Research

Statement Bradley Richards

Introduction
I plan to continue to develop the research that I began in my doctoral thesis, and that I
have recently refined in a series of publications (Richards 2012; 2013, 2014; 2015a;
2015b; forthcoming). This recent work concerns a variety of topics including (but not
limited to):
a) the relationship between phenomenal character and intentional content
b) the relationship between attention and consciousness
c) the relationship between various kinds of thought and phenomenal consciousness
(including the cognitive penetration of perceptual experience and cognitive
phenomenology)
d) the relationship between conscious and unconscious perception
e) the relationship between phenomenology and memory
More specifically, in my doctoral thesis I defend the view that there is no content in the
subjective periphery of the visual field. Very roughly, the claim is that visual perceptual
experience is richer and more determinate the more centrally it is located in subjective
space, a multidimensional manifold including dimensions such as attention, salience,
conceptualization, and a variety of other cognitive factors. Thus, the intentional content
of visual perceptual experience is mediated by cognition (including attention) in various
ways.
I will outline the parameters of my project by focusing on two topics: 1) phenomenology
and intentionality and (2) conscious access and attention.
Phenomenology and Intentionality
In its current manifestation, the motivating idea behind my research continues to be that
phenomenal character can be dissociated from content, and that as a result of various
contributions of cognition, it is more or less contentful, and more or less rich and
determinate. Furthermore, I am interested in exploring views according to which the
content of a phenomenal state can change; that is, views on which a phenomenal state can
acquire novel contents.1
In contrast, inseparatist views of phenomenal character and intentional content are
currently popular, and are often assumed by cognitive psychology and neuroscience
(some philosophers who endorse this view include Tye (1995), Horgan and Tienson

1
Farkas (2010) discusses this possibility. Richards (2015a) employs novel phenomenal
contents and considers how their roles may be constrained by the type of intentional state
to which they belong.

Research Statement Bradley Richards

(2002), Chalmers (2004)).2 This view is sometimes endorsed because it improves the
prospects of a reductive explanation of consciousness or intentionality (usually the idea is
that consciousness can be reduced to intentionality, which can be given a naturalistic
explanation). On the other hand, those who endorse non-reductive inseparatist views find
the simplicity of the view appealing, and often treat phenomenal character as prior to
intentional content. Their hope is that phenomenology can explain or provide the source
of intentional content. As Horgan and Tienson put it, intentional mental states have such
intentional content by virtue of their phenomenology (2002, p.520, original italics).
While I understand the appeal of this view, I have argued that, at least for
paradigmatically intentional states like beliefs and desires, if phenomenal states are
equivalent to intentional states, the determination must go from the intentional to the
phenomenal (Richards and Bailey, 2014). I would like to develop this idea further.
I accept a version of the equivalence claim for phenomenal and intentional states
endorsed by the inseparatist, but with restricted scope: the equivalence claim is true of
experiences that are cognitively accessed, and thus subject to thought (an appropriate
combination of cognitive states). I want to continue to explore the view that there is
conscious experience without intentional content, and that this can acquire novel content,
so this is still a form of separatism. More specifically, I want to explore the idea that
when phenomenal states are cognitively accessed their intentional content is determined
by that cognitive contribution, and this determination influences the overall phenomenal
state. Thus, the intentional content of perceptual phenomenal states is determined by the
contribution of cognition, and this results in phenomenal states that are equivalent to
intentional states.
The relationship between cognition and perceptual experience is complex, and there is
considerable work to be done here, but this is the spirit of the project (importantly the
idea is not, at least not in the ordinary case, that the contents of beliefs or judgments
directly determine the content of perceptual states). One nascent idea is that this view can
be developed as a two-dimensional account according to which there is a sense in which
a phenomenal state appears different than its unaccessed counterpart (perhaps we might
say that the phenomenal character changes, qua intentional content, but there is also a
sense in which it remains the same (the phenomenal characters that are basic and
unchanging may be the intentional modes)). 3

2
Horgan and Tienson (2002) employ the term separatism to characterize views
according to which phenomenal and intentional states are mutually independent, though
they go on to endorse a thoroughly inseparatist view.
3
For a discussion of intentional modes see Crane (2007; 2013). For the employment of
the similar notion of manners of presentation of intentional content, see Chalmers
(2004). This idea may also be profitably integrated with views of perceptual content as
non-propositional (e.g., Crane (2009)).

