Steven Phillips (Chief Senior Researcher): ORCID ResearchGate

Research:

• My research interests concern cognition, and category theory as it helps to understand why cognitive systems work.

Selected publications:

• Phillips, S., & Tsuchiya, N. (2024). Towards a (meta-)mathematical theory of consciousness: universal (mapping) properties of experience. (Preprint arXiv:2412.12179) doi:10.48550/arXiv.2412.12179

• Phillips, S. (2024). A category theory perspective on the Language of Thought: LoT is universal. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1361580. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1361580

• Phillips, S. (2022). What is category theory to cognitive science? Compositional representation and comparison. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1048975. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1048975

• Phillips, S. (2021). A reconstruction theory of relational schema induction. PLoS Computational Biology, 17(1), e1008641. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008641

• Phillips, S. (2021). A category theory principle for cognitive science: cognition as universal construction. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 28(1), 11-24. Preprint

• Phillips, S. (2019). Sheaving—a universal construction for semantic compositionality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375 (1791), 20190303. doi:10.1098/rstb.2019.0303

• Phillips, S. (2018). Going beyond the data as the patching (sheaving) of local knowledge. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1926. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01926

• Phillips, S., Takeda, Y., & Sugimoto, F. (2017). Dual-routes and the cost of determining least-cost. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1943. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01943

• Phillips, S. (2017). A general (category theory) principle for general intelligence: duality (adjointness). In T. Everitt, B. Goertzel, & A. Potapov, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI 2017), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 10414 (pp. 57-66). Springer International Publishing. PDF

• Phillips, S., & Takeda, Y. (2017). Mathematical fixation: Search viewed through a cognitive lens. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, 40-41. Commentary on Hulleman, J., & Olivers, C. N. L. (same issue). "The impending demise of the item in visual search". PDF

• Phillips, S., Takeda, Y., & Sugimoto, F. (2016). Why are there failures of systematicity? The empirical costs and benefits of inducing universal constructions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1310. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01310

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2016c). Second-order systematicity of associative learning: a paradox for classical compositionality and a coalgebraic resolution. PLoS ONE, 11(8), e0160619. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160619

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2016b). Commentary: Experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1171. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01171

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2016). Systematicity and a categorical theory of cognitive architecture: universal construction in context. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1139. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01139

• Phillips, S. (2014). Analogy, cognitive architecture and universal construction: a tale of two systematicities. PLoS ONE, 9(2), e89152. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089152

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2014). A category theory explanation for systematicity: Universal constructions. In P. Calvo & J. Symons, J. (Eds.), The Architecture of Cognition: Rethinking Fodor and Pylyshyn's Systematicity Challenge (pp. 227-249). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. PDF

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2012). Categorial compositionality III: F-(co)algebras and the systematicity of recursive capacities in human cognition. PLoS ONE, 7(4), e35028. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035028 (corrigendum)

• Phillips, S., Takeda, Y., & Singh, A. (2012). Visual feature integration indicated by phase-locked frontal-parietal EEG signals. PLoS ONE, 7(3), e32502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032502

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2011). Categorial compositionality II: Universal constructions and a general theory of (quasi-)systematicity in human cognition. PLoS Computational Biology, 7(8), e1002102. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002102

• Phillips, S., & Wilson, W. H. (2010). Categorial compositionality: A category theory explanation for the systematicity of human cognition. PLoS Computational Biology, 6(7), e1000858. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000858

• Phillips, S., Wilson, W. H., & Halford, G. S. (2009). What do Transitive Inference and Class Inclusion have in common? Categorical (co)products and cognitive development. PLoS Computational Biology, 5(12), e1000599. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000599

Book:

• Halford, G. S., Wilson, W. H., Andrews, G., & Phillips, S. (2014). Categorizing Cognition: Toward Conceptual Coherence in the Foundations of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN: 0262028077

Steven Phillips, PhD
Mathematical Neuroscience Group
Human Informatics and Interaction Research Group (HIIRI)
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
AIST Tsukuba Central 6-11, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8566, Japan