Is Vision for Action Unconscious?

Empirical work and philosophical analysis have led to widespread acceptance that vision for action, served by the cortical dorsal stream, is unconscious. I argue that the empirical argument for this claim is unsound. That argument relies on subjects’ introspective reports. Yet on biological grounds, in light of the theory of primate cortical vision, introspection has no access to dorsal stream mediated visual states. It is thus wrongly assumed that introspective reports speak to absent phenomenology in the dorsal stream. In light of this, I consider a different conception of consciousness’s relation to agency in terms of access. While theoretical reasons suggest that the inaccessibility of the dorsal stream to conceptual report is evidence that it is unconscious, this position begs important questions. I propose a broader notion of access in respect of the guidance of intentional agency and not, narrowly, conceptual report (Note: this paper contradicts my earlier paper, "The Case for Zombie Agency")

Explaining Schizophrenia: Auditory Verbal Hallucination and Self‐Monitoring

Do self‐monitoring accounts, a dominant account of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, explain auditory verbal hallucination? In this essay, I argue that the account fails to answer crucial questions any explanation of auditory verbal hallucination must address. Where the account provides a plausible answer, I make the case for an alternative explanation: auditory verbal hallucination is not the result of a failed control mechanism, namely failed self‐monitoring, but, rather, of the persistent automaticity of auditory experience of a voice. My argument emphasizes the importance of careful examination of phenomenology as providing substantive constraints on causal models of the positive symptoms in schizophrenia

Pro-Resume: The Infographic Resume Builder

Scoring an interview is a challenge for any job seeker these days, thus having a unique and well-organized resume is crucial to grab a recruiter’s attention. Online resume builders such as ResumeNow and VisualizeMe have been created to help users build resumes; however, their templates are lacking in quantity, customizability, and in some instances, even legibility. Thus, our team set out to create an infographic online resume builder, a web application that allows its users to build, organize, and beautify their resumes to aid them in their job search. Our system allows for easy integration with their LinkedIn profiles so that their work history can be easily duplicated without typing everything out. There is also a large scope of infographic template options that users can choose from and, most importantly, users will have the ability to further customize their content and organization by using the system’s editing mode

Shaking Up the Mind’s Ground Floor: The Cognitive Penetration of Visual Attention

In this paper, I argue that visual attention is cognitively penetrated by intention. I present a detailed account of attention and its neural basis, drawing on a recent computational model of neural modulation during attention: divisive normalization. I argue that intention shifts computations during divisive normalization. The epistemic consequences of attentional bias are discussed