ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7406-4010
Current Organisation
Australian National University
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields | Philosophy | Ethical Use of New Technology (e.g. Nanotechnology, Biotechnology) | Philosophy of Cognition | Philosophical Psychology (incl. Moral Psychology and Philosophy of Action) | History and Philosophy of Science (incl. Non-historical Philosophy of Science) | Epistemology | Social and Community Psychology
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Expanding Knowledge in Philosophy and Religious Studies | Social Ethics | Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences |
Related Links
Publications
What do predictive coders want?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-10-2016
Mechanisms, resources, and background conditions
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-09-2018
Did the Chinese Have a Change of Heart?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-02-2012
DOI: 10.1111/J.1551-6709.2011.01231.X
Abstract: In their "The Prevalence of Mind-Body Dualism in Early China," Slingerland and Chudek use a statistical analysis of the early Chinese corpus to argue for Weak Folk Dualism (WFD). We raise three methodological objections to their analysis. First, the change over time that they find is largely driven by genre. Second, the operationalization of WFD is potentially misleading. And, third, dating the texts they use is extremely controversial. We conclude with some positive remarks.
Topic modeling reveals distinct posting patterns within an online conspiracy forum.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 08-06-2017
Abstract: Conspiracy theories play a troubling role in political discourse, yet the motivations of conspiracy endorsers can be obscure to outsiders. Online forums provide a valuable window into the day-to-day discourse of conspiracy theorizing, but one that is difficult to quantify. We used non-negative matrix factorization to create a topic model of the r/conspiracy forum on Reddit.com. This subreddit provides a large and unique corpus which spans many years and numerous authors. We show that within the forum, there are multiple sub-populations distinguishable by their topic loading. Further, these differences are readily interpretable as differences in background beliefs and motivations. These groups regularly interact with one another by commenting hence topic modeling reveals subgroups that would not be revealed by simple network analyses. The ersity of the distinct subgroups places constraints on theories of what generates conspiracy theorizing: neither simple irrationality nor common preoccupations of topics seem to fit the bill. Instead, we suggest, conspiracy theorizing seems to be primarily driven by higher-order preoccupations with evidence and argument, along with rhetorical strategies which allow erse groups to each address any particular theme.
Redeployed functions versus spreading activation: A potential confound
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 08-2010
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X1000097X
Abstract: Anderson's meta-analysis of fMRI data is subject to a potential confound. Areas identified as active may make no functional contribution to the task being studied, or may indicate regions involved in the coordination of functional networks rather than information processing per se. I suggest a way in which fMRI adaptation studies might provide a useful test between these alternatives.
Attention and counter-framing in the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-10-2022
DOI: 10.1057/S41599-022-01384-1
Abstract: The social media platform Twitter platform has played a crucial role in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The immediate, flexible nature of tweets plays a crucial role both in spreading information about the movement’s aims and in organizing in idual protests. Twitter has also played an important role in the right-wing reaction to BLM, providing a means to reframe and recontextualize activists’ claims in a more sinister light. The ability to bring about social change depends on the balance of these two forces, and in particular which side can capture and maintain sustained attention. The present study examines 2 years worth of tweets about BLM (about 118 million in total). Timeseries analysis reveals that activists are better at mobilizing rapid attention, whereas right-wing accounts show a pattern of moderate but more sustained activity driven by reaction to political opponents. Topic modeling reveals differences in how different political groups talk about BLM. Most notably, the murder of George Floyd appears to have solidified a right-wing counter-framing of protests as arising from dangerous “terrorist” actors. The study thus sheds light on the complex network and rhetorical effects that drive the struggle for online attention to the BLM movement.
Pathways to conspiracy: the social and linguistic precursors of involvement in Reddit's conspiracy theory forum
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 18-01-2018
Abstract: Conspiracy beliefs are common, and can cause harm to in iduals and their communities. Our aim was to examine the social and linguistic characteristics of forum users who became active participants in a large online conspiracy forum. The study is a retrospective case-control study using a large dataset from the online forum network Reddit, comparing users who would go on to post comments in a conspiracy forum with a group of control users. The analyses show that prior to posting in conspiracy forums, these users consistently exhibited anger and used third person pronouns disproportionately more often than the control group. A community structure analysis of these users revealed substantial heterogeneity---users from different communities varied in both linguistic characteristics and in the topics of the forums in which they were involved. The results suggest that a desire to belong to an in-group and mechanisms for reinforcing opinions through peer feedback appeared to create social spaces in which conspiracy beliefs were normalised, and these social spaces were not specific to ideologies and interests traditionally associated with conspiracy belief.
