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I am a Philosophy PhD student at the University of British Columbia, where I work with Evan Thompson, Christopher Mole and Rebecca M. Todd.
I have broad interests in the philosophy of mind and affective cognitive neuroscience, though I am especially interested in the philosophy of memory. In my dissertation, I investigate the concept and phenomenon of affective memory as it has been established by Theodule-Armand Ribot (1894). With my philosophical analysis of affective memory, I am hoping to provide an important contribution and extension to the conceptual repertoire of discussions on memory and emotion, raising new questions for future research.
In addition to my philosophical work, I am leading a qualitative study on the dynamics of attention in cravings in individuals with binge eating disorder together with the Motivated Cognition Lab at UBC.
In my spare time, I like to hang out with my friends, preferably outdoors, either climbing or hiking.
If you would like to contact me, my email address is laura.bickel.kg@gmail.com
RESEARCH
WHY THE PERFORMANCE OF HABIT REQUIRES ATTENTION, Mind and Language, 2023
This paper argues that every performance of habit-driven action requires attention. I begin by revisiting the conception of habit-driven actions as reducible to automatically performed responses to stimuli. On this conception, habitual actions are a counterexample to Wayne Wu’s action-centered theory of attention. Using the biased competition model of attention, and building on findings from affective cognitive neuroscience, I challenge this position. I claim that the performance of a habitual action requires experiential history to be exerting an influence that is best understood as implicit selection-biasing. It follows from this that habit driven action is compatible with Wu’s theory.
TALKS
PREVIOUS
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"What is it like to crave? A qualitative study on the dynamics of craving during binge eating”, Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, McGill University, November 6 2024
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"Why do we need phenomenology for understanding 'non-voluntary' or 'out-of-control' behaviour ? Neurophenomenology of Addiction Research Group, University of British Columbia, March 9 2024
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“Action Revisited: It’s all about Affect”, Graduate Research Conference, University of British Columbia, March 1 2024
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(invited) "On addiction and affect-biased attention". Workshop on Attention in Action, SOPhiA 2023, Salzburg, September 7 2023.
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“Why the Performance of Habit Requires Attention”, HEY: A Graduate Conference on Attention and Salience, Vienna Forum for Analytic Philosophy (WFAP), University of Vienna, July 6-8 2023
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“The Dissociative Model of Habit: On the Relationship Between Habit, Attention, and Agency”, APA Pacific, San Francisco, April 5-8 2023 (blind-reviewed)
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“Dying as Self-Transformative Experience”, Workshop on the Philosophy of Palliative Care, Marsilius-Kolleg, Heidelberg University, January 11 2023
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“Why the Performance of Habit Requires Attention”, Workshop on Attention, University of British Columbia, November 17 2022
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“Breaking Habits: Bergson’s Notion of Habit and Novelty and its Relevance for the Neuroscientific Study of Behavioral Change”, 11th International Conference of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP.11) "Philosophy and the Public", Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, 12th-15th September 2022 (blind-reviewed)
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“The Fragility of Sense: The Twofold Temporality of Embodiment and its Role for Depression”, First-Person Science of Consciousness Conference, Witten/Herdecke University, May 6-8 2021