Prof. Dr. Ophelia Deroy

Personal information

Ophelia Deroy is an expert in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Neuroscience. Before moving to LMU as a professor, she held positions in Paris, New York and London, where she co-directed the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study. Her research addresses core issues in the philosophy of perception, metacognition, social cognition and social epistemology.

Selected publications

1. Lefebvre, G., Deroy, O., & Bahrami, B. (2024). The roots of polarization in the individual reward system. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2017), 20232011.
2. Zapata, J., Sulik, J., von Wulffen, C., & Deroy, O. (2024). Bystanders’ collective responses set the norm against hate speech. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1-13.
3. Barrera-Lemarchand, F., Balenzuela, P., Bahrami, B., Deroy, O., & Navajas, J. (2024). The wisdom of extremized crowds: Promoting erroneous divergent opinions increases collective accuracy, Psychological Science
4. Longin, L., Bahrami, B., & Deroy, O. (2023). Intelligence brings responsibility-Even smart AI assistants are held responsible. Iscience, 26(8).
5. Deroy, O. (2023). The Ethics of Terminology: Can We Use Human Terms to Describe AI?. Topoi, 42(3), 881-889.
6. Schmauder, C., Karpus, J., Moll, M., Bahrami, B., & Deroy, O. (2023). Algorithmic Nudging: The Need for an Interdisciplinary Oversight. Topoi, 42(3), 799-807.
7. Geiselmann, R., Tsourgianni, A., Deroy, O., & Harris, L. T. (2023). Interacting with agents without a mind: the case for artificial agents. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 51, 101282.
8. Deroy, O. (2023). Olfactory abstraction: a communicative and metacognitive account. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 378(1870), 20210369.
9. Battich, L., & Deroy, O. (2022). Cognitive penetration and implicit cognition. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Implicit Cognition (pp. 144-152). Routledge.
10. Longin, L., & Deroy, O. (2022). Augmenting perception: How artificial intelligence transforms sensory substitution. Consciousness and Cognition, 99, 103280.

Research projects

• EMERGE
  Funded by: European Innovation Council
  Project duration: 10.2023 - 09.2027
  
  EMERGE will deliver a new philosophical, mathematical, and technological framework to demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, how a collaborative awareness – a representation of shared existence, environment and goals – can arise from the interactions of elemental artificial entities.
  
  EMERGE project website
• CO-SENSE
  Funded by: Volkswagen Fondation
  Project duration: 09.2022 - 09.2026
  
  Co-Sense brings a new Momentum to the Chair of Philosophy of Mind, extending its cross-disciplinary infrastructures to examine perception in a social rather than individual context. It covers conceptual and experimental questions about joint perception, perceptual common ground.
• CO-LEARN
  Funded by: BIDT
  Project duration: 08.2022 - 08.2024
  
  Co-Learn examines situation of collaborative learning with artificial agents, and brings perspectives from computer science, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind and AI together to address this question.
• VACCINE HESITANCY, HEALTH ATTITUDES AND DELIBERATION
  Funded by: Vaccine Confidence Fund
  Project duration: 01.2023 - 04.2024
  
  Vaccine hesitancy has been defined as indecision about vaccination, and is distinct from opposition. In this international project, involving Germany and Argentina, we specifically are interested in conceptualising and mapping what this indecision amounts to, especially in relation to other existing concepts, and consider the role of peer-to-peer deliberation in reducing it.
• WAYS OF SEEING, WAYS OF KNOWING
  Funded by: Volkswagen Fondation
  Project duration: 04.2023 - 12.2024
  
  How do people look at climate scenarios and how is it affected by their social situation? This project extends the framework of Co-Sense to make it relevant to science communication and science museums interested in climate change particularly.
• ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS
  Funded by: DFG
  Project duration: 06.2023 - 06.2026
  
  This project looks at the relation between consciousness and attention, with a particular focus on new empirical evidence.

Teaching

Prof. Deroy's current courses can be found on LSF.

If you would like to write a thesis (BA or MA) under Prof. Deroy's supervision, please contact her via e-mail, with a few sentences outlining the planned topic, to arrange a meeting.

Chair Colloquium: Wednesdays 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (by registration only)