Argues for a category of “cognitive feelings”, which are representationally significant, but are not part of the content of the states they accompany. The feeling of pastness in episodic memory, of familiarity (missing in Capgras syndrome), and of motivation (that accompanies desire) are examples. The feeling of presence that accompanies normal visual states is due to such a cognitive feeling; the “two visual systems” are partially responsible for this feeling.

The two contrasting theoretical approaches to visual perception, the constructivist and the ecological, are briefly presented and illustrated through their analyses of space and size perception. Earlier calls for their reconciliation and unification are reviewed. Neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and psychophysical evidence for the existence of two quite distinct visual systems, the ventral and the dorsal, is presented. These two perceptual systems differ in their functions; the ventral system's central function is that of identification, while the dorsal system (...) is mainly engaged in the visual control of motor behavior. The strong parallels between the ecological approach and the functioning of the dorsal system, and between the constructivist approach and the functioning of the ventral system are noted. It is also shown that the experimental paradigms used by the proponents of these two approaches match the functions of the respective visual systems. A dual-process approach to visual perception emerges from this analysis, with the ecological-dorsal process transpiring mainly without conscious awareness, while the constructivist-ventral process is normally conscious. Some implications of this dual-process approach to visual-perceptual phenomena are presented, with emphasis on space perception. Key Words: constructivist; dual-process approach; ecological; size perception; space perception; two visual systems; visual perception theories. (shrink)

This paper concerns local yet systematic problems of contrastive underdetermination of model choice in cognitive neuroscience debates about the so-called two visual systems hypothesis. The underdetermination problem is systematically generated by the way certain assumptions about the representationalist nature of computation are translated into experimental practice. The problem is that behavioural data underdetermine the choice between competing representational models. In this paper, I diagnose how these assumptions generate underdetermination problems in the choice between competing functional models of perception–action. (...) Using the tools of philosophy of science, I describe the type of underdetermination and sketch a possible cure. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question famously asks about whether a newly sighted subject might immediately recognize, by sight alone, shapes that were already familiar to her from a tactile point of view. This paper addresses three crucial points concerning this puzzle. First, the presence of two different questions: the classic one concerning visual recognition and another one concerning vision-for-action. Second, the explicit distinction, reported in the literature, between ocular and cortical blindness. Third, the importance of making reference to our best neuroscientific account (...) on vision, ‘the two visual systems model’, in order to better address Molyneux’s problem. Then, by offering a new, deeper analysis of the relation between, and, this paper suggests that the subjects of Molyneux’s two different questions show the same visual impairment as brain-damaged subjects with different lesions of the visual cortex. In particular, the subject of the first question shows the same impairment in visual recognition as a visual agnosic subject, while the subject of the second question shows the same visual impairment in visuomotor processing as an optic ataxic subject. These impairments still hold even if ocular processing is restored. Therefore, I suggest the following. For the first classic question, the required experimental setting cannot be properly reached. By contrast, concerning the second question, based on the interpretation we select, either the answer is negative, or, as with the first question, the experimental setting cannot be properly reached. This proposal constitutes, with the other approaches offered in the literature, a further attempt to tackle the enormous complexity of Molyneux’s puzzle. (shrink)

The two-visual-systems hypothesis proposed by Goodale and Milner is a radical one. If it were to be true, then our common sense such as we are acting on what we are perceiving should be completely abandoned. In this paper, I argue that the hypothesis over-generalizes what happens in simple tasks to what happens in complex tasks. By contrast, I demonstrate that what happens in complex tasks is compatible with our common sense. In a word, though what we are (...) acting on may come apart from what we are perceiving in some cases, that is not the whole story. (shrink)

This commentary on Jacob and Jeannerod’s Ways of Seeing evaluates the conclusions that the authors draw from the two visual systems hypothesis about the nature and phenomenology of visual experience.

The parallel drawn by Norman between the dorsal and ventral systems and direct and indirect approaches is based on two misrepresentations of the direct approach – that it is concerned only with the unconscious control of action, and that it cannot explain learning. We propose a way of understanding the visual system differences from within the direct approach.

