Perceptual completion fills the gap for discrete perception to become continuous. Similarly, dynamic perceptual completion provides an experience of dynamic continuity. Our recent discovery of the ‘happening’ element of DPC completes the total experience for dynamism in the flow of time. However, a phenomenological explanation for these experiences is essential. The Snapshot Hypotheses especially the Dynamic Snapshot View provides the most comprehensive explanation. From that understanding the ‘two times’ problem can be addressed. The static time of spacetime cosmologies (...) has been irreconcilable with the dynamic FOT. Dismissing the FOT as an illusion is unsatisfactory. Therefore, we provide four hypotheses for the TTP.1) Since cosmological static time demands that all events are discrete, DPC elements for dynamism should likewise be expected to be discrete and accounted for by a snapshot phenomenology such as the DSV. 2) If temporality can be demonstrated to be similar to apparent motion by being a snapshot phenomenon and not demanding temporal extension it would confirm the DSV and permit reconciliation with static time. 3) If the ‘present moment’ is subjective as static time theories suggest, it should be possible experimentally for an observer to choose his own ‘present’ by moving to various points in the past with the aid of virtual reality. 4) If dynamism e.g. motion can be precluded without significant information loss or violating physics principles it is a cognitive add-on, thereby contradicting non-static time theories which suggest that time is ‘real.’ We confirm those hypotheses. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an expansion of scientific work on consciousness. However, there is an increasing necessity to integrate evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspectives and to bring affective feelings more centrally into the overall discussion. Pursuant especially to the theorizing of Endel Tulving , Panksepp and Vandekerckhove we will look at the phenomena starting with primary-process consciousness, namely the rudimentary state of autonomic awareness or unknowing consciousness, with a fundamental form of first-person ‘self-experience’ which relies on affective experiential states (...) and raw sensory and perceptual mental existences, to higher forms of knowing and self-aware consciousness. Since current scientific approaches are most concerned with the understanding of higher declarative states of consciousness, we will focus on these vastly underestimated primary forms of consciousness which may be foundational for all forms of higher ‘knowing consciousness’. (shrink)

Our perceptual experiences as of change over time seem to be accompanied by the sense that time flows. The sense of flow is widely regarded as one of the most elusive aspects of temporal experience. In this paper, I develop a novel account of its nature. I give an initial characterization of the sense of flow as the sense that the present changes—in short, as the sense of replacement. Further, I specify the type of account of the sense (...) of replacement to be developed: since the sense that the present changes will be assumed to be grounded in the perceptual representation that the present changes, my focus will be to explain the perceptual representation that the present changes. I develop an account of the synchronic perceptual representation of the present. Finally, I develop an account of the diachronic perceptual representation of the present as changing. (shrink)

Here, I put forward a new account of how experience gives rise to the belief that time passes. While there is considerable disagreement amongst metaphysicians as to whether time really does pass, it has struck many as a default, ‘common sense’ way of thinking about the world. A popular way of explaining how such a belief arises is to say that it seems perceptually as though time passes. Here I outline some difficulties for this approach, and propose instead that the (...) belief in time passing is elicited by a particular feature of agentive experience. When we deliberately move our bodies, bring something to mind, or focus our attention, we experience ourselves as the sources of these actions. Sensing oneself as a source, I argue, is a unique type of change experience, one which leads us to a belief that time is passing. (shrink)

I offer some responses to Prosser’s ‘Experiencing Time’, one of whose goals is to debunk a view of temporal experience somewhat prevalent in the metaphysics literature, which I call ‘Perceptualism’. According to Perceptualism: it is part of the content of perceptual experience that time passes in a metaphysically strong sense: the present has a metaphysically privileged status, and time passes in virtue of changes in which events this ‘objective present’ highlights, and moreover this gives us evidence in favor of (...) strong passage. Prosser argues that perception cannot be sensitive to whether the strong passage obtains, and therefore cannot represent strong passage in a way that gives us evidence of its truth. Although I accept this conclusion, I argue that Prosser’s argument for it is problematic. It threatens to over-generalize to rule out uncontroversial cases of perceptual knowledge, such as our knowledge that we live in a spatial world. Furthermore, a successful argument ruling out perceptual evidence for strong passage would have to give constraints on the theory/observation distinction of a kind not provided by Prosser’s discussion. I also comment on several other parts of the book. (shrink)

Stocks and flows are building blocks of dynamic systems: Stocks change through inflows and outflows, such as our bank balance changing with withdrawals and deposits, or atmospheric CO2 with absorptions and emissions. However, people make systematic errors when trying to infer the behavior of dynamic systems, termed SF failure, whose cognitive explanations are yet unknown. We argue that SF failure appears when people focus on specific system elements, rather than on the system structure and gestalt. Using a standard SF (...) task, SF failure decreased by a global as opposed to local task format; individual global as opposed to local processing styles; and global as opposed to local perceptual priming. These results converge toward local processing as an explanation for SF failure. We discuss theoretical and practical implications on the connections between the scope of attention and understanding of dynamic systems. (shrink)

This is a critical piece on *The Character of Consciousness* by David Chalmers. It focuses on Chalmers's two-stage view of perceptual content and the epistemology of perceptual belief that flows from this theory, and criticizes his theories of Edenic concepts, perceptual acquaintance, and perceptual belief.

