Abstract
Philosophers have suggested that, in order to understand the particular visual state we are in during picture perception, we should focus on experimental results from vision neuroscience—in particular, on the most rigorous account of the functioning of the visual system that we have from vision neuroscience, namely, the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’. According to the initial version of this model, our visual system can be dissociated, from an anatomo-functional point of view, into two streams: a ventral stream subserving visual recognition, and a dorsal stream subserving the visual guidance of action. Following this model, philosophers have suggested that, since the two streams have different functions, they represent different properties of a picture. However, the original view proposed by the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’ about the presence of a strong anatomo-functional dissociation between the two streams has recently been questioned on both philosophical and experimental grounds. Indeed, the analysis of several new pieces of evidence seems to suggest that many visual representations in our visual system, related to different tasks, are the result of a deep functional interaction between the streams. In the light of the renewed status of the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’, also our best philosophical model of picture perception should be renewed, in order to take into account a view of the process of picture perception informed by the new evidence about such interaction. Despite this, no account fulfilling this role has been offered yet. The aim of the present paper is precisely to offer such an account. It does this by suggesting that the peculiar visual state we are in during picture perception is subserved by interstream interaction. This proposal allows us to rely on a rigorous philosophical account of picture perception that is, however, also based on the most recent results from neuroscience. Unless the explanation offered in this paper is endorsed, all the recent evidence from vision neuroscience will remain unexplained under our best empirically informed philosophical theory of picture perception.
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Notes
If both streams represent both the surface and the depicted object and if, during seeing-in, the surface and the depicted object are represented by at least one chunk (not necessarily the same one) of our visual brain, then there might be four kinds of seeing-in: (1) dorsal vision represents the surface, whereas ventral vision represents the depicted object; (2) ventral vision represents both the surface and the depicted object (purely ventral, inflected seeing-in); (3) dorsal vision represents the depicted object, while ventral vision represents the surface; (4) dorsal vision represents both the surface and the depicted object (purely dorsal uninflected seeing-in). I do not explore this point here, as it is not relevant for my claim.
The role of dorsal processing in the perception of depicted objects has been initially denied and only recently recognized. But such a role has been confirmed only concerning the action property attribution (§1). The role of dorsal processing in the recognition of shapes is still unexplored in the philosophical literature. For this reason, I will devote more space to this section than I have to the other sub-sections of (§3), in order to properly discuss the evidence concerning this perceptual fact.
It has been suggested that the dorsal stream can be hodologically divided into two sub-cortical pathways: the ventro-dorsal stream and the dorso-dorsal stream (Chinellato and Del Pobil 2016; Gallese 2007; Borghi and Riggio 2015; Milner and Goodale 1995/2006). Here I mainly mention the evidence on the ventro-dorsal stream because it has several characteristics of the pragmatic processing of what was considered the dorsal stream, along with several computational aspects of ventral recognitional processing (Chinellato and Del Pobil 2016: 28; Ferretti 2016c: 187; Gallese 2007; Milner and Goodale 1995/2006: Sect. 8.2.3; Borghi and Riggio 2015). For the role of this sub-stream in picture perception see (Ferretti 2016a). Some have also suggested the presence of three sub-streams within the dorsal one (Kravitz et al. 2011; Haak and Beckmann 2018). I do not offer an analysis concerning this new subdivision here.
Dorsal perception discriminates between images of depicted graspable and non-graspable objects (Rice et al. 2007; Ferretti 2016a, b) and it also performs object categorization, especially concerning manipulable objects (Helbig et al. 2010). To this extent, experiments performing continuous flash suppression on ventral vision, while leaving dorsal processing intact, suggested a facilitating influence on tools categorization, but not on the categorization of objects that are not manipulable (Almeida et al. 2008). It is not by chance that both streams can respond to both normal and depicted objects/tools (Konen and Kastner 2008; Sects. 3.2, 3.3, 4.1).
