It is increasingly common in cognitive science and philosophy of perception to regard perceptual processing as a probabilistic engine, taking into account uncertainty in computing representations of the distal environment. Models of this kind often postulate probabilistic representations, or what we will call probabilistic states,. These are states that in some sense mark or represent information about the probabilities of distal conditions. It has also been argued that perceptual experience itself in some sense represents uncertainty (Morrison _Analytic Philosophy_ 57 (1): (...) 15 48, 2016 ). In this article, we will first consider three models of sensory activity from perceptual neuroscience, namely signal detection theory (SDT), probabilistic population codes (PPC), and sampling. We will then reflect on the sense in which the probabilistic states introduced in these models are probabilistic representations. To sharpen this discussion, we will compare and contrast these probabilistic states to credences as they are understood in epistemology. We will suggest that probabilistic representation, in an appropriately robust sense, can be understood as a form of analog representation. In the last part of the paper, we apply this to the issue of whether conscious experience represents uncertainty—we will interpret this as the claim that there are phenomenal features of experience that serve as analog probabilistic representations. (shrink)

Perceptual Confidence is the thesis that perceptual experiences can be probabilistic. This thesis has been defended and criticised based on a variety of phenomenological, epistemological, and explanatory arguments. One gap in these arguments is that they neglect the question of whether perceptual experiences satisfy the formal conditions that define the notion of probability to which Perceptual Confidence is committed. Here, we focus on this underexplored question and argue that perceptual experiences do not satisfy such conditions. But if they do not, (...) then ascriptions of perceptual confidence are undefined; and so, Perceptual Confidence cannot be true. (shrink)