Perceiving pictures

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10 (4):461-480 (2011)
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Abstract

I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the depicted scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the picture surface. This duality elucidates Richard Wollheim’s concept of the “twofoldness” of our experience of pictures: the “visual awareness not only of what is represented but also of the surface qualities of the representation.” I argue for the following four claims: (a) the depicted scene is represented by ventral perception, (b) the depicted scene is not represented by dorsal perception, (c) the picture surface is represented by dorsal perception, and (d) the picture surface is not necessarily represented by ventral perception

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Author's Profile

Bence Nanay
University of Antwerp

Citations of this work

Threefoldness.Bence Nanay - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (1):163-182.
Trompe l’oeil and the Dorsal/Ventral Account of Picture Perception.Bence Nanay - 2015 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (1):181-197.
Visual Feeling of Presence.Gabriele Ferretti - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (S1):112-136.
The Neural Dynamics of Seeing-In.Gabriele Ferretti - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (6):1285-1324.
The Neural Dynamics of Seeing-In.Gabriele Ferretti - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (6):1285-1324.

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References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Action in Perception.Alva Noë - 2004 - MIT Press.
Reference and Consciousness.John Campbell - 2002 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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