I was interviewed by Catherine De Lange for a special issue of New Scientist on difficult concepts. We discussed how people sort between ‘difficult’ and everyday concepts, and whether concept-metacognition is involved. That didn’t make it into the magazine, but there is a nice short piece on why consciousness is a difficult…
New Paper: abstract concepts and metacognition
It is common to distinguish ‘abstract’ concepts like BEAUTY and ELECTRON from more concrete concepts like RED and CAT. A concrete concept like CAT might be grounded, in some sense, in the sight, sound and feel of cats; perhaps also in what you feel like doing when you see one…
Experiment at Tate Modern Today
We are at Tate Modern finding out how people learn to categorise artworks. Come along and try the experiment. There are twenty others to try as well. 5th floor of the Blavatnik wing at Tate Modern until 6pm today (Saturday 24 March).
Project at Tate Modern
The project will be at the Tate Modern on Saturday 24th March. Come along and take part in an experiment on project themes. We’ll be collecting data and talking about the project as part of the Tate Exchange event: Self-Impressions. Details of the experiment below – art is involved. The Reflectively…
Brains Blog
Brains Blog have run an interesting symposium on my paper with Chris Frith on dual process theories and consciousness. There are three excellent commentaries and some useful points in the comments as well. Shea, N. and Frith, C. F. (2016) ‘Dual-Process Theories and Consciousness: The Case for “Type Zero” Cognition’, Neuroscience…
Coverage in New Scientist
Our paper about the way consciousness facilitates learning features in this week’s New Scientist.
New Paper: Consciousness for Learning
My AHRC Fellowship supported a collaboration with Chris Frith exploring what difference consciousness makes to the way representations are processed. I have already blogged about our theoretical work, published in Neuroscience of Consciousness. We were lucky to be able to employ the adept experimentalist Dr Eoin Travers straight out of his…
What is Consciousness For? – Cheltenham Science Festival
The project was back at the Cheltenham Science Festival this weekend. Five of us visited the festival last year to talk about consciousness with visitors. Eoin Travers gathered data from over 40 willing participants in a simple psychological experiment. This year I returned to give a talk about the project’s…
The Why Factor – BBC Radio
One of the Project’s outcomes was a piece of theoretical work about how the personal level is characterised and contrasted with the subpersonal. In a paper with Chris Frith we examined two flagship distinctions: between the conscious and representations that are unconscious; and between deliberate and automatic thought processes. The…
Cheltenham Science Festival: What is Consciousness For?
We are back at the Cheltenham Science Festival again this spring – this time reporting on the data we collected last year. Nick Shea will be in conversation with Ophelia Deroy (Institute of Philosophy and LMU) on the Project’s question, ‘What is Consciousness For?’ Saturday 10th June: tickets and more…
