My research is mainly in philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology, drawing on empirical work on perception and cognition.
Subjective time and consciousness
We experience motion and change directly. Does this mean that what we experience at any moment must extend over an interval of time? I argue that it need not. On the dynamic snapshot view, the experienced present has no temporal extension, yet we can experience motion and change without having to compare the present with a memory of the past.
I also study how the timing of experience relates to the timing of the brain processes that realize it. My non-linear latency difference view explains postdictive effects—cases in which later stimuli influence how earlier events are experienced—through perceptual processing before conscious experience. It preserves a correspondence between the experienced timing of events and the timing of the brain states that realize those experiences.
Related work concerns the apparent slowing of time during accidents, the continuity of consciousness, and the difference between experienced duration and estimates of duration.
Selected publications on time and consciousness
Cognitive penetration and perceptual learning
Can what we believe, know or expect change how things look to us? The debate over cognitive penetration asks whether cognition can influence perceptual experience itself, rather than merely our judgments about what we perceive.
My work examines what would count as evidence for such influence. I have argued that perceptual learning can explain some prominent examples offered as evidence of cognitive penetration: experience can change how we perceive without beliefs directly shaping perception. I have also defended hypnotic suggestion as a candidate for cognitive penetration. These studies ask how we can distinguish cognitive influences from changes within perceptual processing.
Selected publications on perception
Colour perception
My work on colour examines how colour experience is structured and whether colours can be identified with properties of the external world. In my doctoral dissertation, The Paradox of Colors, I defended colour eliminativism: the view that they cannot. Current experimental work with Jarno Tuominen and Johanna Kaakinen concerns the experience and conceivability of impossible colours.
Selected publications on perception and colour
Predictive processing
My work on predictive processing includes its relationship to Kant’s philosophy, with Hemmo Laiho, and its application to gambling, with Susanne Uusitalo and Jarno Tuominen. I led the Research Council of Finland project Temporality in Predictive Processing (2022–2025).
Kant’s philosophy of time
With Hemmo Laiho, I am working on Kant’s Philosophy of Time, under contract with Routledge for the Routledge Focus series. The book examines how time structures experience in Kant’s philosophy, including the experience of succession and duration, self-consciousness, and the distinction between subjective and objective temporal order. It also connects Kant’s account with contemporary debates on temporal consciousness.