Tag Archives: Psychology

Why AI Makes Us Anxious About Our Own Thoughts

This essay argues that generative AI does not destroy originality but exposes the weakness of the idea that thought can be pure, untouched and entirely self-generated. Drawing on the author’s experience as a hydrologist, it compares AI-assisted writing with scientific modelling: both tools produce outputs that require human judgement, interpretation and accountability. The essay proposes that authorship should be understood not as freedom from influence, but as the responsible transformation of inherited material. Originality, on this view, begins after influence rather than before it.

Three In One Nature of Consciousness & Dream Seequence

Alan MacDonald was a graphic designer and illustrator for 40 years.
“As a metaphysical artist I am concerned with a three-way comparison between: metaphysics (science of subject / why), Science of object (how), and information technology, the most important metaphor we have for the nature of consciousness. Vedic philosophy, describes the three in one nature of consciousness; rishi, devata, chandas (knower, known, process of knowing). My ‘Dream Sequence’ series proposes dreams as daily status reports from the source regarding our level of alignment with the source. I record every dream, interpret upon waking and illustrate it.”

Human vision: what we actually see – and don’t see – tells us a lot about consciousness

Henry Taylor is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham.
“I’m interested in philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and robotics. I have worked on perception, consciousness, attention, peripheral vision, the development of scientific concepts, scientific taxonomy, and robotics. Most of my research involves drawing together work from natural science and philosophy”.

How conversation works – and why people with hearing loss rely more on their powers of prediction

Ruth Corps is an Early Career Research Fellow in Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Sheffield.
“I specialise in the cognitive mechanisms supporting conversation and the broader impacts of conversational breakdown and difficulty. My work has predominantly focused on student populations, but I am increasingly interested in populations that struggle with communication (such as those with hearing loss or ADHD) and how these difficulties develop across the lifespan.
I completed both my MA (Hons) in Psychology and my MSc in Psychology of Language at the University of Dundee and my PhD in the Psychology of Language at the University of Edinburgh. My PhD investigated the predictive mechanisms that support rapid turn-taking during conversation, focusing on how predicting what another person is likely to say help us determine what we should say and when we should say it.
After graduating, I stayed at Edinburgh for a further two years as a postdoctoral researcher, investigating how another person’s perspective may help us predict what they are likely to say. I then spent four years at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, investigating the mechanisms supporting conversation in real-world interactions.”

AI-generated images can exploit how your mind works − here’s why they fool you and how to spot them

Arryn Robbins (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Richmond.
Dr. Robbins is a cognitive psychologist whose expertise is in visual attention and memory. Her research focuses on how visual attention interacts with memory, experience, and expectations, particularly during visual search tasks in both everyday and applied settings. She explores questions like: How do we guide our attention in unfamiliar environments? How do our past experiences shape what we notice—or overlook? Dr. Robbins also addresses research questions in applied domains of visual cognition, such as design, and professional search (e.g., radiology or search and rescue). Dr. Robbins uses tools like eye-tracking and machine learning to uncover patterns in visual behavior. She is currently leading a project to develop webcam-based eye-tracking tools, making gaze research more accessible and scalable for researchers across disciplines.

The Future of AI Therapy: Promise, Peril, and Urgency

Cleandra Waldron, a counselling psychologist, shares the troubling patterns emerging with clients in her therapy room. Clients increasingly reveal details of their conversations with LLMs as they turn to AI for mental health support. Often unaware of the risks to privacy and dependence, they reveal intimate details of their lives and even medical data. A recent Sky News article reported that an alarming 1.2 million people had discussed suicide with ChatGPT. The ease of 24/7 support without wait times during an unprecedented mental health crisis—which largely operates in a regulatory void—has dangerous implications for user safety. Human psychological services have taken years to build safeguards and protections that clients take for granted, while AI poses as a therapist without any of the regulatory safeguards and protective guardrails that a human therapeutic relationship is bound by.
This article examines the real-world implications of AI therapy through the lens of clinical practice, revealing alarming gaps in data privacy, the dangers of AI “hallucinations” in therapeutic contexts, and the fundamental tension between business models optimized for engagement and the wellbeing of users. Drawing on recent legal actions against big tech AI companies, emerging research, and first-hand accounts from therapy sessions, it carefully asks critical questions: What do we lose when algorithms replace human connections? How do we balance the increased demand for cost-effective therapeutic services with common-sense protections that keep users safe?
The future of AI and its implications for therapy remain unclear. This article poses more questions than answers but aims to increase awareness and promote further research in the field of AI therapy, encouraging the implementation of common-sense policies that protect users from a therapist that never gets sick or goes on holiday.

Colors are objective, according to two philosophers − even though the blue you see doesn’t match what I see

Elay Shech is Professor of Philosophy, Auburn University.
Elay Shech is interested in philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and history of philosophy, as well as issues in biomedical and environmental ethics. His work primarily concerns the nature and role of idealizations and representations in the sciences and, more specifically, in condensed matter physics.

Michael Watkins is Professor of Philosophy, Auburn University.
Michael Watkins earned his PhD from The Ohio State University. He has taught at Auburn for the past 20 years, during which time he has also held adjunct and visiting appointments at Dalhousie University in Canada, the University of Rijeka in Croatia, and Cornell. He publishes in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics and ethics, with special interests in philosophical problems related to color, perception, and objectivity. He is a past Lanier Professor.

On ‘The Creative Brain’

Anna Abraham is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. She is the author of ‘The Neuroscience of Creativity’ and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume ‘The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination’. In this interview she discusses her latest book, ‘The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths’, which draws on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain.

Your world is different from a pigeon’s – but a new theory explains how we can still live in the same reality

Catherine Legg is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin University.

“My areas of research include philosophies of language, mind and mathematics. I have long standing interests in the American pragmatists, particularly Charles Peirce, and currently co-edit the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry ‘Pragmatism’. I maintain a side-interest in artificial intelligence, having previously worked as an ontological engineer. I’m also very interested in philosophy of education, and am involved with the Philosophy for Children movement.”

Babies and animals can’t tell us if they have consciousness – but philosophers and scientists are starting to find answers

Henry Taylor is Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham.

“I’m interested in philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and robotics. I have worked on perception, consciousness, attention, peripheral vision, the development of scientific concepts, scientific taxonomy, and robotics. Most of my research involves drawing together work from natural science and philosophy.”