Pathways to conspiracy
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 18-11-2019
The Penumbral Theory of Masochistic Pleasure
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-01-2014
Pain signals are predominantly imperative
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-12-2015
Pain and spatial inclusion: evidence from Mandarin
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 10-07-2019
Abstract: The surface grammar of reports such as ‘I have a pain in my leg’ suggests that pains are objects which are spatially located in parts of the body. We show that the parallel construction is not available in Mandarin. Further, four philosophically important grammatical features of such reports cannot be reproduced. This suggests that arguments and puzzles surrounding such reports may be tracking artefacts of English, rather than philosophically significant features of the world.
Exploratory Analysis and the Expected Value of Experimentation
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 15-09-2023
DOI: 10.1017/PSA.2023.116
What Pain Asymbolia Really Shows
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-2015
DOI: 10.1093/MIND/FZU185
REDUCTION WITHOUT REDUCTIONISM: A DEFENCE OF NAGEL ON CONNECTABILITY
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2009
What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 18-04-2016
Abstract: How, why, and when consciousness evolved remain hotly debated topics. Addressing these issues requires considering the distribution of consciousness across the animal phylogenetic tree. Here we propose that at least one invertebrate clade, the insects, has a capacity for the most basic aspect of consciousness: subjective experience. In vertebrates the capacity for subjective experience is supported by integrated structures in the midbrain that create a neural simulation of the state of the mobile animal in space. This integrated and egocentric representation of the world from the animal’s perspective is sufficient for subjective experience. Structures in the insect brain perform analogous functions. Therefore, we argue the insect brain also supports a capacity for subjective experience. In both vertebrates and insects this form of behavioral control system evolved as an efficient solution to basic problems of sensory reafference and true navigation. The brain structures that support subjective experience in vertebrates and insects are very different from each other, but in both cases they are basal to each clade. Hence we propose the origins of subjective experience can be traced to the Cambrian.
Imperatives, phantom pains, and hallucination by presupposition
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2012
Taxonomising delusions: content or aetiology?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-11-2017
DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2017.1404975
Abstract: Many theoretical treatments assume (often implicitly) that delusions ought to be taxonomised by the content of aberrant beliefs. A theoretically sound, and comparatively under-explored, alternative would split and combine delusions according to their underlying cognitive aetiology. We give a theoretical review of several cases, focusing on monothematic delusions of misidentification and on somatoparaphrenia. We show that a purely content-based taxonomy is empirically problematic. It does not allow for projectability of discoveries across all members of delusions so delineated, and lumps together delusions that ought to be separated. We demonstrate that an aetiological approach is defensible, and further that insofar as content-based approaches are plausible, it is only to the extent that they implicitly link content to aetiology. We recommend a more explicit focus on cognitive aetiology as the grounds for delusion taxonomy, even when that would undermine traditional content-based boundaries. We also highlight the iterative and complex nature of evidence about aetiologically grounded taxonomies.
The Brain at Rest: What It Is Doing and Why That Matters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-2014
DOI: 10.1086/677692
Abstract: Neuroimaging studies of the resting state continue to gather philosophical and scientific attention. Most discussions assume an identification between resting-state activity and activity in the so-called default mode network. I argue we should resist this identification, structuring my discussion around a dilemma first posed by Morcom and Fletcher. I offer an alternative view of rest as a state dominated by long-term processes and show how interaction effects might thereby let rest shed light on short-term changes in activation.
Dispositional implementation solves the superfluous structure problem
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-10-2007
Multiple realizability and the semantic view of theories
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-12-2011
Pain, Care, and the Body: A Response to de Vignemont
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-11-2016
The Dual Track Theory of Moral Decision-Making: a Critique of the Neuroimaging Evidence
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-06-2010
Olympia and Other O-Machines
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-06-2015
Heme oxygenase-1 affords protection against noncerebral forms of severe malaria
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 15-09-2009
Abstract: Infection by Plasmodium , the causative agent of malaria, is associated with hemolysis and therefore with release of hemoglobin from RBC. Under inflammatory conditions, cell-free hemoglobin can be oxidized, releasing its heme prosthetic groups and producing deleterious free heme. Here we demonstrate that survival of a Plasmodium -infected host relies strictly on its ability to prevent the cytotoxic effects of free heme via the expression of the heme-catabolyzing enzyme heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1 encoded by the Hmox1 gene). When infected with Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi ( Pcc ), wild-type ( Hmox1 +/+ ) BALB/c mice resolved infection and restored homeostasis thereafter (0% lethality). In contrast, HO-1 deficient ( Hmox1 −/− ) BALB/c mice developed a lethal form of hepatic failure (100% lethality), similar to the one occurring in Pcc -infected DBA/2 mice (75% lethality). Expression of HO-1 suppresses the pro-oxidant effects of free heme, preventing it from sensitizing hepatocytes to undergo TNF-mediated programmed cell death by apoptosis. This cytoprotective effect, which inhibits the development of hepatic failure in Pcc -infected mice without interfering with pathogen burden, is mimicked by pharmacological antioxidants such as N-acetylcysteine (NAC). When administered therapeutically, i.e., after Pcc infection, NAC suppressed the development of hepatic failure in Pcc -infected DBA/2 mice (0% lethality), without interfering with pathogen burden. In conclusion, we describe a mechanism of host defense against Plasmodium infection, based on tissue cytoprotection against free heme and limiting disease severity irrespectively of parasite burden.