Many physicists regard the flow of time as an illusion. There is an upper level flow of time, the phenomenon of past/present/future; and there is a lower level flow of time which is really a flow of events. Perceptual completion accounts for the lower level flow of time in a few ways: apparent movement; amodal completion; and dynamic change as exemplified by a newly described modal completion that we called happening. It acts like an illusory percept connecting discrete stimuli (...) in all sensory modalities. The past/present/future distinction cannot exist unless an object is perceived to be the same now as it is then. This cognition requires object persistence. Experiments with object persistence suggest the circumstances when that, too, is an illusory percept. The illusory percepts of object persistence and perceptual completion can account for the entire flow of time. Our findings and conclusions are congruent with a few time theories and cosmologies that suggest that the flow of time is an illusion. (shrink)

A theory of information is developed in which the informational content of a signal (structure, event) can be specified. This content is expressed by a sentence describing the condition at a source on which the properties of a signal depend in some lawful way. Information, as so defined, though perfectly objective, has the kind of semantic property (intentionality) that seems to be needed for an analysis of cognition. Perceptual knowledge is an information-dependent internal state with a content corresponding to (...) the information producing it. This picture of knowledge captures most of what makes knowledge an important cpistcmological notion. It also avoids many of the problems infecting traditional justificational accounts of knowledge (knowledge as [justified, true belief those (unlike knowledge) having a content that can be either true or false (e.g., belief) – are described in terms of the way internal (presumably neural) structures acquire during learning a certain information-carrying role. The content of these structures (whether true or false) is identified with the kind of information they were developed to carry. (shrink)

Peirce stresses that the pragmatist qua pragmatist must embrace realism as opposed to nominalism. He offers as well “proofs” of realism which are open to various criticisms. Within the framework of his pragmatic vision, the experiential sense of realism is inseparable from the functioning of habit in the flow of time. What is being verified by experimental testing is, ultimately, not a particular scientific law, nor scientific laws in general, but rather the common sense expectation of predictive reliability rooted in (...) the primitive epistemic “feel” of real potentiality, a belief which is dubitable in principle, and which is, in fact, often doubted at the abstract, reflective levels of science, logic, and philosophy, but which, at the level of rudimentary perceptual experience is fundamental to our very sense of our world, and is well verified by the continual availability of our perceptual world. The concrete functioning of habit provides, epistemically, the conceptual counterpart of the real lawfulness held to exist in the world, and provides, ontologically, an example of this real lawfulness. Peirce’s dispositional theory of meaning leads to a metaphysics of realism as opposed to a nominalism, a realism not of eternal essences but a “process realism” in which there are real modes of behavior which govern what occurs. (shrink)

The philosophical tradition of phenomenology, with its focus on human bodily perception, can be used to explore the ways scientific instrumentation shapes a user’s experience. Building on Don Ihde’s account of technological embodiment, I develop a framework of concepts for articulating the experience of image interpretation in science. These concepts can be of practical value to the analysis of scientific debates over image interpretation for the ways they draw out the relationships between the image-making processes and the rival scientific explanations (...) of image content. As a guiding example, I explore a contemporary debate over images of the surface of Mars which reveal a landmass that resembles river delta formations on Earth, and which thus has important implications for the history of Martian climate and water flow. The phenomenological framework I develop can be used to help evaluate the different interpretations on offer for these images, and to analyze the roles in this discussion played by spacecraft equipped with cameras and laser and thermal imaging devices. (shrink)

The questions whether the content of perception is nonconceptual and, if so, whether it can serve as the justificatory basis for perceptual beliefs have been at the epicentre of wide-ranging debates in recent philosophy of mind and epistemology. The present dissertation will set out to answer these matters. It will be argued that the content of perception is not necessarily conceptual, i.e. a specific understanding of nonconceptual content will be laid out and defended. Starting from the presentation and criticism (...) of conceptualism, it will be concluded that the arguments brought forth against nonconceptualism can successfully be met. A specific version of nonconceptualism will be developed on this basis and will serve as the necessary framework for the remainder of the discussion. Flowing from these arguments, this specific version of nonconceptualism will be taken to task by clarifying, analysing and specifying its epistemological commitments and options. Several problem sets will have to be introduced and evaluated, such as the divide between externalists and internalists, the phenomena surrounding epistemic defeaters and examinations pertaining to reasoning, specifically whether experiences could be the output states of inferential processes. These reflections will not only provide a more in-depth investigation of some of the most pressing epistemological questions surrounding nonconceptual content, but will also allow for a seamless transition into the problem of which specific epistemological theory best bears out the epistemological role of nonconceptual content. Specifically, disjunctivism, capacity approaches and phenomenal conservatism will be assessed as to their capacity to vindicate nonconceptual content. Phenomenal conservatism will be identified as the theory that best integrates nonconceptualism. While phenomenal conservatism will thus be defended, the closing sections of the present dissertation will mainly focus on questions surrounding rationality. Indeed, if perception and/ or perceptual experiences could be classified as rational, or more accurately put, if arguments pertaining to the evaluability of a perceptual experience’s aetiology are tenable, it can reasonably be asked whether phenomenal conservatism can satisfactorily meet this challenge. Ultimately, it will be concluded that there is room for a specific notion of nonconceptual content as the justificatory basis for basic perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

In this contribution we will approach language and images in different modalities: speech and face, anticipated and imagined movements, illusions on the sound by the image. It will be the opportunity for us to revisit the Gestalt concepts which were considered obsolete since structuralism in Humanities. As instantiated by Gilbert Durand in The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary (1999, French 1st ed. 1960), we shall recall that Gestalt is not—even implicitly—an exclusively static approach to cognition. On the contrary we will (...) emphasize that forms can emerge from movements and stabilize in memory, thence morphology. And for speech, we will consider phonology as the stabilized outcome from audible and visible gestures of the mouth—caught in the time-course of a flow of some four in six syllables by second—via the perception of motor coordinations: which is necessary to master the most common expression of language between humans. We will adopt here also for the perceptual flows of spoken language, Multimodal Scene Analysis, the ongoing legacy of Gestalt Theory, including one of our main research topics: the gestural expression of the face and the hand for Deaf people, who practise as an augment French LPC (Langue française Parlée Complétée), adapted in 1967 from Cued Speech by its originator Dr Richard Cornett. (shrink)