Perception of (and during) events is a necessary feature of any perceptual theory. Norman's dual-process approach cannot account for the perception of events without substantial interactions between the dorsal and ventral systems. These interactions, as outlined by Norman, are highly problematical. The necessity for interactions between the two systems makes the distinction useless.

The purpose of this paper is to defend what I call the action-oriented coding theory (ACT) of spatially contentful visual experience. Integral to ACT is the view that conscious visual experience and visually guided action make use of a common subject-relative or 'egocentric' frame of reference. Proponents of the influential two visual systems hypothesis (TVSH), however, have maintained on empirical grounds that this view is false (Milner & Goodale, 1995/2006; Clark, 1999; 2001; Campbell, 2002; Jacob & (...) Jeannerod, 2003; Goodale & Milner, 2004). One main source of evidence for TVSH comes from behavioral studies of the comparative effects of size-contrast illusions on visual awareness and visuo- motor action. This paper shows that not only is the evidence from illusion studies inconclusive, there is a better, ACT-friendly interpretation of the evidence that avoids serious theoretical difficulties faced by TVSH. (shrink)

Neuroanatomy and neurophysiology are insufficient to specify function. Modeling is essential to elucidate function, but psychophysics is also required. An example is the cognitive and sensorimotor branches of the visual system: anatomy shows direct cross talk between the branches. Psychophysics in normal humans shows links from cognitive to sensorimotor, but the reverse link is excluded by visual illusions affecting the cognitive system but not the sensorimotor system.

According to the two visual systems model, the visual processing of objects divides into semantic and pragmatic processing. We provide various criteria for this distinction. Further, we argue that both the semantic and pragmatic processing of visual information about objects should be divided into low-level processing and high-level processing. Finally, we re-evaluate the contribution of the human parietal lobe to the concious visual perception of spatial relations among objects.

What is the relationship between perception and action, between an organism and its environment, in explaining consciousness? These are issues at the heart of philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. This book explores the relationship between perception and action from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, ranging from theoretical discussion of concepts to findings from recent scientific studies. It incorporates contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and an artificial intelligence theorist. The contributions take a range of positions with respect to (...) the view that perception is an achievement by an agent acting in a complex environment in which sensorimotor dynamics constitute an essential ingredient to perceptual experience. A key focus of the book is on the debate about action-oriented theories of visual perception versus the dual-visual systems hypothesis The former champions the role of sensorimotor dynamics in perceptual awareness while the latter favours a functional dichotomy between perception and action. At least on the surface, these two approaches are in conflict. Where one emphasizes the interdependence of action and perception, the other suggests that action and perception are functionally distinct. The dialogue between these two approaches brings out wider theoretical issues underlying the research paradigm of cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind. Exploring one of the major debates in the philosophy and psychology, this book is fascinating reading for all those in the cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between perception and action, with a focus on the debate about the dual visual systems hypothesis, against action oriented theories of perception.

Norman's aim to reconcile two longstanding and seemingly opposed philosophies of perception, the constructivist and the ecological, by casting them as approaches to complementary subsystems within the visual brain is laudable. Unfortunately, Norman overreaches in attempting to equate direct perception with dorsal/unconscious visual processing and indirect perception with ventral/conscious visual processing. Even a cursory review suggests that the functional and neural segregation of direct and indirect perception is not as clear as the target article would suggest.

Norman's reconciliation of the two theories of perception is challenged because it directly leads to the nature-nurture dichotomy in the development of the two visual systems. In contrast, the proposition of a separate development of the two visual systems may be better understood as involving different types of information that follow a distinct temporal sequence.

Berkeley and Helmholtz proposed different indirect mechanisms for size perception: Berkeley, that size was conditioned to various cues, independently of perceived distance; Helmholtz, that it was unconsciously calculated from angular size and perceived distance. The geometrical approach cannot explain size-distance paradoxes (e.g., moon illusion). The dorsal/ventral solution is dubious for close displays and untestable for far displays.

Perception, Action, and Consciousness: Sensorimotor Dynamics and Two Visual Systems is a state-of-the-art collection whose main goal is to explore, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the relationship between action and perception. A second goal of the volume is to investigate how perception and action interact specifically in the production of phenomenal awareness. In presenting and contrasting the major perspectives on the field, this volume marks a good sign of the progress being made on the nature of phenomenally conscious (...) class='Hi'>visual experience. By combining theoretical and empirical approaches it also contributes to the debate in key domains of the cognitive sciences .The book contains a useful editorial introduction written by the Editors and six sections further divided into fifteen chapters. In the first part of this review I briefly summarize the content of each section. Having offered an outline of the volume, I then turn my attention to the main theme of the collection, which is the dichotomy between action-oriented theories of perception and the two visual systems hypothesis and look at the dialectic underlying this debate. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on the modularity of visual functions in the human visual cortex, that is, the specific problems that the visual system must solve in order to achieve recognition of objects and visual space. The computational theory of early visual functions is briefly reviewed and is then used as a basis for suggesting computational constraints on the higher-level visual computations. The remainder of the paper presents neurological evidence for the existence of (...) two visual systems in man, one specialized for spatial vision and the other for object vision. We show further clinical evidence for the computational hypothesis that these two systems consist of several visual modules, some of which can be isolated on the basis of specific visual deficts which occur after lesions to selected areas in the visually responsive brain. We will provide examples of visual modules which solve information processing tasks that are mediated by specific anatomic areas. We will show that the clinical data from behavioral studies of monkeys (Ungerleider and Mishkin 1984) supports the distinction between two visual systems in monkeys, the 'what' system, involved in object vision, and the 'where' system, involved in spatial vision. (shrink)

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 scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the surface. Keywords: picture perception; dorsal subsystem;.

According to what I’ll call the ‘two visual systems account’ (TWO-SYSTEMS), the visual system is divided into two independent sub- systems, a ventral system implementing ‘vision for perception’ and a dorsal system implementing ‘vision for action’ (Milner and Goodale, 2006). TWO-SYSTEMS is widely discussed in philosophy due to the counter-intuitive role that it posits for conscious experience in the control of actions. However, recent evidence undermines the model’s core tenets: it no longer appears that (...) the ventral and dorsal streams constitute isolated processing systems, and there is now evidence for the involvement of both streams in conscious experience and online motor control. I articulate a new ‘direct dorsal control account’ (DORSAL-CONTROL), show that it is immune to three empirical challenges facing TWO-SYSTEMS, and show that it nonetheless has similarly significant implications for the perceiving mind. -/- Section 1 articulates TWO-SYSTEMS and its philosophical implications. Section 2 describes three empirical challenges to TWO-SYSTEMS. Section 3 articulates DORSAL-CONTROL and shows that it is immune to the three challenges. Section 4 articulates DORSAL-CONTROL’s philosophical implications. (shrink)

Although seeing is commonly experienced as a unitary activity, the scientific description of vision resists such an intuitive account. Both psychologists and neuroscientists are in agreement with the idea that the elaboration of visual information is distributed across several different routes provided with different functions. Importantly, these routes can be mapped onto well-identified anatomical subdivision of the visual system. Crucially, although originally based on the assumption that different visual information are elaborated via different neural channels, such a (...) model is nowadays used as a tool for indicating a common neural basis between action and perception. The present review is aimed at providing a description of how the modular model of visual system has developed from a model where action and perception are considered as segregate to a model where action and perception are considered ass two labels of the same concept. (shrink)

The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the "where" and "what" systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundamental levels of neuroscientific theory.

The behavioral immune system (BIS) includes perceptual mechanisms for detecting cues of contamination. Former studies have indicated that moisture has a disgusting property. Therefore, moisture could be a target for detecting contamination cues by the BIS. We conducted two experiments to examine the psychophysical basis of moisture perception and clarify the relationship between the perception of moisture and the BIS. We assumed that the number of high luminance areas in a visual image provided optical information that would enable the (...) visual perception of moisture. In two experiments, we presented eight images of dough that contained different amounts of moisture as experimental stimuli. The amount of moisture shown in the images was increased in eight steps, from 28.6% to 42.9% of the total weight of the dough. In Experiment 1, the images were randomly presented on a computer display, and the participants (n = 22) were asked to rank the images in the order of the visually perceived moisture content. In Experiment 2, the participants (n = 15) completed pairwise comparisons based on the perceived moistness of the images. Furthermore, to examine the BIS responses, the participants rated the strength of disgust evoked by the stimuli, their motivation to avoid touching the stimuli, and the estimated magnitude of the risk of contamination by physical contact with the stimuli. The results indicated that the moisture content and the numbers of high luminance areas in the images accurately predicted the perception of moisture, suggesting that the detection of visual moisture was highly accurate, and the optical information served as an essential perceptual cue for detecting moisture. On the other hand, the BIS responses peaked in response to stimuli having approximately 33% to 39% moisture content. These results show that objects containing a moderate amount of moisture could be the target of visually detecting pathogens by the BIS. (shrink)