Predictive Processing: Avoiding the elephant in the room
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 03-06-2020
Abstract: Reflections on Sun and Firestone's 2020 TICS paper, and some further problems and opportunities for predictive processing.
Polarization and trust in the evolution of vaccine discourse on Twitter during COVID-19
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 14-12-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0277292
Abstract: Trust in vaccination is eroding, and attitudes about vaccination have become more polarized. This is an observational study of Twitter analyzing the impact that COVID-19 had on vaccine discourse. We identify the actors, the language they use, how their language changed, and what can explain this change. First, we find that authors cluster into several large, interpretable groups, and that the discourse was greatly affected by American partisan politics. Over the course of our study, both Republicans and Democrats entered the vaccine conversation in large numbers, forming coalitions with Antivaxxers and public health organizations, respectively. After the pandemic was officially declared, the interactions between these groups increased. Second, we show that the moral and non-moral language used by the various communities converged in interesting and informative ways. Finally, vector autoregression analysis indicates that differential responses to public health measures are likely part of what drove this convergence. Taken together, our results suggest that polarization around vaccination discourse in the context of COVID-19 was ultimately driven by a trust-first dynamic of political engagement.
Cognitive Ontology and Region- versus Network-Oriented Analyses
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-2012
DOI: 10.1086/667843
Abstract: The interpretation of functional imaging experiments is complicated by the pluripotency of brain regions. As there is a many-to-one mapping between cognitive functions and their neural substrates, region-based analyses of imaging data provide only weak support for cognitive theories. Price and Friston argue that we need a ‘cognitive ontology’ that abstractly categorizes the function of regions. I argue that abstract characterizations are unlikely to be cognitively interesting. I argue instead that we should attribute functions to regions in a context-sensitive manner. I review recent meta-analyses that approach fMRI data in this light and argue that they have revisionary potential.
A Central Role for Free Heme in the Pathogenesis of Severe Sepsis
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 29-09-2010
DOI: 10.1126/SCITRANSLMED.3001118
Abstract: Heme from red blood cells released in septic shock worsens organ dysfunction and increases the risk of death, but can be overcome by a scavenger of free heme.
Holistic resource-rational analysis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X19001493
Abstract: We argue that Lieder and Griffiths’ method for analyzing rational process models cannot capture an important constraint on resource allocation, which is competition between different processes for shared resources (Klein 2018, Biology and Philosophy 33 :36). We suggest that holistic interactions between processes on at least three different timescales – episodic, developmental, and evolutionary – must be taken into account by a complete resource-bounded explanation.
The Complex Reality of Pain, by Jennifer Corns
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 17-09-2021
DOI: 10.1093/MIND/FZAB025
An ideal solution to disputes about multiply realized kinds
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-08-2007
Kicking the Kohler Habit
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2007
Confidence Intervals on Implicit Association Test Scores Are Really Rather Large
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 03-06-2020
Abstract: Implicit association test scores are presented as point estimates. Unusually for a psychological measure, in idual scores are not tested for statistical significance in standard practice. This study estimates in idual confidence intervals for a large dataset of IAT scores. The intervals are large. Only half of scores are significantly different from zero. This result raises theoretical concerns about standard interpretations of the IAT.
Explaining Neural Transitions through Resource Constraints
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 24-05-2022
DOI: 10.1017/PSA.2022.35
Abstract: One challenge in explaining neural evolution is the formal equivalence of different computational architectures. If a simple architecture suffices, why should more complex neural architectures evolve? The answer must involve the intense competition for resources under which brains operate. I show how recurrent neural networks can be favored when increased complexity allows for more efficient use of existing resources. Although resource constraints alone can drive a change, recurrence shifts the landscape of what is later evolvable. Hence organisms on either side of a transition boundary may have similar cognitive capacities but very different potential for evolving new capacities.
Images Are Not the Evidence in Neuroimaging
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 06-2010
DOI: 10.1093/BJPS/AXP035
Related Organisations
Related Funding Activities
Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP190101507
Start Date: 07-2019
End Date: 12-2023
Amount: $300,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityARC Future Fellowships - Grant ID: FT140100422
Start Date: 08-2014
End Date: 11-2019
Amount: $609,220.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity