Virtual action: O'Regan & Noë meet Bergson

Stephen E. Robbins

doi:10.1017/s0140525x04320200

Virtual action: O'Regan & Noë meet Bergson

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x04320200 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 27 (6) ◽

pp. 906-907 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Stephen E. Robbins

Keyword(s):

Visual Experience ◽

Henri Bergson ◽

Time Motion ◽

Sensorimotor Contingencies

Bergson, writing in 1896, anticipated “sensorimotor contingencies” under the concept that perception is “virtual action.” But to explain the external image, he embedded this concept in a holographic framework where time-motion is an indivisible and the relation of subject/object is in terms of time. The target article's account of qualitative visual experience falls short for lack of this larger framework.[Objects] send back, then, to my body, as would a mirror, their eventual influence; they take rank in an order corresponding to the growing or decreasing powers of my body. The objects which surround my body reflect its possible action upon them.– Henri Bergson (1896/1912, pp. 6–7)

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Seeing, acting, and knowing

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x01510110 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 24 (5) ◽

pp. 999-999 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Zenon W. Pylyshyn

Keyword(s):

Visual Experience ◽

The Other ◽

Target Article ◽

The World ◽

Perceptual Representations ◽

Sensorimotor Contingencies ◽

Better Than

The target article proposes that visual experience arises when sensorimotor contingencies are exploited in perception. This novel analysis of visual experience fares no better than the other proposals that the article rightly dismisses, and for the same reasons. Extracting invariants may be needed for recognition, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for having a visual experience. While the idea that vision involves the active extraction of sensorimotor invariants has merit, it does not replace the need for perceptual representations. Vision is not just for the immediate controlling of action; it is also for finding out about the world, from which inferences may be drawn and beliefs changed.

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Sensorimotor chauvinism?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x01290116 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 24 (5) ◽

pp. 979-980 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Andy Clark ◽

Josefa Toribio

Keyword(s):

Visual Experience ◽

Sensorimotor Contingencies

While applauding the bulk of the account on offer, we question one apparent implication, namely, that every difference in sensorimotor contingencies corresponds to a difference in conscious visual experience.

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Keratoconic and (de)formed vision: Re-thinking the limits of perspectival drawing

Drawing Research Theory Practice ◽

10.1386/drtp_00056_1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 139-151

Author(s):

George Themistokleous

Keyword(s):

Visual Experience ◽

Complex Structure ◽

Visual Image ◽

Henri Bergson ◽

Marcel Duchamp ◽

Stereoscopic Imaging ◽

Creative Evolution ◽

Large Glass ◽

Intricate Mechanism

In this project the limitations of perspectival drawing are revised and reconsidered through a particular visual (dis)ability: keratoconus. Perspectival representation is based not only on a single and immobile eye, but also on an ‘able’ eye. The de-formation of keratoconic vision offers a new means to consider the perspectival drawing by extending beyond the limitations of its structure. The degenerative keratoconic eye thus calls attention to the intricate mechanism of sight and to the eye’s machinic functioning. By referring to Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson and The Large Glass by Marcel Duchamp it becomes possible to articulate the nuanced relations between the complexity of the eye as a complex structure and the simplicity of its unitary function. Through keratoconic vision, one experiences the formations and (de)formations of the visual image due to the eyes’ functioning and dysfunctioning. This then leads to the search for an alternative medium that is similar to such a nuanced embodied visual experience. The interval between the machinations of vision and the simplicity of its function is more closely resembled through the visual experience of the stereoscope. The digitization of the stereoscope further unfolds this notion of the durational interval that lies between the machinations of vision and their unitary function, increasingly veering towards the former. Emerging digital stereoscopic imaging begin to utilize feedback and interaction and thus produce new ways to imagine the complexity of the eye(s) and visuality more broadly.

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Violations of sensorimotor theories of visual experience

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x04300208 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 27 (6) ◽

pp. 904-905 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bruce Bridgeman

Keyword(s):

Nervous System ◽

Visual Experience ◽

System Structure ◽

Space Constancy ◽

Sensorimotor Theory ◽

Significant Step ◽

Sensorimotor Contingencies ◽

Visual Nervous System

Although the sensorimotor account is a significant step forward, it cannot explain experiences of entoptic phenomena that violate normal sensorimotor contingencies but nonetheless are perceived as visual. Nervous system structure limits how they can be interpreted. Neurophysiology, combined with a sensorimotor theory, can account for space constancy by denying the existence of permanent representations of states that must be corrected or updated.