The Visual World Paradigm (VWP) presents listeners with a challenging problem: They must integrate two disparate signals, the spoken language and the visual context, in support of action (e.g., complex movements of the eyes across a scene). We present Impulse Processing, a dynamical systems approach to incremental eye movements in the visual world that suggests a framework for integrating language, vision, and action generally. Our approach assumes that impulses driven by the language and the visual (...) context impinge minutely on a dynamical landscape of attractors corresponding to the potential eye-movement behaviors of the system. We test three unique predictions of our approach in an empirical study in the VWP, and describe an implementation in an artificial neural network. We discuss the Impulse Processing framework in relation to other models of the VWP. (shrink)

Incidence and prevalence rates of dengue have increased over the years, and the disease is quickly becoming cause for concern within the public health community. Globally, 128 countries and slightly under four billion people are at risk of contracting dengue. In Sri Lanka, more than half of dengue cases originate in Colombo, which in previous years, used a manual pen-and-paper data management system, which meant that it was not possible to obtain or provide up-to-date information about the severity and spread (...) of dengue. In 2015, two versions of a mobile application called Mo-Buzz Dengue were developed and launched in Colombo, Sri Lanka in order to overcome the challenges of the traditional management system by capitalizing on the rising affordability and ubiquity of mobile phone technology. To keep up with the dynamic nature of disease outbreaks, real-time data need to be visualized in a manner which facilitates discerning and comprehending these patterns. Hence, we used health maps in Mo-Buzz to effectively present this information. The first version of Mo-Buzz was for public health inspectors, digitized data management as well as provided educational materials. The second version of Mo-Buzz was a source of information for the general public, a crowdsourcing platform to provide information relating to dengue transmission, and for health authorities to alert users to dengue-specific developments in their area. This paper illustrates the design considerations of the Mo-Buzz disease surveillance system for the general public. A draft scaled-down version of the PHI system was used to obtain feedback and make incremental design enhancements. Additionally, similar health maps were evaluated in terms of capability and usability. These findings were applied to identify future enhancements to the health map of Mo-Buzz Dengue. (shrink)

In this book, Michael Madary examines visual experience, drawing on both phenomenological and empirical methods of investigation. He finds that these two approaches—careful, philosophical description of experience and the science of vision—independently converge on the same result: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. Madary first makes the case for the descriptive premise, arguing that the phenomenology of vision is best described as on ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. He discusses visual experience as (...) being perspectival, temporal, and indeterminate; considers the possibility of surprise when appearances do not change as we expect; and considers the content of visual anticipation. Madary then makes the case for the empirical premise, showing that there are strong empirical reasons to model vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment. He presents a range of evidence from perceptual psychology and neuroscience, and reinterprets evidence for the two-visual-systems hypothesis. Finally, he considers the relationship between visual perception and social cognition. An appendix discusses Husserlian phenomenology as it relates to the argument of the book. Madary argues that the fact that there is a convergence of historically distinct methodologies itself is an argument that supports his findings. With Visual Phenomenology, he creates an exchange between the humanities and the sciences that takes both methods of investigation seriously. (shrink)

Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits low spatial frequency biases in the right hemisphere and high spatial frequency (HSF) biases in (...) the LH. We show two factors that can influence lateralization: (a) Visual similarity among words: The more similar the words in the lexicon look visually, the more HSF/LH processing is required to distinguish them, and (b) Requirement to decompose words into graphemes for grapheme-phoneme mapping: Alphabetic reading (involving grapheme-phoneme conversion) requires more HSF/LH processing than logographic reading (no grapheme-phoneme mapping). These factors may explain the difference in lateralization between English and Chinese orthographic processing. (shrink)