Within the field of systems theory, the term robustness has typically been applied to different contexts such as automatic control, genetic networks, metabolic pathways, morphogenesis, and ecosystems. All these systems involve either man-made machines, or living organisms. In this chapter, we will consider music as a peculiar complex system, involving both the realm of machines and the realm of biology. We will discuss some of the properties of music experience in terms of different attributes of robustness, focusing in particular on (...) stability, the property enabling a complex system to maintain its function against a wide range of external and internal changes. We will provide examples of the human ability of isolating and maintaining stable information within the perceptual flow and despite changes in the external world that reach our perceptions, leading towards a characterization of robustness in music perception as referred both to the search for regularities and to the range of tolerance that perception admits to regularities. Finally, we will list four multiple interaction cycles that typically characterize music experience and that involve both internal properties of the organism and the environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The difference between perception and cognition seems introspectively obvious in many cases. Perceiving and thinking have also been assigned quite different roles, in epistemology, in theories of reference and of mental content, in philosophy of psychology, and elsewhere. Yet what is the nature of the distinction? In what way, or ways, do perception and cognition differ? The paper reviews recent work on these questions. Four main respects in which perception and cognition have been held to differ are discussed. First, (...) their phenomenal character, such as the often-remarked vivacity or immediacy of perception. Second, the way in which they represent the world, e.g. the non-propositional nature of the contents, or non-discursive character of the vehicles, that have been held to characterise perceptual representation. Third, their place in cognitive architecture, i.e., roughly, in the information-flow of the mind, such as their alleged (non-)modularity. Fourth, their mind-world relations, e.g. the way in which perceptions seem to be tightly causally linked with distal or proximal stimuli. Against this background, we distinguish some main options for an account of the perception/cognition distinction, in particular concerning whether there is one, several, or no interesting and principled distinction(s) to be drawn here. (shrink)

It is often assumed that it seems to each of us as though time flows, or passes. On that assumption it follows either that time does in fact pass, and then, pretty plausibly, we have mechanisms that detect its passage, or that time does not pass, and we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion. If the former is the case, we are faced with the explanatory task of spelling out which perceptual or cognitive mechanism (or combination thereof) (...) allows us to detect and track time’s passage (§2.1) If the latter, then we are faced with the task of explaining how, and why, we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion (§2.2). There is, however, a third, somewhat less discussed, explanatory project. Rather than assuming that it seems to each of us as though time passes, and then attempting to explain why it seems that way, we jettison that assumption. According to these views it does not seem to us as though time passes; instead, we come to falsely believe that it seems to us as though time passes (§3). This view requires that we explain how we come to have systematically false beliefs about the way our experiences seem to us. This paper aims to motivate this third explanatory strategy and say something about what kind of cognitive mechanisms might be responsible for our having a false belief that it seems as though time passes, (§3.1) and why we might have evolved (some of) those mechanisms (§3.2). In particular, the paper does not aim to argue for this view: rather, it aims to present it as a viable contender alongside other more common views. (shrink)

The concept of locally specialized functions dominates research on higher brain function and its disorders. Locally specialized functions must be complemented by processes that coordinate those functions, however, and impairment of coordinating processes may be central to some psychotic conditions. Evidence for processes that coordinate activity is provided by neurobiological and psychological studies of contextual disambiguation and dynamic grouping. Mechanisms by which this important class of cognitive functions could be achieved include those long-range connections within and between cortical regions that (...) activate synaptic channels via NMDA-receptors, and which control gain through their voltage-dependent mode of operation. An impairment of these mechanisms is central to PCP-psychosis, and the cognitive capabilities that they could provide are impaired in some forms of schizophrenia. We conclude that impaired cognitive coordination due to reduced ion flow through NMDA-channels is involved in schizophrenia, and we suggest that it may also be involved in other disorders. This perspective suggests several ways in which further research could enhance our understanding of cognitive coordination, its neural basis, and its relevance to psychopathology. Key Words: attention; cerebral cortex; cognitive coordination; cognitive neuropsychiatry; cognitive neuropsychology; context disorganization; Gamma rhythms; Gestalt theory; glutamate; grouping; memory; NMDA-receptors; PCP-psychosis; perceptual organization; schizophrenia. (shrink)

Awareness is a personal experience, which is only accessible to the rest of world through interpretation. We set out to identify a neural correlate of visual awareness, using brief subliminal and supraliminal verbal stimuli while measuring cerebral blood flow distribution with H215O PET. Awareness of visual verbal stimuli differentially activated medial parietal association cortex (precuneus), which is a polymodal sensory cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is thought to be primarily executive. Our results suggest participation of these higher order (...) class='Hi'>perceptual and executive cortical structures in visual verbal awareness. (shrink)

