Stokes classroom
  • Director of Cognitive Science Minor, Philosophy
  • Professor, Philosophy
  • Adjunct Professor, Psychology Department

Research Statement

I am interested in the relation between sense perception and cognition, and how psychology and neuroscience can inform our philosophical theories of this relation. I am especially interested in the possibility that mental states like belief or desire may influence perceptual experience (how we see things, hear things, etc.), and the relevance of this  phenomenon for epistemology and cognitive science. In particular, I am interested in how cognitive learning within a domain (such as sport, or radiology, or art) can improve visual perception. I am also interested in the differences and interaction between sense modalities--vision, audition, touch, and so on. 

Imagination plays an important role in our experiences of art, in the construction of theories, and in everyday reasoning. I am interested in philosophical and psychological accounts of our imaginative capacities, and how these capacities differ from other mental capacities. I am especially interested in mental imagery, and imagination and art. 

Despite its importance to art, science, and ordinary problem solving, creativity is a relatively neglected research topic in philosophy and cognitive science. My research employs both traditional philosophical analysis and cognitive scientific methodologies in hopes of reviving research interest in creativity, and hopefully shedding light on a remarkable feature of human thought and behaviour.

Research Keywords

  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Epistemology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Aesthetics

Presentations

  • Perceptual Expertise and Creativity-Invited Philosophy Colloquium Talk-UC Davis . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2023.
  • Expertise, Skill, and Creativity- Conference on Imagination and Creativity-Geneva . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/2023.
  • Psychedelic Experience, Aesthetic Experience, and Well-Being-Presented at the Aesthetics of Psychedelics Conference-University of Kent, UK. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/2023.
  • Psychedelic Experience, Aesthetic Experience, and Well-Being-Presented at the Aesthetics of Psychedelics Conference-University of Kent, UK. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/2023.
  • "Perceptual Expertise and Epistemic Virtue" Invited Colloquium Speaker, University of Arizona. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 01/2023.
  • 'Aesthetic taste as Perceptual Expertise,' at the Aesthetic Perception and Cognition Conference, Uppsala University, Sweden. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2022.
  • 'Perceptual Expertise and Epistemic Virtue' Invited Lecture for the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Antwerp. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2022.
  • Invited symposium on my Thinking and Perceiving (w/ Amy Kind, Casey O'Callaghan, Wayne Wu), Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Vancouver, BC. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/2022.
  • Expertise, Skill, and Creativity, Invited Lecture, Department of Philosophy, University of Patras, Greece, Autumn 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 12/2021.
  • Invited Lecture on Creativity, Art in Conversation Lecture Series, St. Andrews University, Scotland, November 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/2021.
  • Memory, imagery, and self-knowledge, Lecture IV, Invited Lecture Series, Institut Jean Nicod-EHESS, Paris, France, October-November 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/2021.
  • Expertise, skill, and creativity, Invited Lecture, MUMBLE, Interdepartmental Centre Logic, Language, and Cognition, Turin, Italy, October 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2021.
  • The malleability of the mind, Lecture III, Invited Lecture Series, Institut Jean Nicod-EHESS, Paris, France, October-November 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2021.
  • Perceptual expertise and epistemic virtue, Lecture II, Invited Lecture Series, Institut Jean Nicod-EHESS, Paris, France, October-November 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2021.
  • Expertise and the contents of experience, Lecture I, Invited Lecture Series, Institut Jean Nicod-EHESS, Paris, France, October-November 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2021.
  • Interview for the Département d'études cognitives/EHESS/Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, France . Other, Presented, 10/2021.
    https://cognition.ens.fr/en/news/meeting-philosoph...
  • Online symposium on my Thinking and Perceiving, The Brains Blog . Other, Presented, 09/2021.
    https://philosophyofbrains.com/category/books/dust...
  • 'Expertise, skill, and creativity' Invited talk, for the Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience seminar series, Glasgow University, March 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/2021.
  • "Expertise, Skill, and Creativity" Invited talk, Cognitive Science, Aesthetics, and the Imagined World, Princeton University, November 2020 . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/2020.
  • Expertise, skill, and creativity. Invited paper, Institut Jean-Nicod-ENS, Paris, France, October 2019. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/09/2019.
  • Theory-ladenness, perceptual expertise, and epistemic virtue. Invited paper for session on Expertise, Annual Meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association, Vancouver, BC, June 2019 . Conference Paper, Presented, 06/03/2019.
  • Expertise, Skill, and Creativity. Invited paper, Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences, Bristol University, U.K., April 2019. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/19/2019.
  • Memory, Imagery, and self-knowledge. Invited paper for session on Imagination, Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Cincinnati, OH, March 2019 . Conference Paper, Presented, 03/10/2019.
  • Elite athletes as perceptual experts, Invited paper, Panel: Perceiving the Athletic Body, Annual Meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics, Toronto, Canada, October 2018 . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2018.