Siegel recently distinguishes between seven possible ways in which our perceptual access to social information can be biased by flawed practice of either individuals or social structures, two of which, namely attention and cognitive penetration, imply that it is the content of perception, as opposed to that of judgments, that is biased. Both attention and cognitive penetration, however, rely on cognitive states imposing top-down influences on perceptual states. As such, perceptual bias resulting from them is to a large extent merely (...) a derivation of cognitive bias. In this paper, I propose another way in which our perception can be biased, namely, as the result of faulty assumptions made by the visual system. Furthermore, I argue that in contrast to cognitive penetration and attentional direction, perceptual bias arising in this way is fundamentally perceptual and does not depend on inputs from one’s cognitive system. This sort of perceptual bias, if it exists, would have important implications for how we conceptualize social bias and pose special challenges to traditional interventions designed to counteract bias. (shrink)

Apperly and Butterfill's (2009) hold that there are two cognitive mind-reading systems. System 1(S1) is fast, automatic and inflexible, whereas system 2 (S2) is reflective, flexible and slow. This paper presents and discusses two central assumptions of this theory: the independence of S1 and S2 and the encapsulation of S1. It is argued that findings on longitudinal trajectories in infancy on the false belief test and visual perspective taking undermine the two-system theory in three respects: (1) S1 is (...) not encapsulated, (2) S1 is not entirely automatic processing, and (3) S2 cognitive processes can be fast and efficient. The paper concludes that mindreading operates through different socio-cognitive processes that are gradually and continuously enriched during development, which eliminates the need for a two-system characterization. (shrink)

In the period 1893–1897 Charles Dodgson, writing as Lewis Carroll, published two books and two articles on logic topics. Manuscript material first published in 1977 together with letters and diary entries provide evidence that he was working toward a visual proof system for complex syllogistic propositional logic based on a mechanical tree method that he devised.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.3 (2006) 92-114 [Access article in PDF] A Global Art System: An Exploration of Current Literature on Visual Culture, and a Glimpse at the Universal Promethean Principle—with Unintended Oedipal Consequences Art Education 11-18: Meaning, Purpose And Direction, edited by Richard Hickman; New York, Continuum; 2nd edition, 2004; 176 pp. Global Visual Culture within a Global Art System I have harbored misgivings about (...) the term "visual culture" for several years. Having read Hickman's book with its collection of notable scholars in art and design education, those misgivings turned into qualified acceptance of "visual culture"—so long as it is understood as a global visual culture within a global art system. The ten chapters presented in Hickman's book clearly explore the notion of visual culture in the context of generating an expansive and appropriate canon of art distinctly relevant to our postmodern, multicultural, multidimensional classroom of multiple intelligences.1 And so, art and design education for the twenty-first century must perform three essential functions: one, it must color the classroom with signs of global human pictorial and textual expressions; two, it must attempt to comprehend an immeasurable universe through creative, scaled-down explorations of the phenomenal world all of humanity is subject to; and three, it must open up the Blakeian doors of perception,2 while remaining free of emotional, educational, social, political, or religious ideological bonds. In this light, Hickman's Art Education 11-18 (2004), is a must read for art and design educators currently bogged down in old curriculum, and a must read for educators who incorporate new pedagogical literature easily into their new curriculum. And I say must read because we are on the verge of a revolution in visual art history and education—immersed in it, struggling to make sense of our beloved classical canon of art, and struggling to come to grips with a strangely foreign, beautifully alien, semeiotic reality we call (vaguely) "visual culture." It is a visual culture and history from the north, east, and south. Not just from the west.Key innovative educational issues addressed in these chapters are (respectively) using the dynamic nature of art to expand the curricula (Richard Hickman); the collapse of cultural borders (Lesley Burgess and Nicholas [End Page 92] Addison); a balanced cultural history of the world (Colin Grigg); recognizing art and recognizing visual culture (Howard Hollands); a range of visual cultures and literacy (Darren Newbury); using computer technology as a pathway to a new art and visual culture (Andy Ash); critical study and analysis (Michele Tallack); hand-making as a universal link to nature and art (Rachel Mason); spirituality in the process of art creation (James Hall); and cross-cultural heritage toward a new canon of art (Hickman).I will review each chapter as it pertains to current literature exploring popular pedagogical terms like "visual culture," "postmodernism," "pluralism," and "radicalism" and (more importantly) as it fits into a global system of art and culture. In addition, I suggest another term ("cosmopolitanism"—to identify the viable gay and lesbian aesthetic and culture) not that they are necessarily different, but they are indeed relevant and operate from a fresh literary and historical perspective. Then, I will illustrate how a new, postmodern canon of art must be linked to global visual culture and art in order to expand the concept of visual culture. Thus, I see two tasks before me: the first task is to inventory the philosophy, pedagogy, and meanings within each of the ten chapters in Hickman's Art Education 11-18; and the second task is to integrate key pedagogical ideas highlighted in each chapter as a method of generating a meaningful, holistic, integrated direction for art and design education in the twenty-first century. Integrating Art and Design Education Art is a design process. All subject regimes, D. N. Perkins suggests, are a design process.3 This may seem too obvious now after all these years since the publication of Knowledge... (shrink)