I argue for the following claims: (1) A core Husserlian account of perceptual constancy needs to be given in terms of indicative future-oriented conditionals but can be complemented by a counterfactual account; (2) thus conceived, constancy is a necessary aspect of content. I speak about a “core Husserlian” account so as to capture certain ideas that Michael Madary has presented as the core of Edmund Husserl's approach to perceptual constancy, viz., that “perception is partly constituted by the continuous (...) interplay of intention and fulfilment” and that this “gives us a way to understand the relationship between different appearances of the same object” (See Madary, M. (2012) “Husserl on Perceptual Constancy.” European Journal of Philosophy 20(1): 145–165.). I take myself to be developing, and perhaps correcting, Madary's view as I discuss the role of the core Husserlian ideas, and counterfactuals, in accounting for shape and color constancy, respectively. I bridge constancy and fulfilment-conditional content by appealing to the Husserlian notion of constitution, which captures the process in which objectivity and, correlatively, intentional experience, are built up in the experiential flow. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that time appears to be tensed, i.e. divided into a future, present and past, and transitory, i.e. involving some kind of ‘flow’ or ‘passage’ of times or events from the future into the present and away into the distant past. In this paper I provide some reasons to doubt that time appears to be tensed and transitory, or at least that philosophers who have suggested that time appears to be that way have included in ‘appearance’ everything (...) that falls under the broad term ‘cognition’, i.e. mental processes of all kinds, including perceiving, remembering, imagining, and thinking. I argue that the tensed and transitory aspect of our experience of temporal reality is, firstly, subordinate to our experience of a world of persistent objects, secondly, in conflict with a popular conception of the nature of persistent material objects, and finally, that it is an aspect of how we think about temporal reality rather than how we actually experience it. I support the last contention by a comparison with our experience of spatiality, which arguably has three distinguishable components: (i) ‘pure input perception’, (ii) ‘perceptual experience modulated by top down cognitive processes’, and (iii) a ‘pure representation of space’. For space, the modulation of our perception of space at any given moment is highly influenced by our pure representation of space, but it is not clear to me that our modulated experience of space is influenced by a pure representation of time. Rather, the modulated experience of temporality, to my mind, is much more clearly an experience of continuous existence of the persisting objects that make up the world. (shrink)

Action is a means of acquiring perceptual information about the environment. Turning around, for example, alters your spatial relations to surrounding objects and, hence, which of their properties you visually perceive. Moving your hand over an object’s surface enables you to feel its shape, temperature, and texture. Sniffing and walking around a room enables you to track down the source of an unpleasant smell. Active or passive movements of the body can also generate useful sources of perceptual information (...) (Gibson 1966, 1979). The pattern of optic flow in the retinal image produced by forward locomotion, for example, contains information about the direction in which you are heading, while motion parallax is a “cue” used by the visual system to estimate the relative distances of objects in your field of view. In these uncontroversial ways and others, perception is instrumentally dependent on action. According to an explanatory framework that Susan Hurley (1998) dubs the “Input-Output Picture”, the dependence of perception on action is purely instrumental: "Movement can alter sensory inputs and so result in different perceptions… changes in output are merely a means to changes in input, on which perception depends directly" (1998: 342). -/- The action-based theories of perception, reviewed in this entry, challenge the Input-Output Picture. They maintain that perception can also depend in a noninstrumental or constitutive way on action (or, more generally, on capacities for object-directed motor control). This position has taken many different forms in the history of philosophy and psychology. Most action-based theories of perception in the last 300 years, however, have looked to action in order to explain how vision, in particular, acquires either all or some of its spatial representational content. Accordingly, these are the theories on which we shall focus here. -/- We begin in Section 1 by discussing George Berkeley’s Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), the historical locus classicus of action-based theories of perception, and one of the most influential texts on vision ever written. Berkeley argues that the basic or “proper” deliverance of vision is not an arrangement of voluminous objects in three-dimensional space, but rather a two-dimensional manifold of light and color. We then turn to a discussion of Lotze, Helmholtz, and the local sign doctrine. The “local signs” were felt cues for the mind to know what sort of spatial content to imbue visual experience with. For Lotze, these cues were “inflowing” kinaesthetic feelings that result from actually moving the eyes, while, for Helmholtz, they were “outflowing” motor commands sent to move the eyes. -/- In Section 2, we discuss sensorimotor contingency theories, which became prominent in the 20thcentury. These views maintain that an ability to predict the sensory consequences of self-initiated actions is necessary for perception. Among the motivations for this family of theories is the problem of visual direction constancy—why do objects appear to be stationary even though the locations on the retina to which they reflect light change with every eye movement?—as well as experiments on adaptation to optical rearrangement devices (ORDs) and sensory substitution. -/- Section 3 examines two other important 20th century theories. According to what we shall call the motor component theory, efference copies generated in the oculomotor system and/or proprioceptive feedback from eye-movements are used together with incoming sensory inputs to determine the spatial attributes of perceived objects. Efferent readiness theories, by contrast, look to the particular ways in which perceptual states prepare the observer to move and act in relation to the environment. The modest readiness theory, as we shall call it, claims that the way an object’s spatial attributes are represented in visual experience can be modulated by one or another form of covert action planning. The bold readiness theory argues for the stronger claim that perception just is covert readiness for action. -/- In Section 4, we move to the disposition theory, most influentially articulated by Gareth Evans (1982, 1985), but more recently defended by Rick Grush (2000, 2007). Evans’ theory is, at its core, very similar to the bold efferent readiness theory. There are some notable differences, though. Evans’ account is more finely articulated in some philosophical respects. It also does not posit a reduction of perception to behavioral dispositions, but rather posits that certain complicated relations between perceptual input and behavioral provide spatial content. Grush proposes a very specific theory that is like Evans’ in that it does not posit a reduction, but unlike Evans’ view, does not put behavioral dispositions and sensory input on an undifferentiated footing. (shrink)