However, the inferior temporal (IT) cortex remains the crucial area for object discrimination (Di Carlo et al. 2012). Its processing is computationally more accurate in object identification of two-dimensional shapes with respect to that of dorsal-related areas such as the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP), arguably because the LIP is related to sensorimotor representations (Lehky and Sereno 2007: 316–317; Farivar 2009: 3.1; Chinellato and Del Pobil: 2.3.4). Indeed, dorsal processing is not sufficient for complete volumetric recognition (Westwood et al. 2002; Ferretti 2016a: 4.2, b: 5.6); see footnote 6. However, both streams are differently involved in the representation of depth, shape and volumetric recognition, and stereoscopic information of 2-D and 3-D structures (Chinellato and del Pobil 2016; Briscoe 2009; Theys et al. 2015; Ferretti 2016a, b, c; Farivar 2009).
An important contribution for this task comes from the right inferior parietal lobule (Pammer et al. 2006: 2929). Moreover, dyslexia seems to be caused by an impairment of magnocellular pathways in the dorsal stream, in particular, of the area MT/V5. This evidence is important because we know that the inferior parietal lobule, related to the ventro-dorsal stream, which comprises the AIP, receives direct inputs from the MT/V5 visual pathway (Rizzolatti and Matelli 2003), which in turn receives inputs from V1 (Laycock et al. 2009; for the relation between dorsal vision and reading see also Levy et al. 2010).
This is in line with the evidence that magno-cellular, dorsal-related responses arrive before parvo-cellular, ventral-related responses in the case of visual processing of different kinds of objects (Barrett and Bar 2009; Bar et al. 2006; Bullier 2001; Laycock et al. 2007; Milner and Goodale 1995/2006; Sect. 4.1).
This is also in accordance with the evidence that vision for action and visual recognition are both subject to illusions in the same way (Kopiske et al. 2016; Briscoe 2009; Bruno 2001; Bruno and Franz 2009). I’ll get back to the issue of egocentric representations, pictorial illusions and dorsal-ventral interactions below in (Sects. 3.4, 4.1, 4.2).
I will offer more technical details on this point in (Sect. 4), where I will also explain the difference between this case and that of the visual recognition of real objects, like surfaces, as really offering action possibilities.
Nanay suggested that on the one hand, “there seems to be plenty of evidence for the claim that the malfunctioning of the ventral stream leads to a breakdown in picture perception. Patients with visual agnosia, as we have seen in the case of D.M., are extremely bad at picture perception (see Turnbull et al. 2004; Westwood et al. 2002)” (p. 474). On the other hand, dorsal processing is important for picture perception, as shown by experimental results in which “A patient presenting symptoms of optic ataxia, A.T., who sustained a bilateral parieto-occipital infarct during eclampsia did perceive pictures, but her “evaluation of line length and size of drawn figures was poor” (Jeannerod et al. 1994, p. 370; see also Jeannerod 1997, p. 62). As Nanay suggests concerning this passage, “What we have in this case is a malfunctioning of picture perception as a result of a malfunctioning of the dorsal stream. The malfunctioning of the dorsal stream does not result in the complete breakdown of picture perception (like the malfunctioning of the ventral stream does), but it does lead to misestimating the distances and size of the depicted scenes” (Nanay 2011: 475). Now, we know that dorsal representations respond to depicted objects apparently presented in the peripersonal space of the observer and whose vehicle is also actually located in peripersonal space (Ferretti 2016b). The right posterior parietal lobe, related to the dorsal stream, is crucial in the recognition of the spatial orientation of objects. Lesions to this area disrupt this ability, leading to orientation agnosia (Martinaud et al. 2014; Priftis et al. 2003). But I also suggested that the dorsal stream is also crucial in object recognition (§3.1). This is in line with the fact that “evaluation of line length and size of drawn figures was poor”, as it seems to be a problem in shape recognition. Furthermore, note that several studies have shown that optic ataxia and visual agnosia are much more complex impairments than previously thought, concerning action and object processing, so that one cannot simply reduce each impairment either to space perception or to object perception, or to action processing in general (Rossetti et al. 2003; Briscoe 2009; Briscoe and Schwenkler 2015; Ferretti 2017b).
While we can quasi-egocentrically localize depicted objects and represent their relative depth (§3.1), we can obtain absolute egocentric localization only with normal objects—exception made for pictorial illusions (Sect. 4.3).
This also happens when the object is perceived as present, but we decide not to act.
Most of the time, such an object is real, but it could also be pictorial, as in the case of pictorial illusions able to deceive our visual recognition (Sect. 4.3).
For a brief review of their role in picture perception in tune with the account proposed here see (Ferretti 2017c).
