Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Philosophy

Advisor

Jesse Prinz

Committee Members

Noel Carroll

Jonathan Gilmore

Subject Categories

Aesthetics | African American Studies | Art and Design | Environmental Design | Human-Computer Interaction | Philosophy of Mind

Keywords

Situated Cognition, Philosophy of Design, Philosophy of Sound, Philosophy of Race, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

“Curated Spaces: Cognition by Design” is a dissertation that considers the connection between designed spaces and cognition. This work combines philosophy of mind and aesthetics. The dissertation introduces the term “Curated Cognition”, which builds on the concept of situated cognition ( Brooks, 1991; Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman,  2003;  Sterelny, 2010; Krueger, 2015; Colombetti, 2020 ). The dissertation argues that the environment is essential to cognition, and all environments are curated; therefore, the way we think, feel, and act is curated as well. Some non-human animals may inhabit worlds that are not curated. For example, an octopus may find shelter in a coconut shell that fell in the sea by chance. But human worlds are curated, even in features that we regard as accidental or in spaces that strike us as natural. The dissertation demonstrates how curation is not solely found in artistic settings but that we live our daily lives in curated spaces. Prior work on situated cognition focuses on how we use the environment to solve problems, whereas curated cognition focuses on the fact that environments are designed to guide us and can either help us achieve goals or delimit us and manipulate us.

The Dissertation has five chapters. The first chapter presents the theoretical framework of Curated Spaces and Curated Cognition. The second chapter focuses solely on curated soundscapes. Here, I argue that the actual influence of noise in our environments, not just music or language but every sound we hear, is highly conducive to situated cognition and that sound is much more curated in our spaces than we may think. I also discuss how sound can reveal the space to us, such as the dimensions and the material make-up of the room. I present a taxonomy of sound, identifying the immersive, continuous, and inescapable qualities.  I reference work in the field of psychoacoustics by Michel Chion and Murray Schafer; I also consider artworks by sound artist Alvin Lucier as examples of how sound is intimately engaged with the environment it is situated in, and I discuss the use of Foley in filmmaking to help illuminate the importance of sound design.

The third chapter incorporates political philosophy with philosophy of mind and aesthetics; it focuses on differences in curated cognition as individuals attempt to solve problems in the suburbs and in the ghetto. Paired with in-depth research on the history of redlining, I present the argument that the ghetto and the suburb were designed and curated by the American Government. In this chapter, I argue that the designed space of the ghetto is intentionally curated to facilitate a different diachronic curated cognition than that of the suburban citizen. One space is designed to allow the citizen to flourish, and the other is designed to limit the citizen’s personal autonomy. I also use the framework of curated cognition to steer a course between structural and cultural explanations of enduring inequalities. I engage with Tommie Shelby's book Dark Ghettos and the sociological debate concerning the culture of poverty (Lewis, 1966; Auletta, 1982), in which I offer my position of curated cognition as a solution.

The fourth chapter focuses on environmental aesthetics and engages with the work of Allen Carlson, Noel Carroll, and Yuriko Saito, in a case that confronts a possible argument against my claim that all the spaces we live in are curated. In the theoretical framework of the dissertation, I claim that all of the spaces we live in are curated.  Someone might argue that some natural spaces are a counter-example: we can venture out into uncurated spaces in nature. I defend my view against this position with two claims. The first claim is that nature, as we are used to it in the post-industrial world, is not as natural as we may think. The second claim is that our cognitive ability to interact, make use of, and engage emotionally with nature is limited by the kind of natural curated spaces with which we are familiar. If we are more familiar with curated natural environments such as Yellowstone Park or Central Park, then, when we experience uncurated nature, we will interact with the space through a stored, preconceived idea of human design.

The final chapter of the dissertation focuses on the design of online platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, and Instagram. In this chapter, I reference work such as Clark and Chalmers (1998), Krueger and Osler (2019), and Nguyen (2021). I focus on the use of algorithms as design tools of manipulation using the theoretical framework of curated spaces. Digital spaces, more so than physical spaces, are designed to help us show the world who we are. We use these spaces with the intention of expressing ourselves, communicating with like minds, and experiencing art and media that reflect our personal interests. However, in contrast to that intention, these spaces do the opposite; they cause us to lose agency by homogenizing our taste and social sphere.

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