Can what we know change what we see? Does language affect cognition and perception? The last few years have seen increased attention to these seemingly disparate questions, but with little theoretical advance. We argue that substantial clarity can be gained by considering these questions through the lens of predictive processing, a framework in which mental representations—from the perceptual to the cognitive—reflect an interplay between downward-flowing predictions and upward-flowing sensory signals. This framework provides a parsimonious account of how what we (...) know ought to change what we see and helps us understand how a putatively high-level trait such as language can impact putatively low-level processes such as perception. Within this framework, language begins to take on a surprisingly central role in cognition by providing a uniquely focused and flexible means of constructing predictions against which sensory signals can be evaluated. Predictive processing thus provides a plausible mechanism for many of the reported effects of language on perception, thought, and action, and new insights on how and when speakers of different languages construct the same “reality” in alternate ways. (shrink)

A venerable view holds that a border between perception and cognition is built into our cognitive architecture and that this imposes limits on the way information can flow between them. While the deliverances of perception are freely available for use in reasoning and inference, there are strict constraints on information flow in the opposite direction. Despite its plausibility, this approach to the perception-cognition border has faced criticism in recent years. This article develops an updated version of the architectural approach, which (...) I call the dimension restriction hypothesis (DRH). According to DRH, perceptual processes are constrained to compute over a bounded range of dimensions, while cognitive processes are not. This view allows that perception is cognitively penetrable, but places strict limits on the varieties of penetration that can occur. The article argues that DRH enjoys both theoretical and empirical support, and also defends the view against several objections. (shrink)

We use the hierarchical nature of Bayesian perceptual inference to explain a fundamental aspect of the temporality of experience, namely the phenomenology of temporal flow. The explanation says that the sense of temporal flow in conscious perception stems from probabilistic inference that the present cannot be trusted. The account begins by describing hierarchical inference under the notion of prediction error minimization, and exemplifies distrust of the present within bistable visual perception and action initiation. Distrust of the present is then (...) discussed in relation to previous research on temporal phenomenology. Finally, we discuss how there may be individual differences in the experience of temporal flow, in particular along the autism spectrum. The resulting view is that the sense of temporal flow in conscious perception results from an internal, inferential process. (shrink)

Recent work in cognitive and computational neuroscience depicts the human brain as a complex, multi-layer prediction engine. This family of models has had great success in accounting for a wide variety of phenomena involving perception, action, and attention. But despite their clear promise as accounts of the neurocomputational origins of perceptual experience, they have not yet been leveraged so as to shed light on the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness—the problem of explaining why and how the world is subjectively (...) experienced at all, and why those experiences seem just the way they do. To address this issue, I motivate and defend a picture of conscious experience as flowing from “generative entanglements” that mix predictions about the world, the body, and our own reactive dispositions. (shrink)

What’s presented in our normal waking perceptual visual experiences feels present to us, while what we “see” in pictures and imagine does not. What about dreams? Does what we “see” in a dream feel present? Jennifer Windt has argued for an affirmative answer, for all dreams. But the dreams which flow from the brain’s registration of myoclonic twitches present a challenge to this answer. During these dreams motion-guiding vision is shut off, and, as Mohan Matthen has argued, motion-guiding vision (...) seems to be a key mechanism underlying the feeling of presence. I propose that the feeling of presence in fact involves two components: the feeling of immersion, and the feeling of availability for action. I suggest that only the feeling of availability for action derives from motion-guiding vision, and, hence, hypothesize that body-driven dreams lack this component to the feeling of presence. Finally, the distinction between these two varieties of presence has implications for measures of presence in virtual environments, as these measures can diverge over which of the two varieties they track. (shrink)

Blindsight is a kind of residual vision found in people with lesions to V1. Subjects with blindsight typically report no visual awareness, but they are nonetheless able to make above-chance guesses about the shape, location, color and movement of visual stimuli presented to them in their blind field. A different kind of blindsight, sometimes called type 2 blindsight, is a kind of residual vision found in patients with V1 lesions in the presence of some residual awareness. Type 2 blindsight differs (...) from ordinary visual experience in lacking the particularity, transparency and fine-grainedness often taken to be essential to visual experience, at least in veridical cases. I argue that the case of type 2 blindsight provides a counterexample to the view that these characteristics are essential to veridical visual experience and that this gives us reason to resist the view that visual experience is essentially a perceptual relation to external objects. In the second part of the paper I argue that the case of type 2 blindsight yields important insights into the effects of attentional modulation on perceptual content and that cases of attentional modulation of appearance are not at odds with the view that the phenomenology of visual experience flows from its content. (shrink)

In recent years there has been growing attention paid to a kind of human action or activity which does not issue from a process of reflection and deliberation and which is described as, e.g., ‘engaged coping’, ‘unreflective action’, and ‘flow’. Hubert Dreyfus, one of its key proponents, has developed a phenomenology of expertise which he has applied to ethics in order to account for ‘everyday ongoing ethical coping’ or ‘ethical expertise’. This article addresses the shortcomings of this approach by examining (...) the pre-reflective ethical know-how individuals first develop and on which all later forms of ethical expertise are dependent. In the first section an account is given of the ‘ethical second nature’ which every individual develops from childhood onwards and which forms the basis of pre-reflective ethical know-how. The acquisition of an ethical second nature early on opens up the very domain of ‘the ethical’ for us in the first place and is constitutive of our sensitivity to it. The second section turns to pre-reflective ethical know-how and whether it is conceptual in nature. Just as sensorimotor understanding forms the basis of our reflective perceptual concepts, pre-reflective ethical know-how is similarly proto-conceptual and is the source of our reflective ethical and moral concepts. Finally, the third section examines the process whereby ethical second nature and pre-reflective ethical know-how are actually acquired, namely, through immersion in an ‘ethical world’. This world consists of both the web of ethical meanings and significances which has evolved in a particular society or community as well as its members whose actions and interactions continually reproduce that web. (shrink)

