Hunter Gentry

I'm a philosopher of cognitive science. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Central Florida. Before coming to UCF, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the philosophy department at Kansas State. I received my PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The guiding question of my research is: what is the nature of thought? I approach this question by examining the nature of concepts and the processes that they enter into. I have argued that conceptual representation is pluralistic— we represent the world in a multitude of ways: in language, sensorimotor simulation, maps, and images.

I have argued that natural language is especially important in transforming cognition. It supplies us with a compressed, data-efficient way of representing complex concepts, be they abstract or perceptual.

I have also investigated the relation between concepts and memory. I have argued that conceptual representation is best modeled as a constructive process due to shared underlying mechanisms with episodic memory.

More recently, I have begun thinking about what AI, especially large language models (LLMs), can tell us about the nature of thought. What aspects of human cognition can be fruitfully modeled by AI? and what aspects cannot? What can LLMs tell us about the language-cognition interface? You can find out more about my current and past work by hitting the Recent Work tab above.

When I'm not doing philosophy, you can find me hiking, taking photos, or playing music.

I make music under the name VALENCE MONITOR, and you can listen here. I also recently collaborated with some close friends, Reno Casino.

Get in touch at hunter.gentry@ucf.edu

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