Papers by Nicolas J Bullot
There is increasing evidence of the benefits of music, in particular singing, for people with Par... more There is increasing evidence of the benefits of music, in particular singing, for people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Current research has primarily focused on vocal or motor symptoms. Our aim was to examine the immediate emotional effects of group singing in people with PD, and whether the type of music sung (familiar vs. unfamiliar songs) moderates these effects. We also explored whether differences in music reward modulate the emotional effects of group singing in people with PD. 11 participants with PD completed the Positive And Negative Affect Schedule in three conditions: immediately after group singing (1) familiar songs, (2) unfamiliar songs, and (3) no singing. They also completed the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Positive affect scores were higher in the singing (collapsed across familiar and unfamiliar songs) than no-singing condition. There was no significant difference in positive affect scores between the two singing conditions (familiar/unfamiliar songs). There was a positive but not statistically significant relationship between music reward and positive affect scores after singing. This study documents enhanced positive affect in people with PD immediately after group singing. This has clinical implications for the use of singing as a therapeutic intervention in people with PD.
Research seeking to explain the perpetration of violence and atrocities by humans against other h... more Research seeking to explain the perpetration of violence and atrocities by humans against other humans offers both social and individualistic explanations, which differ namely in the roles attributed to empathy. Prominent social models suggest that some manifestations of inter-human violence are caused by parochial attitudes (attitudes characterized by interests centred on one's own community) and obedience reinforced by within-group empathy. Individualistic explanations of violence, by contrast, posit that stable intra-individual characteristics of the brain and personality of some individuals lead them to commit violence and atrocities. An individualistic explanation argues that the chief cause of violence is the perpetrator''s lack of empathy with the victim. To offer the rudiments of a critique of the individualistic approach, I critically examine a model stating that violence is caused by empathy erosion (Baron-Cohen 2011). Specifically, the discussion of the empathy-erosion model is applied to the case of honour-based violence (HBV), a type of violence known for its communal character. Building from prior enquiries into violence and social cognition, I argue that an empathy-erosion explanation of HBV is defective because it does not consider important cultural and historical enablers of violence. Finally, as an alternative to individualism , I propose a psychohistorical approach to HBV in the migration context. This alternative combines psychological and philosophical enquiry with historical and ethno-graphical analysis. The psychohistorical approach hypothesises that distinct processes of cultural learning of honour codes both scaffold HBV and modulate the perpetrators' emotions and empathy.
To analyze the relations between art and science, philosophers and historians have developed diff... more To analyze the relations between art and science, philosophers and historians have developed different lines of inquiry. A first type of inquiry considers how artistic and scientific practices have interacted over human history. Another project aims to determine the contributions (if any) that scientific research can make to our understanding of art, including the contributions that cognitive science can make to philosophical questions about the nature of art. We rely on contributions made to these projects in order to demonstrate that art and science are codependent phenomena. Specifically, we explore the codependence of art and science in the context of a historical analysis of their interactions and in the context of contemporary debates on the cognitive science of art. Philosophers and historians have developed different types of research projects to analyze the relations between art and science. A first type of inquiry considers how artistic and scientific practices have interacted over human history. Another line of research aims to determine the contributions (if any) that scientific methods can make to our understanding of art, including the contributions that cognitive science can make to philosophical questions about the nature of art. In this article, we critique the "Two Cultures" view that separates art history from the history of science and holds that scientific methods are irrelevant to our philosophical understanding of art. By contrast to this view, we argue that the arts and the sciences are codependent phenomena. Specifically, we explore the codependence of the arts and the sciences in the broad context of a historical analysis of their interactions and in the specific context of contemporary debates on the cognitive science of art.
To introduce the issue of the tracking and identification of human agents, I examine the ability ... more To introduce the issue of the tracking and identification of human agents, I examine the ability of an agent (“a tracker”) to track a human person (“a target”) and distinguish this target from other individuals: The ability to perform person identification. First, I discuss influential mechanistic models of the perceptual recognition of human faces and people (the face-recognition program). Such models propose detailed hypotheses about the parts and activities of the mental mechanisms that control the perceptual recognition of persons. However, models based on perceptual recognition are incomplete theories of person identification because they do not explain several identification behaviors that are fundamental to human social interactions (e.g., identifying unobservable persons and imposters). Furthermore, recognition-based models tend to appeal to the controversial concept of the “identity” of a person without explaining what determines personal identity and persistence. To overcome these limitations, I propose to integrate the face-recognition program into a broader causal-historical theory of identification. The causal-historical theory of identification complements models focused on perceptual recognition because it can account for the types of non-perceptual identification overlooked by the face-recognition program. Moreover, it can decompose the identification behaviors into tracking processes that succeed or fail to be sensitive to causal characteristics of a target. I illustrate these advantages with a discussion of the difference between the tracking of a person understood as either a causally continuous biological organism (organism-based tracking) or a psychologically continuous mind (psychological tracking). Finally, I argue that the causal-historical theory provides a theoretical framework for investigating the tracking of relations between a target and its contextual and historical attributes, such as a target's possessions.
To explain agent-identification behaviours, universalist theories in the biological and cognitive... more To explain agent-identification behaviours, universalist theories in the biological and cognitive sciences have posited mental mechanisms thought to be universal to all humans, such as agent detection and face recognition mechanisms. These universalist theories have paid little attention to how particular sociocultural or historical contexts interact with the psychobiological processes of agent-identification. In contrast to universalist theories, contextualist theories appeal to particular historical and sociocultural contexts for explaining agent-identification. Contextualist theories tend to adopt idiographic methods aimed at recording the heterogeneity of human behaviours across history, space, and cultures. Defenders of the universalist approach tend to criticise idiographic methods because such methods can lead to relativism or may lack generality. To overcome explanatory limitations of proposals that adopt either universalist or contextualist approaches in isolation, I propose a philosophical model that integrates contributions from both traditions: the psycho-historical theory of agent-identification. This theory investigates how the tracking processes that humans use for identifying agents interact with the unique socio-historical contexts that support agent-identification practices. In integrating hypotheses about the history of agents with psychological and epistemological principles regarding agent-identification, the theory can generate novel hypotheses regarding the distinction between recognition-based, heuristic-based, and explanation-based agent-identification.
