Is the flavor of mint reducible to the minty smell, the taste, and the menthol-like coolness on the roof of one’s mouth, or does it include something over and above these—something not properly associated with any one of the contributing senses? More generally, are there features of perceptual experiences—so-called novel features—that are not associated with any of our senses taken singly? This question has received a lot of attention of late. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question (...) of what it means to say that a feature is associated with a sensory modality in the first place. Indeed, there is only one fully developed proposal in the literature, due to Casey O’Callaghan. I argue that this proposal is too permissive to inform the debate over novel features. I go on to argue that all attempts to formulate a better proposal along these lines fail. The corollary of my arguments is that the question of the existence of novel features is poorly formed. Furthermore, the problem generalizes, with the result that we should not rely on our pre-theoretical notions of the senses as the basis of theorizing about the features of perceptual experiences. (shrink)

Philosophical considerations regarding experiential spatial content have focused on exteroceptive sensations presenting external entities, and not on interoceptive experiences that present states of our own body. A notable example is studies on interoceptive touch, in which it is argued that interoceptive tactile experiences have rich spatial content such that tactile sensations are experienced as located in a spatial field. This paper investigates whether a similarly rich spatial content can be attributed to experiences of acute, cutaneous pain. It is argued that (...) such experiences of pain do not have field-like content, as they do not present distance relations between painful sensations. (shrink)

It seems that there are important differences concerning the way in which space itself is presented in visual and tactile modalities. In the case of vision, it is usually accepted that visual objects are experienced as located in a visual field. However, it is controversial whether similar field-like characteristics can be attributed to the space in which tactile entities are experienced to be located. The paper investigates whether postulating the presence of a tactile field is justified. I argue that the (...) answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ due to the dual nature of touch: touch is both an interoceptive modality that presents states of one’s body and an exteroceptive modality that presents external entities. More specifically, the interoceptive tactile space has a character of a spatial field. On the other hand, the exteroceptive tactile space does not have characteristics necessary for ascribing the field-status. (shrink)

Bodily awareness seems to present the body as a topologically connected whole, composed of many parts. In consequence, the source of topological and mereological content of bodily awareness comes into question. In particular, it may be asked whether (a) such content is provided by the bodily sense, i.e., sensory mechanisms which, like proprioception, presents the body “from the inside,” or (b) it is a product of “exteroceptive” elements of bodily awareness, which represents the body “from the outside” in a similar (...) way to that of other physical objects. This paper argues that while passive touch and proprioception are unlikely to present the body as a topological and a mereological whole, such content is likely to be provided by kinesthesis. In consequence, it is plausible that holistic topological and mereological bodily content is present in virtue of certain mechanisms of bodily sense. (shrink)

I argue that the neural realizers of experiences of trying are not distinct from the neural realizers of actual trying . I then ask how experiences of trying might relate to the perceptual experiences one has while acting. First, I assess recent zombie action arguments regarding conscious visual experience, and I argue that contrary to what some have claimed, conscious visual experience plays a causal role for action control in some circumstances. Second, I propose a multimodal account of the experience (...) of acting. According to this account, the experience of acting is a temporally extended, co-conscious collection of agentive and perceptual experiences, functionally integrated and structured both by multimodal perceptual processing as well as by what an agent is, at the time, trying to do. (shrink)

I argue that perceptual consciousness is constituted by a mental activity. The mental activity in question is the activity of employing perceptual capacities, such as discriminatory, selective capacities. This is a radical view, but I hope to make it plausible. In arguing for this mental activist view, I reject orthodox views on which perceptual consciousness is analyzed in terms of peculiar entities, such as, phenomenal properties, external mind-independent properties, propositions, sense-data, qualia, or intentional objects.

