Education
2022 PhD, Cognitive Science, University of
Minnesota Twin Cities
Dissertation: Psychedelic Vision
2019 MA, Philosophy, University of
Minnesota Twin Cities
Thesis: Making Sense of Hallucination
2006 BASc, Psychology, University of
Minnesota Duluth
Honors Thesis: Psychedelic Drug Use and Creative
Thinking
2006 BA, Philosophy, University of
Minnesota Duluth
Honors Thesis: Panpsychism in Philosophy of Mind
Areas of specialization
perception, psychedelic drugs, cognitive science, philosophy of mind
Areas of competence
psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychopharmacology
Publications
Swanson, LR (forthcoming). “Psychedelic Visuals in Context”. in Philosophical Perspectives on the Psychedelic Renaissance (forthcoming) Letheby and Gerrans (eds.). Oxford University Press.
Swanson, LR (2018). Unifying Theories of Psychedelic Drug Effects. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 9, 172. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00172
Swanson, LR (2018a). Unlearning to See: Linking the Perceptual and Clinical Effects of Psychedelic Drugs [Abstract]. in Rogers, T. T.; Rau, M.; Kalish, C. W. & Zhu, X. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2018, 2972.
Swanson, LR (2016). The Predictive Processing Paradigm Has Roots in Kant. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. 10:79. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2016.00079
Technical skills
Programming languages: Python, Matlab, PHP, HTML, CSS, JSON, YAML, XML
Software engineering: automation, scripting, application development, command-line interfaces, web interfaces, software packaging, DevOps, containerization, cloud architecture, web servers, Linux systems administration, blockchain, smart contracts, Ethereum, git
Data collection and analysis: extract-transform-load (ETL), statistical analysis, plotting, pandas, matplotlib, EEG acquisition, EEG signal processing, BrainFlow, EEGLAB, ERPLAB, psychophysics stimuli, adaptive staircases, Psychopy, psychometric rating scales
Invited talks
2020 Dec “Psychedelics and mental context:
Phenomenology and neural computation”
Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Louisville,
Kentucky
2018 Oct “My Non-Ideal Self” (with Kathryn
Swanson, PhD, JD)
Selfless Minds Workshop, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced
Studies, Frankfurt, Germany
2018 Oct “Predictive Brains on Psychedelic
Drugs”
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Conference presentations
2019 Mar “Belief, Expectation, and
Psychedelic Drug Mechanisms”
Community Symposium, Psychedelic Society of Minneapolis,
Hamline University, St. Paul, MN
2018 Jul “Unlearning to See: Linking the
Perceptual and Clinical Effects of Psychedelic Drugs”
The 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society,
Madison, WI
2018 Apr “Unifying Theories of Psychedelic
Drug Effects”
The Science of Consciousness, Tucson, AZ
2017 Jun “Theoretical Models of
Psychedelic Drug Effects”
Breaking Convention, University of Greenwich, London, UK
2017 Apr “Bayesian Neuroscience of Psychedelic Drugs” Spring Research Day, Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota
2017 Jan “Predictive Processing Models of
Psychedelic Effects”
The Driftless Psychedelic Therapy Symposium, Viroqua, WI
2016 Jul “Panpsychism Has No Future in
Philosophy of Mind”
Matter, Mind, and Consciousness, Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary
2016 Sep “User Interfaces and the
Epistemology of the new Computational Cognitive
Revolution”
Informatics Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study,
University of Minnesota
2016 Apr “The Philosophical Roots of
Predictive Coding Theory”
Spring Research Day, Center for Cognitive Sciences, University
of Minnesota
Departmental talks
2017 May “Hallucination and Perception: A
Delicate Balance of Top-down and Bottom-up in the Predictive
Brain”
Cognitive Science Colloquium Series, University of
Minnesota
2016 Apr “What Are the Philosophical Roots
of Predictive Coding Theory?”
Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychology,
University of Minnesota
2016 Mar “The Philosophical Roots of
Predictive Coding Theory”
Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota
Grants & fellowships
2016 “Where is the Human In the
Data?”
University of Minnesota Informatics Institute Graduate Summer
Fellowship
$5,000 (Office of the Vice President for Research)
2004 UROP Grant, Psychology, University of
Minnesota Duluth
$1,500 (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program)
2002 UROP Grant, Psychology, University of
Minnesota Duluth
$1,500 (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program)
Teaching experience
2005 Teaching Assistant, Intro to Philosophy, University of Minnesota Duluth
2005 Teaching Assistant, Transpersonal Psychology (online), University of Minnesota Duluth
2004 Teaching Assistant, Abnormal Psychology (online), University of Minnesota Duluth
Service to the field
Editorial work
2019 Invited Reviewer, The 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Montreal, Canada
2018 Invited Reviewer, Selfless Minds Workshop, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany
Organizational affiliations
Cognitive Science Society - Student Member
Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota - Full
Student Member
Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science - Graduate Student
Fellow