perceptual justification. Beyond my work on perception, I have conducted research about episodic memory, offering a novel theory to explain the epistemic significance of different types of memory construction.
Headings below: The Feeling of Presence; Cognitive Penetration; Memory Construction
The Feeling of Presence
We often experience a distinctive phenomenology during perception, feeling assured of the truth of our experience or the direct presence of certain objects. I approach this phenomenology, termed “phenomenal force,” through metacognition.
In “A Metacognitive Account of Phenomenal Force” (published in Mind & Language), I introduce three cases—the Perky effect, derealization, and conditioning-induced imagining—to show that phenomenal force can be absent in some perceptual experiences while present in some imaginings. I argue that phenomenal force is a metacognitive state distinct from perception. First, phenomenal force is aligned with source monitoring, a type of metacognition that monitors the origins of one’s mental processes and states. Secondly, I examine the features that source-monitoring mechanisms track within first-order processes and states to generate phenomenal force. This more specific proposal further provides explanations for the three empirical cases mentioned earlier.
I argue that phenomenal force does not immediately justify beliefs about the world, as claimed by the epistemological theory of dogmatism, in “The Epistemic Insignificance of Phenomenal Force” (forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research). As a metacognitive state, phenomenal force is directed at first-order processes and states, and can at best immediately justify metacognitive beliefs, such as “This is a veridical perception.” Therefore, a perceptual experience together with phenomenal force can at most offer mediate justification for worldly beliefs: dogmatism is doomed.
Cognitive Penetration
The cognitive penetrability of perception raises an important epistemological issue: how much can we trust our experiences if we see what we expect to see? In “Cognitive Penetration: Inference or Fabrication?” (published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy), I contest a major epistemic theory: inferentialism. It posits that cognitive penetration affects the justificatory power of an experience in a way similar to how inference affects an inferred belief. I consider a common Bayesian account of perception, which takes a perceptual inference to involve a step of selecting a hypothesis based on its posterior probability to generate a determinate experience. Even if a hypothesis’s posterior probability is very high, by representing it as true in the output experience, the inference jumps to the conclusion—the output embodies overconfidence that is not properly supported by the input. Inferentialism, when combined with a Bayesian account, implies that a large number of perceptual experiences result from bad inferences. This poses a threat of extensive skepticism.
I propose an alternative theory: fabricationism, suggesting that sensory imagining plays a role in cognitive penetration and that experiences generated by personal-level mental processes require a solid evidential basis to justify belief. Drawing insights from the epistemology of imagining, I argue that an experience is “fabricated” and fails to justify beliefs when it is generated by a personal-level mental process but lacks a good evidential basis. I construe the personal/subpersonal distinction in terms of psychological explanations, where a personal-level psychological explanation attributes mental processes and states to the subject. My argument underscores the epistemic importance of distinguishing between personal and subpersonal processes in two ways. Firstly, I emphasize that the evaluation ought to be subject-focused, rather than limited to a mere functional subsystem. Secondly, I contend that permitting subpersonal-level processes to influence a subject’s epistemic standing opens the door to unsettling skeptical challenges.
Some experiences influenced by cognition contain content directly initiated by the act of imagining, and these can be understood as fabrications. Additionally, the interplay between imagining and perception might manifest as facilitation rather than fabrication. I maintain that these cognition-influenced experiences originate from entirely subpersonal-level processes and, as such, does not necessitate a solid evidential foundation to possess justificatory power.
Memory Construction
Episodic memory, which involves recalling specific past events, is a dynamic and constructive process, with the content of memories potentially being modified at various stages. In “The Justificatory Power of Memory Experience” (forthcoming in Philosophy and the Mind Sciences), I propose a theory to elucidate how beliefs about the past can be justified while considering memory’s constructive nature. Drawing a connection between certain instances of memory construction and cognitive penetration, I demonstrate that a salient version of internalist foundationalism, memory dogmatism, fails to address the epistemic relevance of etiologies. Scrutinizing the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) effect, in which subjects recall related but non-existent events, I present a skeptical challenge for reliabilism imposing a blanket requirement of reliability on all memory-belief forming processes. My alternative proposal is built on my epistemology of cognitive penetration, highlighting a distinction between memory contents generated by personal- and subpersonal-level processes during retrieval. Contents derived from personal-level processes require a solid evidential foundation to confer justification. In contrast, those originating from entirely subpersonal-level retrieval processes can possess justificatory strength even without evidential backing or reliability. This discussion introduces a novel perspective on the distinction between what is epistemically given to us and what we construct in the domain of memory.