Abstract
Abstract: To evaluate the explanation of change blindness in terms of misrepresentation and determine its role for Rosenthal’s higher-order
thought theory of consciousness, we present an alternative account of
change blindness that affords an independent outlook and provides a
viable alternative. First we describe Rosenthal’s actualism and the
notion of misrepresentation, then introduce change blindness and the
explanation of it by misrepresentation. Rosenthal asserts that, in
change blindness, the first-order state tracks the post-change stimulus,
but the higher-order state misrepresents it. We propose the alternative
that both post-change and pre-change content can be tracked by the
first-order state, and that in change blindness the higher-order
thought represents the pre-change state, resulting in a good-enough
representation: true but not veridical. We compare the two explanations
with respect to available data and analyse the principal
theoretical claims. Discussing the rationale of the alternative account,
we conclude that there is good reason to conceive of the mind as satisficing,
geared towards reliability instead of truth-tracking, and guided
by representations that are good enough as opposed to complete or
corresponding to the facts. We end with some methodological remarks
concerning the risk of cognitive biases in interdisciplinary research
that brings together empirical and philosophical claims.