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Object-sensitivity versus cognitive penetrability of perception

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. Bruner (1957).

  2. Macpherson (2012); Siegel (2012); Stokes (2012).

  3. Pylyshyn (1999). This is also called “encapsulation” (Fodor (1983)) and been captured by Pylyshyn as the “independence thesis” (Pylyshyn (2004) p. 21).

  4. Deciding on what we “genuinely” perceive is certainly a highly controversial matter, and not one which is totally independent from the debates on the cognitive penetrability of perception. To step aside these controversies, it is cautious to proceed with a content that everyone accepts as perceptual. Both “austere” and “liberal” views of perceptual content (Bayne 2009) can accept that color is such a candidate.

  5. The color signal is processed in the primary visual cortex, V1, through the ventral stream V2–V4 and reaches higher cortical areas in the inferior temporal cortex (IT). See Gegenfurtner (2001).

  6. There is good evidence for outputs of color processing that are not consciously experienced. But our current concerns is with conscious experience only.

  7. Nor even an agreement on the possibility of such a causal account, as shown by the controversies between dualists and physicalists.

  8. Again, I leave illusions and hallucinations on the side, although they can be described as experiences when one has a phenomenal experience of seeing red.

  9. For an overview of the realism issue, see for instance Byrne (2003).

  10. Although not all definitions of modularity preserve the feature of encapsulation (see for instance Sperber), most of the classical definitions do (see Fodor, Pylyshyn) and most modularist are ready to grant it at least for perceptual modules. On this, see Deroy (in press).

  11. For instance, it cannot be assumed that perception is conceptual and its structure predicative because thought is.

  12. What is meant then by ‘similar’ needs to be further discussed, especially relative to the qualitative aspect of perception and the plausibility of the inverted spectrum scenario. If one grants this scenario, then there is still a minimal sense in which two inverted spectra perceive the world in similar ways if each of their qualitatively distinct feel remains correlated to one and the same set of stimuli.

  13. For instance, if cognitive penetration is virtuous, or leads to reliable beliefs, there is still room for the penetrated contents of perception to play a role in justifying beliefs in certain epistemological models, like reliabilism. Several moves are also available to the representationalists, which I won’t review here.

  14. Burge (2009).

  15. Munsell chip R/5/12. R indicates the hue, the first number the saturation and the second the “chroma”.

  16. Munsell chip YR/6/10 to R/3/8.

  17. This expression borrows from Block’s notion of “considered phenomenal judgment”, which he explains as follows: “Anyone who has been a subject in an experiment in which brief stimuli have to be compared knows that subjects are often uncertain—the stimulus goes by so fast the subjects often feel as if their responses are partly a matter of guessing. Allowing the subjects to try the judgment repeatedly with the ability to change the timing is a way of boosting the credibility of the conscious source of the judgment” (Block 2010, p. 41).

  18. Delk and Fillenbaum (1965, p. 293).

  19. R/4/12 for “red-associated”, R/4/13 for geometrical figures and R/5/13 for “brown-associated” ones.

  20. Hansen and Gegenfurtner (2006); Hansen et al. (2006).

  21. Macpherson (2012, p. 49).

  22. See Deroy (forthcoming).

  23. Although questions can be raised about the degree of control in Duncker (1939) and in Delk and Fillenbaum (1965). Several elements are missing from their paper—noticeably controls for size and complexity of the figures’ lines, and controls for variations in the illumination conditions.

  24. On the label assignment underlying this effect, see Waltz (1975).

  25. Attending first to the eye-shaped form and the two curvy lines of the drawing, the attentional selection will be dictated by the hypothesis that it is a beak and the content of its percept is more likely to be organized in a way that makes the experience duck-like. If one attends to the eye-shape and the opposite circular bumpy curve, its attention will be guided by the hypothesis that it is a nose, and its percept is more likely to be organized in a way that makes the experience rabbit-like. This explanation is more difficult to articulate than the previous one about the angles.

  26. See for instance Siegel (2012), Macpherson (2012).

  27. See Block (2010).

  28. E.g. to a surface reflecting the same wavelength under the same illumination conditions.

  29. No eye-tracking data for instance is given in any of these experiments.

  30. Fodor (1991) and Churchland (1988).

  31. Bolles et al. (1959); Bruner et al. (1951).

  32. Perky (1910). See also Segal and Gordon (1969).

  33. I don’t think that these difficulties are impossible to overcome, but that the model needs more development on several respects. First, the way phenomenal contents are supposed to mix is not clear, beyond the mental paint metaphor. I think that the notion of super-imposition is better, but stands in need of clarification. Second, the Perky effect, mentioned to ground the indirect model, shows the influence of subliminal perception on imagination, and not the influence of imagination on conscious perception. To support this later claim, Macpherson mentions the case of hallucinatory insertions in perceived scenes, which is still controversial. More needs to be said about this influence of imagination on perception. Third, it is not clear in which sense this mode is indirect: is it because of the necessary mediation of imagination, or because higher cognitive contents penetrate perception only through penetrating experience, and not through influencing the underlying perceptual processing? If it is the former, one could wonder how much of this model depends on the idea that beliefs have no phenomenology. If believing that this is an apple comes with some phenomenal contents, does this model turn into a direct model of cognitive penetration?

  34. Other conditions than time need to obtain, but this point is not necessary for the present argument.

  35. McGurk and McDonald (1976).

  36. This is known as the sweetness enhancement effect. See for instance Stevenson and Prescott (1999).

  37. Kubovy and Shutz (2010).

  38. Gegenfurtner (2003); Cant et al. (2008).

  39. See also Massaro (1999).

  40. See Deroy (in press) for a discussion.

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Acknowledgments

This paper was presented in NYU, Rutgers, at the Centre for the Study of the Senses and at the Institut Jean Nicod. Thanks to the audience for their questions, and especially to Jerome Dokic, Jerry Fodor, Michael Martin, Zenon Pylyshyn for helpful comments. Thanks to Ned Block, Yasmina Jraissati, Fiona Macpherson, Barry C. Smith and Frederique de Vignemont for their detailed comments on earlier versions of this draft.

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    Ophelia Deroy

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Deroy, O. Object-sensitivity versus cognitive penetrability of perception. Philos Stud 162, 87–107 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9989-1

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