The point of departure for husserl's mature account of memory is his rejection of the traditional view that what is immediately and directly experienced in memory is a present image or replica of what is past and not what is past itself. Husserl rejects the image theory on logical and descriptive grounds, Arguing that memory is a direct consciousness of the past. Memory is experienced as a unique mode of consciousness giving its object in a manner irreducible to pictorial or (...) perceptual modes. Husserl's exploration of memory thus understood includes discussion of the differing temporal determinations of memory and its object, Of memory's relation to the absolute time-Constituting flow of consciousness, Of memory as representation of earlier perception, And of the various senses and ways in which empty memorial intentions can be brought to fulfillment. (shrink)

Neural Darwinism (ND) is a large scale selectionist theory of brain development and function that has been hypothesized to relate to consciousness. According to ND, consciousness is entailed by reentrant interactions among neuronal populations in the thalamocortical system (the ‘dynamic core’). These interactions, which permit high-order discriminations among possible core states, confer selective advantages on organisms possessing them by linking current perceptual events to a past history of value-dependent learning. Here, we assess the consistency of ND with 16 widely (...) recognized properties of consciousness, both physiological (for example, consciousness is associated with widespread, relatively fast, low amplitude interactions in the thalamocortical system), and phenomenal (for example, consciousness involves the existence of a private flow of events available only to the experiencing subject). While no theory accounts fully for all of these properties at present, we find that ND and its recent extensions fare well. (shrink)

Following the pioneering studies of the receptive field (RF), the concept gained further significance for visual perception by the discovery of input effects from beyond the classical RF. These studies demonstrated that neuronal responses could be modulated by stimuli outside their RFs, consistent with the perception of induced brightness, color, orientation, and motion. Lesion scotomata are similarly modulated perceptually from the surround by RFs that have migrated from the interior to the outer edge of the scotoma and in this way (...) provide filling-in of the void. Large RFs are advantageous to this task. In higher visual areas, such as the middle temporal and inferotemporal lobe, RFs increase in size and lose most of their retinotopic organization while encoding increasingly complex features. Whereas lowerlevel RFs mediate perceptual filling-in, contour integration, and figure–ground segregation, RFs at higher levels serve the perception of grouping by common fate, biological motion, and other biologically relevant stimuli, such as faces. Studies in alert monkeys while freely viewing natural scenes showed that classical and nonclassical RFs cooperate in forming representations of the visual world. Today, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the RF is undergoing a quantum leap. What had started out as a hierarchical feedforward concept for simple stimuli, such as spots, lines, and bars, now refers to mechanisms involving ascending, descending, and lateral signal flow. By extension of the bottom-up paradigm, RFs are nowadays understood as adaptive processors, enabling the predictive coding of complex scenes. Top-down effects guiding attention and tuned to task-relevant information complement the bottom-up analysis. (shrink)

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception -- specifically perception of order and duration -- since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are (...) examined. The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow. (shrink)

IN A recent work I have attempted to show that visual space tends to have a Euclidean geometrical structure only when the environment is filled with a repetitive pattern of regularly faceted objects carpentered to exhibit simple standard Euclidean shapes, and tends to have a hyperbolic structure when vision is deprived of these clues. I conclude that visual perception--and by analogy, all perception--is hermeneutic as well as causal: it responds to structures in the flow of optical energy, but the character (...) of its response is also hermeneutical, that is, it has the capacity to "read" the appropriate structures in the World, and to form perceptual judgments of the World about which these "speak." The clues that are "read" perceptually as giving a Euclidean visual space are engineered objects, such as streets and buildings with repetitive architectural elements. These scientific artifacts of human culture belong to a family of readable technologies central to the phenomenological and existential-hermeneutical analysis of natural science. (shrink)

According to the traditional inferential theory of perception, percepts of object motion or stationarity stem from an evaluation of afferent retinal signals (which encode image motion) with the help of extraretinal signals (which encode eye movements). According to direct perception theory, on the other hand, the percepts derive from retinally conveyed information only. Neither view is compatible with a perceptual phenomenon that occurs during visually induced sensations of ego motion (vection). A modified version of inferential theory yields a model (...) in which the concept of extraretinal signals is replaced by that of reference signals, which do not encode how the eyes move in their orbits but how they move in space. Hence reference signals are produced not only during eye movements but also during ego motion (i.e., in response to vestibular stimulation and to retinal image flow, which may induce vection). The present theory describes the interface between self-motion and object-motion percepts. An experimental paradigm that allows quantitative measurement of the magnitude and gain of reference signals and the size of the just noticeable difference (JND) between retinal and reference signals reveals that the distinction between direct and inferential theories largely depends on: (1) a mistaken belief that perceptual veridicality is evidence that extraretinal information is not involved, and (2) a failure to distinguish between (the perception of) absolute object motion in space and relative motion of objects with respect to each other. The model corrects these errors, and provides a new, unified framework for interpreting many phenomena in the field of motion perception. (shrink)