Alva Noë’s version of the enactive conception in _Action in Perception_ is an important contribution to the study of visual perception. First, I argue, however, that it is unclear (at best) whether, as the enactivists claim, work on change blindness supports the denial of the existence of detailed visual representations. Second, I elaborate on what Noë calls the ‘puzzle of perceptual presence’. Thirdly, I question the enactivist account of perceptual constancy. Finally, I draw attention to the tensions between (...) enactivism and two trends in cognitive neuroscience: the two-visual systems model of human vision and the theory of internal forward models of action. (shrink)

Today many philosophers of mind accept that the two cortical streams of visual processing in humans can be distinguished in terms of conscious experience. The ventral stream is thought to produce representations that may become conscious, and the dorsal stream is thought to handle unconscious vision for action. Despite a vast literature on the topic of the two streams, there is currently no account of the way in which the relevant empirical evidence could fit with basic Husserlian phenomenology of (...) vision. Here I offer such an account. In this article, I show how the empirical evidence ought to be understood in a way that is informed by phenomenology. The differences in the two streams are better described as differences in spatial and temporal processing. Rather than simply “unconscious,” the dorsal stream can be better described as making a special contribution to what Husserl identified as the visual horizon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Advocates, Not Problem ParentsAnonymous TwoNothing could have prepared us for the shock of hearing that our son had a brain tumor.Rob* was 13½, an active, healthy eighth grader, when he developed a headache so bad he couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. We saw the pediatrician three times over the next ten days. On the third visit, after ruling out problems at home, stress at school, strep (...) throat and mono, he sent us for an MRI. When the radiology tech handed me the films and told us to drive back to the pediatrician’s office, I knew we were in trouble. Sure enough, after all the other patients had left, our long–time doctor called us into his tiny office, shut the door and fumbled with the films as he pointed to a white spot that he said was a brain tumor.So began the experience that would change the course of our lives. We remember the diagnosis in detail and relive it in slow motion. We recall packing suitcases, driving to the hospital, waiting to be seen in the emergency room, and walking through doors marked “Pediatric Hematology/Oncology” for the first time.We date everything “BC” (Before Cancer) or “AD” (After Diagnosis). We are grateful every day that [End Page 13] our son is alive, but we know he is forever changed. We are changed: Our nuclear family, our extended family, everyone who knew us and supported us at the time was affected. A pediatric cancer diagnosis is a bomb that shatters your world without warning. If you’re lucky, you can pick up a lot of the pieces, maybe even most of them, but the world you re–enter is never the one you inhabited before.Our doctor delivered the diagnosis to Rob and me at the same time. I’ve thought about this many times and perhaps one day will ask him: Why did he choose to do it that way? Was it a conscious decision or just happenstance? Was it kinder, in the long run—like pulling off a band–aid quickly—or terribly risky? What if I had collapsed at the news? I asked to step into the hall to use the phone. In a state of numbness, I called my husband. He knew we had had an MRI a few hours earlier. “Come quickly,” I said. “There’s a mass.”We chose to go to a top-ranked major medical center and were admitted that evening. A couple of days later, the discovery of tumor markers in Rob’s cerebrospinal fluid and blood confirmed a central nervous system mixed germ cell tumor. We were told he would require six cycles of chemotherapy, followed by six weeks of radiation, and possibly second–look surgery and high-dose chemo with stem cell rescue on top of that. We were given a consent form listing a catalogue of short–and long–term side effects, among them the likelihood of infertility. We were urged to start treatment as soon as possible.By sheer coincidence I had just completed a project for a small, nonprofit organization that existed to inform young adult cancer patients about their fertility rights and options. I knew that infertility concerns were usually pushed aside at diagnosis to make way for other priorities, namely the urgency of starting treatment. And that’s exactly the kind of pressure we were facing.But my husband and I were not ready to sign away our son’s fertility in what felt like a no–confidence vote, a capitulation. We needed to believe that he would survive and put this horror behind him, that he would look forward to marriage and starting a family. We were willing to cede nothing to the disease at this early stage of the game. Was this rational, naive or selfish on our part? I don’t know.The medical team seemed surprised when we asked for a delay in treatment in order to collect sperm samples. They warned that our son’s condition could decline suddenly—and that postponing treatment by even several days might be dangerous. However, at our insistence, they agreed to the delay... (shrink)