The mainly ventral contribution is related to the perceptual fact that “high-level, categorical representations of the functional and material properties of objects that are not usable directly in motor programming can be used instead for action planning” (Briscoe and Schwenkler 2015: 1437; Wallhagen 2007).
For this reason, the information managed by the ventral stream can be used in the motor programming mainly generated by the dorsal stream, especially in the mainly dorsal interplay. Thus, ventral processing is important for different aspects of the visual guidance of action (Young 2006; Briscoe and Schwenkler 2015; Chinellato and Del Pobil 2016; Gallese 2007; Zipoli Caiani and Ferretti 2016; Ferretti 2016b: Sect. 5, c). This is in line with the fact that both dorsal and ventral vision are involved in–and cooperate during–the encoding of action in different manners (Ibid.).
Which can be followed by motor interaction (computed by the mainly dorsal interplay).
Recall that the minimal ventral contribution in the mainly dorsal interplay only concerns semantic encoding for the dorsal action property attribution, not high-level recognition. But the semantic information coming from ventral processing cannot detect presence. Therefore, this mainly dorsal interplay is not related to any recognition of presence (Sect. 4).
Note that dorsal computations are triggered without the subject wanting or attempting to grasp the object: observation in static conditions directly triggers these dorsal visuomotor responses (Ferretti 2016a: Sect. 4, 2017c). The reader should note that I do not mean here that the motor behavior of the subject in general is the same with both real and depicted objects: we do not attempt to grasp objects in a picture. The idea is that the representational behavior of the dorsal stream and, thus, of the mainly dorsal interplay, is the same with both of them. Accordingly, I am not saying that we (normally) attempt to grasp both depicted and normal objects: of course, we do not even attempt to grasp depicted objects. Finally, note that I am not even saying that a subject would attempt (if requested to do so in an experimental setting) to grasp a depicted and a normal object in the same manner. Evidence suggests, indeed, that attempting to grasp normal (i.e. non-trompe l’oeil) depicted objects is different from attempting to grasp real objects (Freud, Ganel, et al. 2015a: 1381). In accordance with this, there is plenty of evidence that even action planning directed toward depictions is computed differently with respect to face-to-face scenarios (Culham 2018).
Concerning how motor responses decay, see (Borghi and Riggio 2015).
However, when the mainly ventral interplay is deceived, as in the case of pictorial illusions, the results of motor programming may end up being wrongly used for generating covert action (Sect. 4.3). In normal pictorial scenarios, the low-level action property attribution concerning the surface, and realized by the mainly dorsal interplay, is always accompanied by the detection of its presence, subserved by the mainly ventral interplay. Thus, the mainly ventral action planning can always direct the mainly dorsal motor programming toward the surface.
Response selection and action planning are mainly ventrally subserved. Thus, given the dorsal magnocellular advantage, their occurrence is slower than the occurrence of the visuomotor response mainly dorsally subserved. However, the link between the dorsal AIP and the inferotemporal areas related to the ventral stream (Verhoef et al. 2011; Fogassi and Luppino 2005; Sects. 3.2, 3.3) guarantees that ventral semantic information can be used by the dorsal stream to compute an appropriate motor act even before response selection and action planning are performed.
Not only does this theory explain how we ascribe the feeling of presence, and why this is not only ascribed to real objects, but also to some special kinds of depicted objects. Furthermore, it allows us to understand what determines the visual ascription of pictoriality (related to less enhanced visual cues), which can be ascribed not only to objects in a picture, but also to real objects in certain cases, like, for example, to landscapes (Vishwanath 2011: 225, 228; Matthen 2005: 322; Ferretti 2016c: 8).
In line with (Sect. 4.1), when the mainly ventral interplay establishes, thanks to the detection of such special visual features, that the surface is a real and present object we can interact with, the information about visuomotor interaction computed by the mainly dorsal interplay can be used to generate overt action on the surface. This is not possible with depicted objects, with which the motor response is triggered, and then bound to decay.
These are the main visual characteristics at the basis of ‘stereopsis’, i.e. the visual process thanks to which we see a three-dimensional present world (Vishwanath 2014).