In the past four years, a small but intense debate has transpired on the margins of mainstream scholarship in the discipline of Philosophy, particularly within the sub-field of American pragmatism. While most philosophical pragmatists dedicate their attention to questions concerning how ideas improve experience (or the theory-practice continuum), those participating in this exchange have shown greater concern for an issue that is, at its core, a theoretical matter: Does the theory of experience espoused by the classic American philosopher John Dewey (...) succumb to what contemporary analytic philosophers—for instance, Wilfred Sellars, Donald Davidson and John McDowell—call the Myth of the Given? One commentator, Scott Aikin, claims that Dewey relied on non-inferential and non-conceptual content or givens as perceptual inputs for cognitive experience. The upshot of Aikin’s objection is that these experiential givens constitute a proxy epistemological foundation for the beliefs that flow from inquiry—a position clearly in conflict with Dewey’s commitment to anti-foundationalism. The objection assumes a slightly different form in the hands of another scholar of American pragmatism, Colin Koopman. Gregory Pappas and David Hildebrand respond to Koopman’s version of the objection. The goals of this essay are to clarify the objection, highlight the stakes in the debate, identify misunderstandings of Dewey’s experiential metaphysics on both sides, and determine why the experiential givenism objection merits serious philosophical scrutiny in the future. (shrink)

Attention influences the character of conscious perceptual experience in intricate and surprising ways, including our experience of contrast, space, and time. These patterns of influence have been argued to cause trouble for the attractive thesis that differences in the character of conscious experience flow from differences in what we represent. I present a novel theory of the functional role of attention that has the resources for a systematic representationalist account of these phenomena. On the erotetic theory of attention, we (...) bring an interest to the task of perception, captured as a question we seek to answer. Questions, as understood here, are contents that cognitive systems can represent rather than sentences. We process perceptual input as a putative answer to our question in a way that is modulated by attentional focus; attentional focus aims to pick out something that matches what our question is “about.” In certain cases, this yields a form of predictive coding: if the contribution of focus matches what our question is about, we take it to select one of the possible answers we are entertaining, even though our perceptual input by itself does not supply a full answer. The proposed account also provides a new account of the phenomenology of salience. (shrink)

Introspective subjective reports cannot provide direct evidence that phenomenal experience overflows cognitive access. This problem for the overflow view is underappreciated in several ways: first, it places the onus on the overflow theorist to explain how sub-jective reports can be used to provide evidence for overflow. Second, it implies that there must be a true non-overflow account of subjective reports of overflow, even if there is overflow. Thus, attempting to dis-prove all anti- overflow explanations of subjective reports is futile. Third, (...) it follows that the focus of enquiry should be on unconscious processing and indirect measures of conscious awareness; this is the area where the debate may be advanced. Finally, employment of inadmissible subjective reports continues to undermine work by over-flow theorists like Bronfman et al. and Block. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to test the effect of face cooling with cold water vs. face cooling with neutral water during high-intensity swimming training on both the core temperature and thermal perceptions in internationally ranked long-distance swimmers during 2 randomized swimming sessions. After a standardized warm-up of 1,200 m, the athletes performed a standardized training session that consisted of 2,000 m at a best velocity then 600 m of aerobic work. Heart rate was continuously monitored during 5 × (...) 400 m, whereas Tco, thermal comfort, and thermal sensation were measured before and after each 400 m. Before and after each 400 m, the swimmers were asked to flow 200 mL of cold water or neutral water packaged in standardized bottles on their face. The swimmers were asked don’t drink during exercise. The velocity was significantly different between cold water and neutral water. The Tco was increased by ±0.5°C at race pace, under both face cooling conditions with no significant difference. No significant changes were noted in mean HR. TC was higher with Cold Cooling than Neutral Cooling and TS was lower with Cold cooling compared with Neutral cooling. The changes in perceptual parameters caused by face cooling with cold water reflect the psychological impact on the physical parameters. The mean velocity was less important with face cooling whereas the heat rate and Tco were the same in the both conditions. The mechanism leading to these results seems to involve brain integration of signals from physiological and psychological sources. (shrink)

The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a (...) dendritic cell ontology (DC-CL). DC-CL subtypes are delineated on the basis of surface protein expression, systematically including both species-general and species-specific types and optimizing DC-CL for the analysis of flow cytometry data. This approach brings benefits in the form of increased accuracy, support for reasoning, and interoperability with other ontology resources. 104. Barry Smith, “Toward a Realistic Science of Environments”, Ecological Psychology, 2009, 21 (2), April-June, 121-130. Abstract: The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’. (shrink)

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception – specifically perception of order and duration – since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are (...) examined. The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow. (shrink)

Temporal binding via 40-Hz synchronization of neuronal discharges in sensory cortices has been hypothesized to be a necessary condition for the rapid selection of perceptually relevant information for further processing in working memory. Binocular rivalry experiments have shown that late stage visual processing associated with the recognition of a stimulus object is highly correlated with discharge rates in inferotemporal cortex. The hippocampus is the primary recipient of inferotemporal outputs and is known to be the substrate for the consolidation of working (...) memories to long-term, episodic memories. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is widely thought to mediate working memory processes, per se. This article reviews accumulated evidence for the role of a subcortical matrix in linking frontal and hippocampal systems to select and ''stream'' conscious episodes across time (hundreds of milliseconds to several seconds). ''Streaming'' is hypothesized to be mediated by the selective gating of reentrant flows of information between these cortical systems and the subcortical matrix. The physiological mechanism proposed for this temporally extended form of binding is synchronous oscillations in the slower EEG spectrum (< 8 Hz). (shrink)