Traditionally, the sense of touch—alongside the senses of taste and smell—has been excluded from the aesthetic domain. These proximal modalities are thought to deliver only sensory pleasures, not the complex, world-directed perceptual states that characterize aesthetic experience. In this paper, I argue that this tradition fails to recognize the perceptual possibilities of haptic touch, which allows us to experience properties of the objects with which we make bodily contact, including their weight, shape, solidity, elasticity, and smoothness. These features, moreover, may (...) be indicative of how well-suited an object is for its function, and in feeling them we can thus feel the positive aesthetic quality of functional beauty. (shrink)

This paper addresses the nature of touch or ?tactual perception?. I argue that touch encompasses a wide range of perceptual achievements, that treating it as a number of separate senses will not work, and that the permissive conception we are left with is so permissive that it is unclear how touch might be distinguished from the other senses. I conclude that no criteria will succeed in individuating touch. Although I do not rule out the possibility that this also applies to (...) other senses, I suggest that the heterogeneity of touch makes it both distinctive and particularly problematic. (shrink)

It is tempting to hold that perceptual experience amounts to a co-conscious collection of visual, auditory, tactual, gustatory, and olfactory episodes. If so, each aspect of perceptual experience on each occasion is associated with a specific modality. This paper, however, concerns a core variety of multimodal perceptual experience. It argues that there is perceptually apparent intermodal feature binding. I present the case for this claim, explain its consequences for theorizing about perceptual experience, and defend it against objections. I maintain that (...) just as one thing may perceptually appear at once to jointly bear several features associated with the same sense modality, one thing also may perceptually appear at once to jointly bear features associated with different sense modalities. For instance, just as something may visually appear at once to be both red and round, or to have a red part and a green part, something may multimodally perceptually appear at once to be both bright and loud, or to have a red part and a rough part. The main lesson, I argue, is that perceiving is not just co-consciously seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling at the same time. And perceptual phenomenal character is not on each occasion exhausted by that which is distinctive to or associated with a given modality, along with that which accrues thanks to simple co-consciousness. Not all ways of perceiving are modality specific. I defend this account against three main objections: that singular content theorists avoid my conclusions; that apparent infusion of perceptible features is required for perceptually apparent binding but does not occur intermodally; and that the diversity of objects across modalities makes perceptually apparent intermodal binding rare. (shrink)

Recent work on non-visual modalities aims to translate, extend, revise, or unify claims about perception beyond vision. This paper presents central lessons drawn from attention to hearing, sounds, and multimodality. It focuses on auditory awareness and its objects, and it advances more general lessons for perceptual theorizing that emerge from thinking about sounds and audition. The paper argues that sounds and audition no better support the privacy of perception’s objects than does vision; that perceptual objects are more diverse than an (...) exclusively visual perspective suggests; and that multimodality is rampant. In doing so, it presents an account according to which audition affords awareness as of not just sounds, but also environmental happenings beyond sounds. (shrink)

Psychophysics and neuroscience demonstrate that different sensory systems interact and influence each other. Perceiving involves extensive cooperation and coordination among systems associated with sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Nonetheless, it remains unclear in what respects conscious perceptual awareness is multisensory. This paper distinguishes six differing varieties of multisensory awareness, explicates their consequences, and thereby elucidates the multisensory nature of perception. It argues on these grounds that perceptual awareness need not be exhausted by that which is associated with each of (...) the respective sensory modalities along with whatever accrues thanks to simple co-consciousness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The manifest fact of experiential unity—namely, that a single experience often seems to be composed of multiple features and multiple objects—was lodged as a key objection to the Buddhist no-self view by Nyāya philosophers in the classical Indian tradition. We revisit the Nyāya-Buddhist debate on this issue. The early Nyāya experiential unity arguments depend on diachronic unification of experiences in memory, but later Nyāya philosophers explicitly widened the scope to incorporate new unity arguments that invoke synchronic unification in experiences. (...) We argue that classical responses to this objection in the Buddhist traditions are not satisfactory. We offer a new solution on behalf of the Buddhists, with some help from cognitive sciences. We argue that there are different kinds of experiential unity and that, once we distinguish between these kinds, the Nyāya argument becomes difficult to sustain. (shrink)

