Joulia Smortchkova

Presentation

Philosophy of first impressions

My current research project focuses on the everyday phenomenon of “first impressions”. What happens when we see something or someone for the first time? I focus mostly on perceptual first impressions as a paradigm case, but the broader objective is to explore the phenomenon across all cognitive faculties. In order to study first impressions we need to understand the affective aspects of perception and cognition, as well as the role that our past experiences and our expectations play in encountering new people, places, and things.

Primary Research Interests: 

  • Philosophy of mind:

    • Philosophy of perception: the perception/cognition border, the contents of perception, the emotional and affective aspects of perception;

    • Philosophy of memory (the structure of visual working memory, the relation between working memory and long-term memory), and imagination (simulation in social cognition)

    • Metacognition and conceptual change

  • Philosophy of cognitive science (mental representations, explanation in cognitive science)

  • Philosophy of art (first aesthetic impressions of artworks, the affective aspects of aesthetic seeing)

Education

·    2022 “Agrégation externe” in philosophy
·    2014 PhD “The social content of visual experience” (supervisor: Pierre Jacob, CNRS), Jean Nicod Institute, ENS/EHESS
·    2010 Student of the “Sélection Internationale” at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris
·    2010 MSc in cognitive science « Cogmaster » (ENS)
·    2009 MA in philosophy of science « Lophiss » (Paris IV)
·    2008 Student of the Collegio Superiore (Bologna University)
·    2007 BA in Philosophy (Bologna University)

Work experience

2022-2024 High-school teacher in Nantes

2018-2021 Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford University 

2017-2021 Postdoctoral researcher, Oxford University 

2014-2016 Postdoctoral researcher, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
 

Organization of scientific events

  • Symposium “Distorted first impressions”, SOPHA, Nantes University (forthcoming: June 30, 2025)
  • Conference “Metacognition: New Developments and Challenges”, IP London (with Nick Shea), 23-25 June 2021
  • Conference “L’animalité” (interdisciplinary workshop on animal cognition), University of Nantes, Nantes, France (with Michael Murez and Bruno Gnassounou) 17-18/10/2018
  • Conference “Mental Representations: The Foundations of Cognitive Science?”, RUB, Bochum, Germany (with Tobias Schlicht and Krys Dolega), 21-23/09/2015

Publications

Edited volumes

1. Smortchkova, J., Dolega, K., & Schlicht, T. (Eds). (2020). What are Mental Representations? Oxford University Press.

2. Schlicht, T., & Smortchkova, J. (Eds.). (2018). Mentale Repräsentationen: Grundlagentexte.Suhrkamp Verlag

Peer-reviewed articles

1. Smortchkova, J. (2022). La perception des émotions comme perception de l’affect. Perspectiva filosofica, 49(5), 76-97.

2. Smortchkova, J. (2022). Face perception and mind misreading. Topoi, 41(4), 685-694.

3. Thorne, S. R., Smortchkova, J., Quilty-Dunn, J., Shea, N., & Hampton, J. A. (2022). Is concept appraisal modulated by procedural or declarative manipulations? Frontiers in Psychology, 13.

4. Thorne, S. R., Quilty‐Dunn, J., Smortchkova, J., Shea, N., & Hampton, J. A. (2021). Concept Appraisal. Cognitive Science, 45(5), e12978.

5. Smortchkova, J. (2021). After-effects and the reach of perceptual content. Synthese, 198(8), 7871-7890.

6. Smortchkova, J. (2020). Does empirical evidence support perceptual mindreading? Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 9 (4):298-306.

7. Smortchkova, J., Shea, N. (2020). Metacognitive Development and Conceptual Change in Childhood. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11 (4): 745-763.

8. Smortchkova, J., (2020, on-line first 2018). Seeing Goal-Directedness: A Case for Social Perception. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):855-879.

9. Smortchkova, J. (2017, on-line first 2016). Seeing Emotions without Mindreading Them. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16(3):525-543.

10. Smortchkova, J. (2017, on-line first 2016). Encapsulated Social Perception of Emotional Expressions. Consciousness and Cognition 47: 38-47.

11. Murez M., Smortchkova J. (2014). Singular Thought: Object Files, Person Files and the Concept PERSON, Topics in Cognitive Science 6(4), 632-646.

Chapters in collective volumes

1. Smortchkova, J., Murez, M. (2020). Representational kinds. In Smortchkova, J., Schlicht, T. &Dolega, K. (eds), What are Mental Representations? Oxford University Press, p. 213-241.

2. Smortchkova, J. (2020) Représentation mentale. Version académique L’Encyclopédie philosophique http://encyclo-philo.fr/representation-mentale-a/

3. Murez, M., Smortchkova, J. & Strickland, B. (2020). The Mental Files Theory of Singular Thought: A Psychological Perspective. In Goodman R., Genone J. & Kroll N. (eds.), SingularThought and Mental Files. Oxford University Press. pp. 107-142.

Commentaries and reviews

1. Birch, J., Smortchkova, J. (2019). Commentary on Brette: from the coding metaphor to a theory of representation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42.3

2. Smortchkova, J. (2019). Review of Pieces of Mind: The Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates by Carrie Figdor. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

Submitted on February 7, 2024

Updated on May 13, 2025