Research Statement Bradley Richards

Cognitive Access and Attention
Ned Block (2007; 2011; 2014a) argues there are unaccessed conscious states, and that
they provide an informational store with a greater capacity than working memory; they
overflow cognitive access. This is supposed to explain the partial report advantage in
Sperling (1960) and other similar experiments. I must reject the overflow claim since it
entails experiences that have the same kinds of contents as accessed experiences, but
without the cognitive access. I have argued that direct subjective report evidence cannot
support the claim that there are unaccessed contentful experiences, and that consequently
it has not been experimentally demonstrated (though I think experiments using indirect
subjective reports could in principle provide evidence supporting his claim) (Richards,
2015b).
Block (2012; 2013; 2014b) also argues that conscious vision is finer-grained than
attention, and consequently that unattended objects can be seen. I challenge this claim on
conceptual and empirical grounds (Richards 2013; Richards Forthcoming).4 I take
attention to be necessary for object seeing (where seeing implies phenomenally
discerning, differentiating, and identifying). Resolution of the controversies concerning
attention and access depend on disentangling the contributions of unconscious
information processing from phenomenal consciousness in perception. I have begun this
process, but this is another direction of research I would like to pursue (Richards, 2015b;
Forthcoming).5
In contrast to Block, I think that cognitive access is essential to determining the content
of an experience. Exactly what contribution cognition and access make is a subject that I
would like to investigate further. I would also like to refine my philosophical arguments
for the conclusion that cognitive access is necessary for perceptual experiences with
intentional content. One argument that I find compelling here is that, at least in the case
of perception, the subpersonal information delivered by the senses is multiply ambiguous
(at the personal level), and the personal level content is only settled by the contribution of
thought (cognition) (see Richards, 2012 for a preliminary formulation of this argument in
terms of information and ambiguity). I will explore the idea that this ambiguity is
resolved at the personal level by attention and access, which partly constitute perception
and depend on a variety of cognitive processes.
For example, I am interested in investigating and developing the philosophical
implications of views like the competition-based theory of attention, according to which
attention is implemented by perceptual and cognitive processes, and is not separable from
them.6 On this view, attention is a genuine source of cognitive penetration influenced by

4
For a more recent discussion of the conceptual issues in this debate see Tye (2014).
5
I have made a number of conceptual points about the limited relevance of unconscious
contents to conscious states; I also have some ideas on how to empirically investigate
these issues, and have initiated one study with Lana Trick.
6
For a clear statement of the competition-based theory of attention see Desimone (1998)
and Duncan (1998). For recent experimental evidence supporting this view showing

Research Statement Bradley Richards

a variety of high-level properties; attention is not a simple process of selection directed at
a few elementary properties that occurs before much of perceptual processing, pace
Pylyshyn (1999). Further, a representation gaining dominance in any of a variety of
competing systems can affect the other systems; the outcome of these integrated
competitions is attention. As Mole puts it:
attention emerges as the outcome of the total integrated competition, distributed
across the full range of mutually biasing processing levels, including working
memory, but also including those processes taking place in V1. (forthcoming
p.29)
Furthermore he writes:
The processes of perception are so thoroughly interpenetrated by the processes of
attentional selection as to be implemented by a subset of those very mechanisms.
(ibid. p.30)
The same can be said for a number of other mental capacities. Consequently, this view
fits well with thinking in terms of mental capacities of organisms. A person has various
capacities or dispositions: for example the capacities of memory, perception, attention,
and categorization. These inhere in, are grounded by, the integrated organism.
The same integrated constellation of states, including those mediating perception, action,
and the other aspects of cognition are all implicated in the grounding of these disparate
intentional modes and their objects.
I intend to explore these issues by working through a series of papers. These papers, in
conjunction with my work from my thesis and other recent papers will constitute the
foundation of a monograph.
Sincerely,
Bradley Richards

References

influences on reaction time from high-level properties including semantic properties, see
Kravitz and Behrmann (2011). For a discussion of why cognitive penetration by attention
is philosophically important on this model of attention see Mole (forthcoming).

