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The Double Content of Perception

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Abstract

Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y′(X′) as a higher level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y′(X′) must be ’de-contextualized’ or decoded to arrive at the X-related content X′, resulting in a double content structure for perceptual data, that persists in higher-order conscious perceptual content. Some implications and applications of this DC view are also discussed.

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Correspondence to John Dilworth.

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Dilworth, J. The Double Content of Perception. Synthese 146, 225–243 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-004-6209-3

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