ABSTRACT: McDowell argues that the shortcomings of recent theories of experience are the product of the modern scientistic conception of nature. Reconceive nature, he suggests, and we can explain how perceptual experience can be an external constraint on thought that, moreover, has conceptual import. In this article I argue that McDowell’s project is unsuccessful. Those wishing to construct normative theories, including theories of perceptual experience, face the normative trilemma—they must choose one of three styles of theory, each of (...) which exhibits a distinctive weakness. If we view McDowell’s approach in light of this choice, we see that he cannot adequately explain the link between experience and the world itself. I conclude that the real problem with theories of experience flows not from scientistic naturalism, but rather from the inconsistent demands we place on normative theories in general.RÉSUMÉ: McDowell soutient que les défauts des théories récentes sur l’expérience sont engendrés par la position scientifique moderne sur la nature. En reconcevant la nature, suggère-t-il, on est en mesure d’expliquer comment l’expérience sensorielle peut être une contrainte extérieure sur la pensée, contrainte qui joue, de plus, un rôle conceptuel. Je soutiens dans cet article que le projet de McDowell se solde par un échec. Ceux qui souhaitent élaborer des théories normatives, y compris des théories sur l’expérience sensorielle, font face au trilemme normatif — ils doivent choisir un type de théorie parmi trois types qui trahissent tous une faiblesse particulière. Si l’on envisage la démarche de McDowell dans la perspective de ce choix, on s’aperçoit qu’il ne peut expliquer de manière satisfaisante le lien entre l’expérience et le monde lui-même. J’en conclus que le véritable problème des théories sur l’expérience ne découle pas du naturalisme scientifique, mais plutôt des exigences incohérentes auxquelleson soumet les théories normatives en général. (shrink)

The confluence of creativity in music performance finds itself in performance practices and cultural motifs, the communication of the human body along with the instrument it interacts with, and individual performers’ perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities that contribute to varied musical interpretations of the same piece or melodic line. The musical and artistic execution of a player, as well as the product of this phenomena can become determinant causes in a creative mental state. With advances in neurocognitive measures, the (...) state of one’s artistic intuition and execution has been a growing interest in understanding the creative thought process of human behavior, particularly in improvising artists. This article discusses the implementation on the concurrence of spontaneous (Type-1) and controlled (Type-2) processing modes that may be apparent in the perception of non-improvising artists on how melodic lines are perceived in music performance. Elucidating the cortical-subcortical activity in the dual-process model may extend to non-improvising musicians explored in the paradigm of neural correlates. These interactions may open new possibilities for expanding the repertoire of executive functions, creativity, and the coordinated activity of cortical-subcortical regions that regulate the free flow of artistic ideas and expressive spontaneity in future neuromusical research. (shrink)

Motion-sound synesthesia is characterized by illusory auditory sensations linked to the pattern and rhythms of motion of visually experienced but soundless object, like an optical flow array, a ball bouncing or a horse galloping. In an MRI study with a group of three synesthetes and a group of eighteen control participants, we found structural changes in the brains of synesthetes in the subcortical multisensory areas of the superior and inferior colliculi. In addition, functional magnetic resonance imaging data showed activity in (...) motion-sensitive regions, as well as temporal and occipital areas, and the cerebellum. However, the synesthetes had a higher activation within the left and right cuneus, with stronger activations when viewing optical flow stimuli. There was also a general difference in connectivity of the colliculi with the above mentioned regions between the two groups. These findings implicate low-level mechanisms within the human neuroaxis as a substrate for local connectivity and cross activity between perceptual processes that are “distant” in terms of cortical topography. The present findings underline the importance of considering the role of subcortical systems and their connectivity to multimodal regions of the cortex and they strengthen a parsimonious account of synesthesia, at the least of the visual-auditory type. (shrink)

The Emergic Cognitive Model (ECM) is a unified computational model of visual filling-in based on the Emergic Network architecture. The Emergic Network was designed to help realize systems undergoing continuous change. In this thesis, eight different filling-in phenomena are demonstrated under a regime of continuous eye movement (and under static eye conditions as well). -/- ECM indirectly demonstrates the power of unification inherent with Emergic Networks when cognition is decomposed according to finer-grained functions supporting change. These can interact to raise (...) additional emergent behaviours via cognitive re-use, hence the Emergic prefix throughout. Nevertheless, the model is robust and parameter free. Differential re-use occurs in the nature of model interaction with a particular testing paradigm. -/- ECM has a novel decomposition due to the requirements of handling motion and of supporting unified modelling via finer functional grains. The breadth of phenomenal behaviour covered is largely to lend credence to our novel decomposition. -/- The Emergic Network architecture is a hybrid between classical connectionism and classical computationalism that facilitates the construction of unified cognitive models. It helps cutting up of functionalism into finer-grains distributed over space (by harnessing massive recurrence) and over time (by harnessing continuous change), yet simplifies by using standard computer code to focus on the interaction of information flows. Thus while the structure of the network looks neurocentric, the dynamics are best understood in flowcentric terms. Surprisingly, dynamic system analysis (as usually understood) is not involved. An Emergic Network is engineered much like straightforward software or hardware systems that deal with continuously varying inputs. Ultimately, this thesis addresses the problem of reduction and induction over complex systems, and the Emergic Network architecture is merely a tool to assist in this epistemic endeavour. -/- ECM is strictly a sensory model and apart from perception, yet it is informed by phenomenology. It addresses the attribution problem of how much of a phenomenon is best explained at a sensory level of analysis, rather than at a perceptual one. As the causal information flows are stable under eye movement, we hypothesize that they are the locus of consciousness, howsoever it is ultimately realized. (shrink)