![Research paper thumbnail of Bullot & Reber 2013 The artful mind meets art history: Toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation BBS [complete version, with response to commentaries]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/34571893/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controvers... more Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.
![Research paper thumbnail of Bullot & Reber 2013 The Artful Mind Meets Art History: Toward a Psycho-Historical Framework for the Science of Art Appreciation, Behavioral and brain Sciences [pre-print]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/11697458/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controvers... more Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.
Attention became a topic studied in experimental psychology by the end of the nineteenth century.... more Attention became a topic studied in experimental psychology by the end of the nineteenth century. With the subsequent development of psychology, interdisciplinary research on attention became an integral part of the cognitive and medical sciences Braun, Koch, and Davis 2001;. Meanwhile, attention continues to raise a wide range of philosophical questions concerning, for example, sensory-motor control, perceptual reference, language understanding, social intentionality, and the neural correlates of consciousness. This chapter focuses on a question that is fundamental to bridging the gap between epistemology and biology: what is the role of attention in the acquisition of knowledge?
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Jan 1, 2010
Auditory Objects and the Functions of AuditionPhilosophical and scientific debates on perception ... more Auditory Objects and the Functions of AuditionPhilosophical and scientific debates on perception have been largely dominated by research on vision (see Bennett 1966, p. 30; Casati and Dokic 1994; Spence and Driver 2004; Calvert et al. 2004). However, our perceptual knowledge of physical objects, like our actions, depends on the connections between distinct perceptual modalities and a number of cognitive systems besides vision.In this introduction, the term physical object is used to refer to a particular material thing that persists, changes or grows and is located in the spatiotemporal world. Among the latter, audition appears most prominently. Similarly to vision, audition is an essential source of spatiotemporal information about the world. Hearing acquaints us with spatially distant events or objects in a way that cannot be achieved through modalities such as smell, touch or taste, which require more direct physical or chemical contact with their sources. Furthermore, audition play ...
Many scholars view artworks as the products of cultural history and arbitrary institutional conve... more Many scholars view artworks as the products of cultural history and arbitrary institutional conventions. Others construe art as the result of psychological mechanisms internal to the organism. These historical and psychological approaches are often viewed as foes rather than friends. Is it possible to combine these two approaches in a unified analysis of the perception and consciousness of artworks? I defend a positive answer to this question and propose a psycho-historical theory, which argues that artworks are historical and material artefacts designed to prompt mental activities and elicit the conscious experience of aesthetic worlds. My argument suggests that the material components of artworks--termed their ‘material substrata'--are crucial mediators between historical contexts and the mental activities elicited by the perception of artworks.
Philosophical Psychology, Jan 1, 2009
Consciousness and Cognition, Jan 1, 2007
This article compares the ability to track individuals lacking mental states with the ability to ... more This article compares the ability to track individuals lacking mental states with the ability to track intentional agents. It explains why reference to individuals raises the problem of explaining how cognitive agents track unique individuals and in what sense reference is based on procedures of perceptual-motor and epistemic tracking. We suggest applying the notion of singular-files from theories in perception and semantics to the problem of tracking intentional agents. In order to elucidate the nature of agent-files, three views of the relation between object- and agent-tracking are distinguished: the Independence, Deflationary and Organism-Dependence Views. The correct view is argued to be the latter, which states that perceptual and epistemic tracking of a unique human organism requires tracking both its spatio-temporal object-properties and its agent-properties.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Jan 1, 2006
Technological and scientific images, and other images with epistemic uses, have varied appearance... more Technological and scientific images, and other images with epistemic uses, have varied appearances and functions. They seem to be analog or symbolic representations available to researchers for a variety of epistemic purposes such as summarizing data, or presenting, discussing and verifying hypothetic propositions about the world. This article studies the perception and understanding of scientific/epistemic images within a conceptual framework grounded in the notion of reference. It introduces the hypothesis stating that the performance of the perceptual understanding of a particular scientific image depends on the epistemic uses of attention. The hypothesis suggests that understanding a scientific picture requires making an epistemic use of the attentional control of visual routines in order to obtain knowledge on the spatial structure and the referents of a particular image or graphic representation.
Journal of Vision, Jan 1, 2010
Object identification via a perceptual-demonstrative mode of presentation has been studied in cog... more Object identification via a perceptual-demonstrative mode of presentation has been studied in cognitive science as a particularly direct and context-dependent means of identifying objects. Several recent works in cognitive science have attempted to clarify the relation between attention, demonstrative identification and context exploration. Assuming a distinction between ‘(language-based) demonstrative reference’ and ‘perceptual demonstrative identification’, this article aims at specifying the role of attention in the latter and in the linking of conceptual and non conceptual contents while exploring a spatial context. First, the analysis presents an argument to the effect that selection by overt and covert attention is needed for perceptual demonstrative identification since overt/covert selective attention is required for the situated cognitive access to the target object. Second, it describes a hypothesis that makes explicit some of the roles of attention: the hypothesis of identification by epistemic attention via the control of perceptual routines.
Philosophical Psychology, Jan 1, 2008
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Papers by Nicolas J Bullot