Publications (for most up to date list, check my philpapers site)
Burnston, Daniel & Ransom, Madeleine (2025) “Why You Should Think Mechanistically About Perceptual Learning” Mind and Language. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12555
Friedell, David & Ransom, Madeleine (2025) “The Morality and Aesthetics of Personal Beauty” Acta Analytica. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-024-00621-3
Ransom, Madeleine & Goldstone, Robert (2024) “Bias in Perceptual Learning” in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, e1683 (online first). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1683
Ransom, Madeleine (2024) “The Perception Learning of Socially Constructed Kinds: how culture biases and shapes perception” Philosophical Studies, (181), 3113-3133.
Ransom, M., & Goldstone, R. L. (2024). Perceptual Learning. In M. C. Frank & A. Majid (Eds.), Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.4481de80
Ransom, M. (2024) “Representation, Attention, and Perceptual Learning”, in R. French & B. Brogaard (Eds.), The Roles of Representations in Visual Perception (Synthese Library). Berlin: Springer.
Ransom, M. (2022) “Aesthetic Perception and the Puzzle of Training”, Synthese, 200(2), article no.127, pp. 1-25.
Lopes, D.M. & Ransom, M. (2022) “Perception in Practice”, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, (14) 387-400.
Ransom, M. (2020) “Expert Knowledge by Perception“, Philosophy, 95(3), 309-335.
Ransom, M. (2020) “Attentional Weighting in Perceptual Learning“, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 27(7-8), 236-248. *winner of the Eighth Annual Essay Prize at the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp*
Ransom, M., Fazelpour, S., Markovic, J., Krylywy, J., Thompson, E., Todd, R. (2020) “Affect-biased attention and predictive processing“, Cognition, 203, 104370.
Ransom, M. (2019) “Frauds, Posers and Sheep: A virtue theoretic solution to the acquaintance debate“, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 98(2), 417-434. (Published online 20 October 2017.)
Ransom, M., Fazelpour, S., & Mole, C. (2017) “Attention in the Predictive Mind”, Consciousness and Cognition, 47, 99-112.
Ransom, M., Fazelpour, S. (2020) “The Many Faces of Attention: why precision optimization is not attention”, In The Philosophy and Science of Predictive Processing. Eds. Stephen Gouveia, Dina Mendonça, Manuel Curado. London: Bloomsbury.
Ransom, M. (2020) “Waltonian Perceptualism“, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1(78): 66-70.
Ransom, M. (2019) “Naturalizing Logic: a case study of the ad hominem and implicit bias“, In Natural Arguments: A Tribute to John Woods. Eds. Dov Gabbay, Lorenzo Magnani, Woosuk Park, Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen. p 575-589. London: College Publications.
Ransom, M. (2016) “Why Emotions Do Not Solve the Frame Problem” in V. C. Müller (Ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence (Synthese Library). Berlin: Springer.
Conference Presentations
2025
“Can Empirical Methods Reveal the Contents of Perception?” at the Annual Summer Interdisciplinary Conference. France. July 2025.
“Race Perception” at the American Philosophical Association, Central Division annual conference, online. Poster session. February 2025.
2024
International: “Bias in Perceptual Learning” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting (50th anniversary), Indianapolis. July 2024.
“Bias in Perceptual Learning” at Indiana University, Bloomington, Cognitive Science Department Colloquium. Bloomington, USA. June 2024.
“Bias in Perceptual Learning” at the University of Victoria Department of Psychology Brain Science Colloquium. Victoria, Canada. February 2024.
2023
“The Perceptual Learning of Socially Constructed Kinds: How culture biases and shapes perception” At the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting. Tampa, Florida. May 2023. Invited talk.
“Do we Perceive Race?” at the first Annual Web Conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind. November 2023.
“Do we Perceive Race?” at the Western Canadian Philosophical Association annual meeting, Vancouver. October 2023.
“(How) can Companion Carebots Help us Flourish?” at the UBC Vancouver campus DASH (Data Science and Health) Ethics and AI series, virtual. September 2023. Invited talk.
“The Perceptual Learning of Socially Constructed Kinds” at the Annual Summer Interdisciplinary Conference. Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. July 2023.
“Perceptual Expertise and Cognition in the Case of Radiology.” Book symposium for Elijah Chudnoff’s Forming Impressions: Expertise in Perception and Intuition (OUP 2020), at the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division. San Fransisco, California. April 2023. Invited talk.
“The Perceptual Learning of Socially Constructed Kinds” at the at the American Philosophical Association, Central Division. Denver, Colorado. February 2023.
2022
“The Mechanisms of Bias in Race Perception” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting (held jointly with the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology). Milan, Italy. July 2022.
“Aesthetic Perception and the Puzzle of Training” at the University of Victoria Department of Philosophy Colloquium. Victoria, Canada. March 2022. Invited talk.