In this paper we offer a theory of cross-modal objects. To begin, we discuss two kinds of linkages between vision and audition. The first is a duality. The the visual system detects and identifies surfaces ; the auditory system detects and identifies sources . Surfaces are illuminated by sources of light; sound is reflected off surfaces. However, the visual system discounts sources and the auditory system discounts surfaces. These and similar considerations lead to the Theory of Indispensable Attributes (...) that states the conditions for the formation of gestalts in the two modalities. The second linkage involves the formation of audiovisual objects, integrated cross-modal experiences. We describe research that reveals the role of cross-modal causality in the formation of such objects. These experiments use the canonical example of a causal link between vision and audition: a visible impact that causes a percussive sound. (shrink)

According to the received view in the philosophical literature on pictorial perception, when perceiving an object in a picture, we perceive both the picture’s surface and the depicted object, but the surface is only unconsciously represented. Furthermore, it is suggested, such unconscious representation does not need attention. This poses a crucial problem, as empirical research on visual attention shows that there can hardly be any visual representation, conscious or unconscious, without attention. Secondly, according to such a received view, (...) when looking at a picture aesthetically, one both consciously represents and visually attends to both the depicted object and the picture’s surface simultaneously. Thus, contra the empirical research on attention, only conscious visual representations are coupled, by such current view, with attention. And this clearly poses a second problem, as this philosophical account is not in tune with what vision science tells us about the functioning of our visual system. Furthermore, this raises another crucial problem, namely, that of explaining why aesthetic experience of pictures does not feel odd or conflicting, since, as previously noted in the philosophical literature, and contra the received view, if we are simultaneously consciously perceiving both the picture’s surface and the depicted object, there seems to be two things, at the same time, in the foreground of one’s visual consciousness. But, if so, as suggested, this would lead to a conflicting spatial visual experience. This paper offers a new description of the role of visual attention in picture perception, which explains the difference between the usual and the aesthetic way of perceiving a depicted object, without facing the problems reported above. A crucial role in our new account is played by the notion of unconscious attention, the distinction between focal and distributed, as well as top-down and bottom-up visual attention and the relationship between visual attention and visual consciousness. The paper, thus, offers the first theory concerning the exercise of visual attention in pictorial perception that is both philosophically rigorous and empirically reliable. (shrink)

First published in 1995, The Visual Brain in Action remains a seminal publication in the cognitive sciences. It presents a model for understanding the visual processing underlying perception and action, proposing a broad distinction within the brain between two kinds of vision: conscious perception and unconscious 'online' vision. It argues that each kind of vision can occur quasi-independently of the other, and is separately handled by a quite different processing system. In the 11 years since publication, the book (...) has provoked considerable interest and debate - throughout both cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, while the field has continued to flourish and develop. -/- For this new edition, the text from the original edition has been left untouched, standing as a coherent statement of the authors' position. However, a very substantial epilogue has been added to the book in which Milner and Goodale review some of the key developments that support or challenge the views that were put forward in the first edition. The new chapter summarizes developments in various relevant areas of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour. It notably supplements the main text by updating the reader on the contributions that have emerged from the use of functional neuroimaging, which was in its infancy when the first edition was written. Neuroimaging, and functional MRI in particular, has revolutionized the field over the past 11 years by allowing investigators to plot in detail the patterns of activity within the visual brains of behaving and perceiving humans. The authors show how its use now allows scientists to test and confirm their proposals, based as they then were largely on evidence accrued from primate neuroscience in conjunction with studies of neurological patients. (shrink)

Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the "two visual systems" hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in conscious visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3-D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver's bodily actions. In this paper, I review (...) and assess three main sources of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis. I argue that the best interpretation of the evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency. (shrink)

People are ingesting various information from different sense organs all the time to complete different cognitive tasks. The brain integrates and regulates this information. The two significant sensory channels for receiving external information are sight and hearing that have received extensive attention. This paper mainly studies the effect of music and visual-auditory stimulation on electroencephalogram of happy emotion recognition based on a complex system. In the experiment, the presentation was used to prepare the experimental stimulation program, and the cognitive (...) neuroscience experimental paradigm of EEG evoked by happy emotion pictures was established. Using 93 videos as natural stimuli, fMRI data were collected. Finally, the collected EEG signals were removed with the eye artifact and baseline drift, and the t-test was used to analyze the significant differences of different lead EEG data. Experimental data shows that, by adjusting the parameters of the convolutional neural network, the highest accuracy of the two-classification algorithm can reach 98.8%, and the average accuracy can reach 83.45%. The results show that the brain source under the combined visual and auditory stimulus is not a simple superposition of the brain source of the single visual and auditory stimulation, but a new interactive source is generated. (shrink)

Recent work in "embodied, embedded" cognitive science links mental contents to large-scale distributed effects: dynamic patterns implicating elements of (what are traditionally seen as) sensing, reasoning and acting. Central to this approach is an idea of biological cognition as profoundly "action-oriented" - geared not to the creation of rich, passive inner models of the world, but to the cheap and efficient production of real-world action in real-world context. A case in point is Hurley's (1998) account of the profound role of (...) motor output in fixing the contents of conscious visual awareness - an account that also emphasizes distributed vehicles and long-range dynamical loops. Such stories can seem dramatically opposed to accounts, such as Milner and Goodale (1995), that stress relatively local mechanisms and that posit firm divisions between processes of visual awareness and of visuomotor action. But such accounts, I argue, can be deeply complimentary and together illustrate an important lesson. The lesson is that cognition may be embodied and action-oriented in two distinct - but complimentary - ways. There is a way of being embodied and action-oriented that implies being closely geared to the fine-grained control of low level effectors (hands, arms, legs and so on). And there is a way of being embodied and action-oriented that implies being closely geared to gross motor intentions, current goals, and schematic motor plans. Human cognition, I suggest, is embodied and action-oriented in both these ways. But the neural systems involved, and the size and scope of the key dynamic loops, may be quite different in each case. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic (...) representation may involve tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

We identify two aspects of the problem of maintaining perceptual stability despite an observer's eye movements. The first, visual direction constancy, is the (egocentric) stability of apparent positions of objects in the visual world relative to the perceiver. The second, visual position constancy, is the (exocentric) stability of positions of objects relative to each other. We analyze the constancy of visual direction despite saccadic eye movements.Three information sources have been proposed to enable the visual system (...) to achieve stability: the structure of the visual field, proprioceptive inflow, and a copy of neural efference or outflow to the extraocular muscles. None of these sources by itself provides adequate information to achieve visual direction constancy; present evidence indicates that all three are used.Our final question concerns how information processing operations result in a stable world. The three traditionally suggested means have been elimination, translation, or evaluation. All are rejected. From a review of the physiological and psychological evidence we conclude that no subtraction, compensation, or evaluation need take place. The problem for which these solutions were developed turns out to be a false one. We propose a “calibration” solution: correct spatiotopic positions are calculated anew for each fixation. Inflow, outflow, and retinal sources are used in this calculation: saccadic suppression of displacement bridges the errors between these sources and the actual extent of movement. (shrink)