I ask whether figure-ground structure can be realized in touch, and, if so, how. Drawing on the taxonomy of touch sketched in Katz's 1925 The World of Touch, I argue that the form of touch that is relevant to such consideration is a species of immersed touch. I consider whether we can feel the space we are immersed in and, more specifically, the empty space against which the surfaces of objects, as I shall urge, “stand out.” Harnessing M. G. F. (...) Martin's account of bodily awareness and touch, I defend a positive thesis, pace Graham Nerlich on whose The Shape of Space I otherwise rely, both to defend the supposition that empty space can in principle be felt and to argue that touching empty space is not a mere species of absence perception. Along the way, I defuse a causal worry that might be thought to arise in the case of touching empty space. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists have long known that the modalities interact during perceptual processing. Cross-modal illusions like the ventriloquism effect show that the course of processing in one modality can alter the course of processing in another. But how do the modalities interact in the specific domain of object perception? This paper distinguishes and analyzes two kinds of multisensory interaction in object perception. First, the modalities may bind features to a single object or event. Second, the modalities may cooperate when differentiating an (...) object or event from its surroundings. I critically evaluate evidence for various forms of multisensory binding. I then consider the case for multisensory differentiation. I argue that existing evidence for multisensory differentiation is inconclusive. I highlight ways that the issue might be empirically resolved. (shrink)

I argue for sensory pluralism. This is the view that there are many forms of sensory interaction and unity, and no single category that classifies them all. In other words, sensory interactions do not form a single natural kind. This view suggests that how we classify sensory systems (and the experiences they generate) partly depends on our explanatory purposes. I begin with a detailed discussion of the issue as it arises for our understanding of thermal perception, followed by a general (...) account and defense of sensory pluralism. (shrink)

The Phenomenal Concept Strategy offers the physicalist perhaps the most promising means of explaining why the connection between mental facts and physical facts appears to be contingent even though it is not. In this article, we show that the large body of evidence suggesting that our concepts are often embodied and grounded in sensorimotor systems speaks against standard forms of the PCS. We argue, nevertheless, that it is possible to formulate a novel version of the PCS that is thoroughly in (...) keeping with embodied cognition, focuses on features of physical concepts, and succeeds in explaining the appearance of contingency. (shrink)

Based on but not limited to material from a conference at Brown University in 2011, Sensory Integration and the Unity of Consciousness is an ambitious collection that brings together two distinct but inter- twined topics.1 In what follows, I briefly explain what sensory integration and the unity of conscious- ness amount to, highlight the contents of the papers, and finally end with general observations and suggestions. I will spend more time on sensory integration, since it is relatively unfamiliar terrain in (...) philosophy. (shrink)

The manifest fact of experiential unity—namely, that a single experience often seems to be composed of multiple features and multiple objects—was lodged as a key objection to the Buddhist no-self view by Nyāya philosophers in the classical Indian tradition. We revisit the Nyāya-Buddhist debate on this issue. The early Nyāya experiential unity arguments depend on diachronic unification of experiences in memory, but later Nyāya philosophers explicitly widened the scope to incorporate new unity arguments that invoke synchronic unification in experiences. We (...) argue that classical responses to this objection in the Buddhist traditions are not satisfactory. We offer a new solution on behalf of the Buddhists, with some help from cognitive sciences. We argue that there are different kinds of experiential unity and that, once we distinguish between these kinds, the Nyāya argument becomes difficult to sustain. (shrink)

According to the decomposition thesis, perceptual experiences resolve without remainder into their different modality-specific components. Contrary to this view, I argue that certain cases of multisensory integration give rise to experiences representing features of a novel type. Through the coordinated use of bodily awareness—understood here as encompassing both proprioception and kinaesthesis—and the exteroceptive sensory modalities, one becomes perceptually responsive to spatial features whose instances couldn’t be represented by any of the contributing modalities functioning in isolation. I develop an argument for (...) this conclusion focusing on two cases: 3D shape perception in haptic touch and experiencing an object’s egocentric location in crossmodally accessible, environmental space. (shrink)

In crossmodal identification, a subject token identifies an item perceived in one sensory modality with an item perceived in another sensory modality. Does crossmodal identification always occur in cognition, or does crossmodal identification sometimes take place in perception? This paper argues that crossmodal identification occurs in cognition, and not in perception. Nevertheless, multisensory perception is not unalive to crossmodal identity. Experimental evidence demonstrates that perception is differentially sensitive to the identity of individuals presented to distinct senses. Such sensitivity enhances recognition (...) and improves action. This approach relies on distinguishing crossmodal identification from perceiving crossmodal identity. Perception registers crossmodal identity, but crossmodal identification as such belongs to thought. (shrink)