ANDREA BLOMKVIST
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How does the mind work?

 This the most general question that my research concerns.

More particularly, I am interested in how two crucial parts of the mind work: memory and imagination. What processes and mechanisms are involved when we remember or imagine? To answer this, I'm trying to build a cognitive architecture of the mind. I take an interdisciplinary approach to these questions where I combine philosophy, psychology, computer science, and neuroscience to find an answer.


Here's what I'm up to right now:

 Some of my research concerns the condition aphantasia, a condition where people have weak or no mental imagery. I suggest that this is due to impairments in the episodic memory system. If you want to read an accessible article on my theory, check out this on Psychology Today. For the academic version, have a look here.

I am also interested in mental imagery more in general, especially how it is produced. To what extent are perceptual processes involved? To what extent are episodic memory processes involved? I try to map this out to understand the relationship between mental imagery and episodic memory.

I also find it fascinating to think about philosophy of memory. Right now, I'm interested in the storage question: how are memories actually stored in the brain? Here, I'm attempting to develop a new view based on what we know from computer science and Artificial Intelligence.


Publications

  • Aphantasia: In Search of a Theory (2022, Mind and Language).
  • Imagination as a Skill: A Bayesian Proposal. (2022) Synthese 200, 119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03550-z.
  • Direct Social Perception of Emotions in Close Relations (2017). Phenomenology and Mind, 12. Issue on New Trends in Philosophy. 184-195. https://doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-21117

Drafts available on request.
Some of my research is also published as accessible blog posts on the Junkyard of the Mind – I have one on aphantasia, and one on affective forecasting.

Selected Talks

  • Parting with Perceptualism: the Neuroscience of Visual Imagery (Imagination and Belief workshop, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2022)
  • Imagery and Memory in Aphantasia (Harvard University's Schacter Memory Lab, 2022)
  • Imagine that! Aphantasia is an Episodic Memory Condition (Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 2021)
  • Aphantasia: In Search of a Theory (Second Annual C.O.V.I.D. Gathering, online)
  • Great Expectations: Imagining Future Moods and Emotions (European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Athens, 2019)
  • Improving Imagination (The Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society & the Mind Association, University of Oxford, 2018)
  • Knowledge Through Controlled Imagination (White Rose Philosophy Forum, University of York, 2018)
  • Memory as the Route to Imagination: A Simulationist Account of Affective Forecasting  (Cognition and Philosophy, University of Sheffield, 2017)

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  • Home
  • Research
  • Projects
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