2021
“Do high-level properties make a difference to perceptual phenomenology?” at the Pacific APA, (online).
“Perceptual Learning of High-Level Properties” at the Eastern APA, (online). *Winner of the Sanders Graduate Prize in the Philosophy of Mind.*
“Bias in Perception” at the Canadian Philosophical Association (online). May 2021.
“Against Treating People like Sunsets” with David Friedell, at the American Society for Aesthetics annual meeting. Montreal, Canada. November 2021.
“Cognitive influences on perceptual categorization” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting (online). June 2021.
2020
“Against Treating People like Sunsets” with David Friedell, at the Southern Aesthetics Workshop, (online).
2019
“How we Learn to Perceive High Level Properties” at the Canadian Philosophical Association annual meeting. Vancouver, Canada.
“The Limits of Aesthetic Perception” at the Salish Sea Aesthetics Conference. Vancouver, Canada.
“Attention in the Predictive Mind” at the Predictive Processing Summer School (online). July 2019. Organizer: Mark Miller (Monash University). Co-presentation with Sina Fazelpour (Northeastern University). Invited talk.
“Bias in Perceptual Learning” at Visual Literacy: Seeing, Making, and Reading Images Across the Disciplines, international research roundtable. Peter Wall Institute, University of British Columbia. 2019.
2018
“Learning to See Beauty” at the American Society for Aesthetics annual meeting. Toronto, Canada.
2017
“How to argue for aesthetic perception without relying on intuitions” at the British Society of Aesthetics. Oxford, United Kingdom.
“Is there a change in perceptual experience between novice and expert?” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting. Baltimore, Maryland.
2016
“Aesthetic expertise, high-level perceptual content and non-inferential justification” at the British Society of Aesthetics. Oxford, United Kingdom. *winner of the Postgraduate Prize in Aesthetics*
“Aesthetic expertise, high-level perceptual content and non-inferential justification” at the Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Chicago, Illinois.
“Are Perceptions and Emotions Responses to Reasons? A Defense of Affective Perception” at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Washington, DC.
2015
“Aesthetic expertise, high-level perceptual content and non-inferential justification” at the American Society for Aesthetics annual meeting. Savannah, Georgia.
“Three Problems for the Predictive Coding Theory of Attention” at the Minds Online Conference. Online the month of September at: http://philosophyofbrains.com/. With co-author Sina Fazelpour.
“Frauds, Posers and Sheep: a virtue aesthetics solution to the acquaintance debate” at the British Society of Aesthetics. Cambridge, United Kingdom. *winner of the Postgraduate Prize in Aesthetics*
“Three Problems for the Predictive Coding Theory of Attention” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting. Durham, North Carolina. With co-author Sina Fazelpour. *paper awarded the William James Prize honorable mention*
“Frauds, Posers and Sheep: a virtue aesthetics solution to the acquaintance debate” at the Pacific APA. Vancouver, Canada.
2014
“How the Emotions Justify Evaluative Beliefs” at the Networking and Mentoring Workshop for Graduate Student Women in Philosophy. Princeton, New Jersey.
“How the Emotions Justify Evaluative Beliefs” at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology 40th annual meeting. Vancouver, Canada.
“Frauds, Posers and Sheep: A virtue aesthetics solution to the acquaintance debate” at the American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division Meeting. Monterrey, California.
2013
“Why Emotions Do Not Solve the Frame Problem” at the Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence conference. Oxford, United Kingdom.
2012
“Searching for the Prototypical Square Circle: a new argument against identifying prototypes with concepts” at the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology. London, England.
“Extensional and Intensional Intuitions in Philosophical Theory Construction” at the Buffalo Experimental Philosophy Conference. Buffalo, New York.
Conference Panels
2015
“Is the brain a prediction machine? Exploring the Bayesian revolution in neuroscience” at the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. Montreal, Canada.
2014
“How to Naturalize Logic: a Case Study of the Argumentum Ad Hominem” author-meets-critics panel with John Woods (2013) Errors of Reasoning: Naturalizing the Logic of Inference, at the Western Canadian Philosophical Association. Vancouver, Canada.
Other
Invited presentation: “Learning to See Beauty” Camp Aesthetics, July 2019, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.
Comments on “Do We Have Pogonotrophic Obligations?” by Henry Pratt, at the American Society for Aesthetics Annual Meeting, October 2014. San Antonio, Texas.
Comments on “Appreciating Bad Art” by John Dyck & Matt Johnson, at the American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division Meeting, April 2013. Monterrey, California.
Comments on “Isolationism, Sheepism and Trust: On the Dangers and Benefits of Aesthetic Trust” by Rebecca Wallbank, at the American Society for Aesthetics Annual Meeting, November 2020. Online.