  • On perceptual expertise and visual artists, Invited paper, Conference on Aesthetic Perception: Analytic and Phenomenological Perspectives in Dialogue, University of Crete, Greece, September 2018 . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/2018.
  • On perceptual expertise and artists, Presented at the 7th Dubrovnik Conference on the Philosophy of Art, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 2018. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/2018.
  • Theory-ladenness as epistemic virtue, Presented at the Annual Philosophy of Science Conference, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 2018 . Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/2018.
  • Invited colloquium, University of Nevada Reno, Philosophy Department, March 2018. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/2018.
  • Visual artists and expertise, Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Pre-Workshop meeting on Aesthetics and Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/25/2017.
  • Mental imagery and Fiction, 6th Annual Dubrovnik Conference on the Philosophy of Art, Inter-City University Centre, Dubrovnik Croatia. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/15/2017.
  • Imagination, imagery, and fiction-6th Dubrovnik Conference on the Philosophy of Art, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 2017 . Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 09/2016.
  • On Perceptual Expertise, Invited paper, Antwerp Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Antwerp, Belgium, September 2016. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/2016.
  • On perceptual expertise-Invited speaker for Special mini-conference-Aesthetics and Cognitive Science-Annual Meeting for the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Baltimore, June 2017 . Invited Talk/Keynote, Accepted, 09/2016.
  • Imagination, Imagery, and Fiction-Invited paper, Imagining Fictional Worlds Workshop, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany, July 2016. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 07/2016.
  • On Perceptual Expertise, Annual Philosophy of Science Conference, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 2016. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/2016.
  • Invited paper (I), 'Attention and the cognitive penetrability of perception', at The Conference on Impure Perception, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt University, Berlin, October 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2015.
  • Invited paper (II), "Rich perceptual content and aesthetic properties", Conference on Impure Perception, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt University, Berlin, October 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/2015.
  • Invited paper, "Rich perceptual content and perceptual experience," Conference on Perception and the Arts: British Society of Aesthetics Connections Conference, Institute of Philosophy, London, September 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/2015.
  • Invited paper, "Attention and the cognitive penetrability of perception" at Perception and Cognition: Top-Down Influences in Perception, Rethinking the Senses Workshop, University of Glasgow, September 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/2015.
  • "Attention and the cognitive penetration of perception" at the Bled Philosophical Conference-The intersection of epistemology and philosophy of mind-Bled, Slovenia, June 2015. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/01/2015.
  • Attention and Cognitive Penetration-Invited Keynote at the Conference on Cognitive Penetration and Predictive Coding (Center for Mind, Brain, and Cognitive Evolution-Ruhr-University, Bochum Germany). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/23/2015.
  • Attention and the cognitive penetration of perception (Tanner Humanities Center-Work in Progress Lecture). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/03/2015.
  • 'Cognitive penetration and the perception of art' Invited symposium speaker, Perception and aesthetic properties, APA Pacific Division Meeting, San Diego, CA. Invited Talk/Keynote, Other, 04/2014.
  • "Cognitive penetration and art", Invited Colloquium Speaker, Kansas State University. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/07/2014.
  • 'Attention and Cognitive Penetrability', Invited Colloquium Speaker, Kansas State University. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/06/2014.
  • "Cognitive penetration and the perception of art" Invited Keynote Speaker, Conference: Evaluative Perception: Aesthetic, Ethical, and Normative, University of Glasgow, September 2013. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/2013.
  • 'Towards a Consequentialist Understanding of Cognitive Penetration' Cognitive Science Society Annual Meeting, Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/2013.
  • 'Towards a Consequentialist Understanding of Cognitive Penetration' European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Annual Meeting, Granada, Spain. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/2013.
  • 'Towards a Consequentialist Understanding of Cognitive Penetration' Invited Lecturer, International Summer School in Cognitive Science and Semantics-Perception-Riga, Latvia. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 07/2013.
  • 'The dominance of the visual' Invited Plenary Speaker, Intermountain West Student Philosophy Conference, University of Utah. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/21/2013.
  • 'Cognitive penetration and the perception of art', American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division, Asilomar, California. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/2013.
  • “The Epistemic Dominance of Vision and Visual Imagery” Weber State University, Department of Philosophy Colloquium Series, September 2012. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 08/2012.
  • "The Epistemic dominance of Vision and Visual Imagery", Knowledge Through Imagination Conference, Claremont McKenna College, April 2012. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/2012.