What about the case of hyperrealist but not delusive paintings? When perceiving these paintings, one may have a more vivid apprehension of the depicted object than the one we can get in the case of normal paintings. But with these paintings the surface is visible. Thus, this vivid apprehension will not be as strong as the one we can get from real and present objects and, ipso facto, from a real and present object like a surface: the pictorial visual features will never be equal to the enhanced visual features of a real object like the surface. For this reason, absolute depth cannot be ascribed to the depicted object, but only to the surface. Thus, in accordance with vision science, only with the surface can we have the perception of presence, for only with the surface are we able to visually represent the possibility of absolute depth localization, which depends on the ascription of the enhanced visual features reported above, which are displayed only by real objects, like the surface.
In accordance with footnote 28, even if a covert representation of the motor acts is generated by the mainly dorsal interplay in both cases, we can use this to effectively perform overt motor execution only with the surface.
Dorsal representations for the detection of action properties and the construction of motor acts, considered alone (i.e. without any interplay with ventral processing), are taken to be unconscious and not consciously accessible (Brogaard 2011a). However, there is no problem in suggesting that, thanks to interstream interplay, ‘conscious vision can affect action’ (Brogaard 2011a: 1078; Briscoe 2009; Briscoe and Schwenkler 2015) and that a mainly ventral interplay can give rise to a conscious action planning (Chinellato and Del Pobil 2016; Ferretti 2016b, c; Zipoli Caiani and Ferretti 2016).
It is worth noting that also Briscoe (2016, 2018) has recently suggested that absolute egocentric depth representation grounds the feeling of presence towards the surface and not towards the depicted object. However, Briscoe defends a sort of ‘weak onefoldness’. Such an account does not deny, as ‘strong onefoldness’ (as Briscoe calls it), that our visual system attributes properties to the depicted object and to the surface at the same time. It simply wants to stress that pictorial experience is ‘onefold’ “in the sense that its content reflects a single, consistent 3D scene interpretation of the retinal image” (2018: Sect. 4). That said, however, the notion of ‘weak onefoldness’ is also used to support the philosophical idea of a continuity (the ‘continuity hypothesis’) between face-to-face and picture perception, in the sense that perceiving an object face-to-face and perceiving an object in a picture are not experiences of a different psychological kind, but only concerning the degree of representational content, i.e. the degree of attribution of the properties that are respectively ascribed in both of those two perceptual states. Since the goal of this paper is to describe the ‘neural dynamics of seeing-in’ in relation to interstream interaction, I cannot tackle this further deep philosophical point here. A discussion of this point will have to wait for another occasion.
However, when our mainly ventral interplay is deceived, it triggers action planning on the depicted object. At this point, we can actually attempt to grasp the pictorial object. When this happens, the visuomotor resources we use to shape overt motor execution come from the mainly dorsal interplay, as in the case of face-to-face perception.
Since trompe l’oeils deceive us for a moment, the explanation here concerns the moment in which the deception is at work.
In accordance with footnote 35, a mainly ventral unconscious representation for recognition can be subsequently accessed. This is something not possible with a mainly dorsal representation for motor action.
Of course, at the same time, also our mainly dorsal interplay represents the action properties of the depicted object and of the surface. But this is a subpersonal, unconscious, representational response, whose result can be used only with the surface.
The notions of ‘mainly dorsal’ and ‘mainly ventral’ interplay only denote a particular way in which the streams interact in a given situation.
This work was supported by the ‘Fondazione Franco e Marilisa Caligara per l’Alta Formazione Interdisciplinare’. I have several special thanks to offer. First of all, I want to thank Bence Nanay, for spending so much time discussing with me about the relations between picture perception and the functioning of our visual system. The second goes to two anonymous referees, whose crucial and insightful comments allowed me to significantly clarify to the reader some technical aspects of the theory developed here. Special thanks also go to these excellent scholars who have always proven to be ready to enthusiastically discuss with me about several issues concerning the functioning of the visual system: Andrea Borghini, Silvano Zipoli Caiani, Chiara Brozzo, Albert Newen, Anna Maria Borghi, Giorgia Committeri, Neil Van Leuween, Francesco Marchi, Alberto Voltolini. Finally, special thanks go to the students in Philosophy in Urbino, who attended my lessons in ‘Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science’ and offered several points on this topic.
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Ferretti, G. The Neural Dynamics of Seeing-In. Erkenn 84, 1285–1324 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0060-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0060-2