Research Statement Bradley Richards

Block, N. (2007). Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and
Neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(5), 481548.
Block, N. (2011). Perceptual consciousness overflows cognitive access. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences, 15(12).
Block, N. (2012). The Grain of Vision and the Grain of Attention: The Grains of Vision and
Attention. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 1(3), 170184.
http://doi.org/10.1002/tht3.28
Block, N. (2013). Seeing and Windows of Integration. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy,
1(4), 2939.
Block, N. (2014a). Rich conscious perception outside focal attention. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences, 18(9), 445447. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.05.007
Block, N. (2014b). The Defective Armchair: A Reply to Tye. Thought: A Journal of
Philosophy, 3(2), 159165.
Bronfman, Z. Z., Brezis, N., Jacobson, H., & Usher, M. (2014). We See More Than We Can
Report Cost Free Color Phenomenality Outside Focal Attention. Psychological
Science, 25(7), 13941403. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614532656
Chalmers, D. J. (2004). The Representational Character of Experience. In The Future for
Philosophy (pp. 153181). Oxford University Press.
Crane, T. (1998). Intentionality as the mark of the mental. In T. Crane (Ed.), Contemporary
Issues in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University Press.
Crane, T. (2002). Introspection, intentionality, and the transparency of experience.
Philosophical Topics, 28(2), 4967.

Research Statement Bradley Richards

Crane, T. (2007). Intentionalism. In A. Beckermann & B. P. McLaughlin (Eds.), Oxford
Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind (pp. 474493). Oxford University Press.
Crane, T. (2009). Is perception a propositional attitude? Philosophical Quarterly, 59(236),
452469.
Desimone, R. (1998). Visual Attention Mediated By Biased Competition in Extrastriate Visual
Cortex.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B., 353, 1245-1255.
Duncan, J. (1998). Converging levels of analysis in the cognitive neuroscience of visual
attention. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B., 353, 1307-1317.
Farkas, K. (2010). Independent Intentional Objects. In The Analytical Way. College
Publications.
Horgan, T. E., & Tienson, J. L. (2002). The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the
Phenomenology of Intentionality. In Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary
Readings (pp. 520533). Oxford University Press.
Kravitz, D. J., & Behrmann, M. (2011). Space-, object-, and feature-based attention interact to
organize visual scenes. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 73(8), 24342447.
http://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-011-0201-z
Kriegel, U. (2013). The Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program. In Phenomenal
Intentionality. Oxford University Press.
Mole, C. (forthcoming). Attention and Cognitive Penetration. In J. Zembeikis and T.
Raftopoulos (eds.) Cognitive Penetration. Oxford University Press.
Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1999). Is Vision Continuous with Cognition? The Case for Cognitive
Impenetrability of Visual Perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(3), 341365.

Research Statement Bradley Richards

Richards, Bradley. (2012). Consciousness, Attention, and Peripheral Experience.
Richards, B. (2013). Identity-Crowding and Object-Seeing: A Reply to Block. Thought, 1(4),
919.
Richards, B. & Bailey, A. (2014). Horgan and Tienson on phenomenology and intentionality.
Philosophical Studies, 114. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0089-7
Richards, B. (2015a). Sexual Desire and the Phenomenology of Attraction. Dialogue:
Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue Canadienne de Philosophie, 54(02), 263283.
http://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217314001085
Richards, B. (2015b). Advancing the Overflow Debate. Journal of Consciousness Studies.
Richards, B. (Forthcoming). Attention and Object-Seeing: The Identity-Crowding Debate.
Philosophical Psychology.
Tye, M. (1995). Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the
Phenomenal Mind. MIT Press.
Tye, M. (2014). Does Conscious Seeing Have A Finer Grain Than Attention? Thought: A
Journal of Philosophy, 3(2), 154158.