Research Groups

Publications

  • Dustin Stokes (2023). Perceptual malleability: attention, imagination, and objectivity. Philosophical Studies. Published, 09/2023.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-0...
  • Dustin Stokes (2023). A symposium on Thinking and Perceiving: On the malleability of the mind-Author Introduction . Philosophical Studies. Published, 09/2023.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-023-01984-w
  • Dustin Stokes (2023). How radical is perceptual malleability? A reply to commentators. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Vol. 4. Published, 06/2023.
  • Dustin Stokes (2023). Précis of Thinking and Perceiving. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Vol. 4. Published, 06/2023.
  • Dustin Stokes (2023). Précis of Thinking and Perceiving . Journal of Consciousness Studies. Vol. 30(3), 181-191. Published, 06/2023.
  • Dustin Stokes & Elliot Paul (2023). Creativity. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Published, 02/2023.
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creativity/
  • Dustin Stokes (2023). Defending the malleability of perception Reply to commentators: Dokic, Orlandi, & Vetter. Journal of Consciousness Studies. Vol. 30(3), 222-237. Published, 01/2023.
  • Spencer Ivy , Taren Rohovit, Jeanine Stefanucci, Dustin Stokes, Megan Mills & Trafton Drew (2023). Visual Expertise is More Than Meets the Eye: An examination of holistic visual processing in radiologists and architects. Journal of Medical Imaging. Vol. 10(1), 1-15. Published, 01/2023.
  • Ivy, Spencer, Rohovit, Taren, Lavelle, Mark, Padilla, Lace, Stokes, Dustin, Stefanucci, Jeanine & Drew, Trafton (2021). Through the eyes of the expert: Evaluating holistic processing in architects through gaze-contingent viewing. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Vol. 1, 1-9. Published, 06/08/2021.
  • Kent Harber, Jeanine Stefanucci & Dustin Stokes (2021). The Integrity of Motivated Vision: A Reply to Gilchrist, 2020. Perception. Vol. 50(4), 287-93. Accepted, 06/2021.
  • Dustin Stokes (2021). Thinking and Perceiving: On the malleability of the mind. Routledge. Published, 05/30/2021.
  • Dustin Stokes (2021). On Perceptual Expertise. Mind & Language. Published, 02/01/2021.
  • Dustin Stokes & w/ Bence Nanay (2020). Perceptual Skills. The Routledge Handbook on Skill and Expertise, E. Fridland and C. Pavese (Eds), Routledge. Published, 06/01/2020.
  • “Cognitive penetration and colour”, to appear in D. Brown and F. Macpherson (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, London: Routledge (forthcoming). Published, 06/01/2020.
  • Dustin Stokes (2019). Memory, Imagery, and Self-Knowledge. Avant: Special Issue: Thinking with Images. Published, 12/16/2019.
  • Dustin Stokes, Elliot Paul & B. Gaut and M. Kieran (Eds) (2018). Attributing Creativity . Creativity and Philosophy, Routledge. Published, 07/01/2018.
  • Dustin Stokes (2018). Review of Susanna Siegel's 'The Rationality of Perception'. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Published, 06/01/2018.
  • “Rich perceptual content and aesthetic properties”, to appear in A. Bergqvist and R. Cowan, Evaluative Perception, Oxford University Press (accepted/final revisions). Published, 06/01/2018.
  • Dustin Stokes (2018). Attention and the cognitive penetrability of perception . Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Published, 05/01/2018.
  • Dustin Stokes (2018). Mental imagery and fiction. Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Accepted, 01/15/2018.
  • Dustin Stokes & Jonna Vance (2017). Noise, Uncertainty, and Interest: Predictive Coding and Cognitive Penetration. Consciousness and Cognition. Vol. 47, 86-98. Published, 01/15/2017.