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Sensorimotor contingency modulates breakthrough of virtual 3D objects during a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm

10.31234/osf.io/vu5eh ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Keisuke Suzuki ◽

David J Schwartzman ◽

Rafael Augusto ◽

Anil Seth

Keyword(s):

Degrees Of Freedom ◽

Motion Tracking ◽

Visual Experience ◽

Continuous Flash Suppression ◽

Virtual Objects ◽

Head Mounted Display ◽

3D Objects ◽

Sensorimotor Interactions ◽

Sensorimotor Coupling ◽

Sensorimotor Contingencies

To investigate how embodied sensorimotor interactions shape subjective visual experience, we developed a novel combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) within an adapted breaking continuous flash suppression (bCFS) paradigm. In a first experiment, participants manipulated novel virtual 3D objects, viewed through a head-mounted display, using three interlocking cogs. This setup allowed us to manipulate the sensorimotor contingencies governing interactions with virtual objects, while characterising the effects on subjective visual experience by measuring breakthrough times from bCFS. We contrasted the effects of the congruency (veridical versus reversed sensorimotor coupling) and contingency (live versus replayed interactions) using a motion discrimination task. The results showed that the contingency but not congruency of sensorimotor coupling affected breakthrough times, with live interactions displaying faster breakthrough times. In a second experiment, we investigated how the contingency of sensorimotor interactions affected object category discrimination within a more naturalistic setting, using a motion tracker that allowed object interactions with increased degrees of freedom. We again found that breakthrough times were faster for live compared to replayed interactions (contingency effect). Together, these data demonstrate that bCFS breakthrough times for unfamiliar 3D virtual objects are modulated by the contingency of the dynamic causal coupling between actions and their visual consequences, in line with theories of perception that emphasise the influence of sensorimotor contingencies on visual experience. The combination of VR/AR and motion tracking technologies with bCFS provides a novel methodology extending the use of binocular suppression paradigms into more dynamic and realistic sensorimotor environments.

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Das Gedächtnis in den künstlerischen Therapien

Musik- Tanz und Kunsttherapie ◽

10.1026//0933-6885.12.1.21 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 21-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Wulf Becker-Glauch

Keyword(s):

Henri Bergson ◽

Sich Eine

Zusammenfassung.Nach dem griechischen Mythos ist das Gedächtnis die Mutter der drei Musen. Sie bedenken Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und die Zukunft als “umgekehrtes Gedächtnis“ ( Carus ). Seit der Antike geht es dem Menschen (auch psychotherapeutisch) um das richtige Verhältnis von Erinnern und Vergessen, Vergangenheit und Zukunft für die Gegenwart. Die unterschiedlichen Gewichtungen ergeben Gesichtspunkte für die künstlerische Therapie. Immer spielt das Gedächtnis die Hauptrolle. Die Besinnung auf die “Dialektik des Alten und Neuen“ ( Gadamer ) stellt sich als Aufgabe für jeden weiteren Lebensweg und für die künstlerische Therapie. In allem ist die einmalige Person des Patienten und ihre Zeit zu berücksichtigen, ihre Erfahrung, “die Sinnstruktur des Gedächtnisses“, die auf die Zukunft gerichtet sind ( Pauleikhoff ). Aus dem Gedächtnis und den von ihm vertretenen Werten ergibt sich auch die “Bedeutsamkeit“ dessen, was geschieht, und das Motiv der Kunst ( Dilthey ). Zur lebendigen Quelle von Lebenszeit und von Bewegung (Tanz) wird die Vergangenheit bei Henri Bergson. Das Gedächtnis des alternden Menschen steht nicht nur im Zeichen der Vergeßlichkeit und der Erinnerung an frühere Zeiten, sondern auch der Zukunft. Die Hoffnung hält die Zukunft offen. Die verschiedenen Gedächtnisstörungen, vor allem “die ausgelöschte Vergangenheit“ bei Hirnkrankheiten und “die abgebrochene Vergangenheit“ bei der Schizophrenie, sind in den künstlerischen Therapien entsprechend zu beachten. Aufgrund der Forschungen von J. Bauer stellt sich eine aussichtsreiche Aufgabe in der Aktivierung von Gedächtnis und Gehirn im Alter durch die künstlerischen Therapien.

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