  • Dustin Stokes (2016). Review of Bence Nanay-Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Published, 08/01/2016.
  • Jeanine Stefanucci & Dustin Stokes (2016). Commentary on Balcetis: On some limits to the motivational direction approach. Emotion Review. Vol. 8(2), 129-130. Published, 06/01/2016.
  • Dustin Stokes & Elliot Paul (2016). Naturalistic approaches to creativity”(2016). Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Ed. W. Buckwalter and J. Sytsma, Blackwell. Published, 03/2016.
  • “Creativity and the imagination”, in A. Kind (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of the Imagination, London: Routledge (2016). Published, 02/01/2016.
  • Dustin Stokes & Vincent Bergeron (2015). Modular architectures and informational encapsulation. European Journal for Philosophy of Science. Vol. 5(3), 315-38. Published, 03/01/2015.
  • “Towards a consequentialist understanding of cognitive penetration” in A. Raftopoulos and J. Ziembekis (eds) Cognitive penetrability, Oxford University Press. Published, 02/01/2015.
  • Perception and its Modalities, D. Stokes, S. Biggs, and M. Matthen (eds), New York: Oxford University Press (forthcoming). Published, 10/01/2014.
  • Dustin Stokes, Stephen Biggs & Mohan Matthen (2014). Sorting the Senses. Ed. D. Stokes, M. Matthen, and S. Biggs, New York: Oxford University Press. Published, 10/01/2014.
  • “The dominance of the visual”, co-authored w/ Stephen Biggs, to appear in D. Stokes, S. Biggs, and M. Matthen (eds) Perception and its Modalities, New York: Oxford University Press (2014). Published, 10/01/2014.
  • “The role of imagination in creativity” to appear in E. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds) The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford University Press (2014). Published, 06/01/2014.
  • Dustin Stokes (2014). Review of The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology, Ed. E. Schellekens and P. Goldie. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Published, 04/01/2014.
  • 'Cognitive penetration and the perception of art' Dialectica, (forthcoming, 2014) Winner of 2012 Dialectica Essay Prize. Published, 03/01/2014.
  • Gary Lupyan, Dustin Stokes, Fiona Macpherson, Rasha Abdel Rahman & Robert Goldstone (2013). Is perception cognitively penetrable? A philosophically satisfying and empirically testable reframing. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 1, 91-2. Published, 09/2013.
  • “Cognitive penetrability of perception,” Philosophy Compass 8 (7):646-663 (2013). Published, 06/2013.
  • “Perceiving and Desiring: A New Look at the Cognitive Penetrability of Experience,” Philosophical Studies 158(3): 477-92 (2012). Published, 03/2012.
  • “Aesthetics and Cognitive Science,” Philosophy Compass 4: 715-33 (2009). Published, 06/2009.
  • “Incubated Cognition and Creativity,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 14: 83-100 (2007). Published, 08/2007.
  • “The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance,” British Journal of Aesthetics 46: 347-405 (2006). Published, 10/2006.
  • Dustin Stokes (2006). Review of Seeing, Doing, and Knowing by Mohan Matthen. (pp. 323-5). Vol. 3(46). British Journal of Aesthetics. Published, 07/2006.
  • “Art and Modal Knowledge,” in M. Kieran and D. Lopes (eds) Knowing Art: Essays in Epistemology and Aesthetics, Springer Press (2006). Published, 02/2006.
  • Dustin Stokes (2004). Review of Recreative Minds by Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft. (pp. 406-7). Vol. 62. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Published, 08/2004.