Direct Realism and Illusion

Perceptual Error ◽

Standard Response ◽

Ambiguous Stimuli ◽

Physical Objects ◽

Apparent Problem

The supposed problem of perceptual error, including illusion and hallucination, has led most theories of perception to deny formulations of direct realism. The standard response to this apparent problem adopts the mistaken presupposition that perception is indeed liable to error. However, the prevailing conditions of observation are themselves elements of perceptual representation, functioning in the manner of predicate modifiers. They ensure that the predicates applied in perceptual representations do indeed correctly attribute properties that perceived physical objects actually instantiate. Thus, perceptual representations are immune to misrepresentation of the sort misguidedly supposed by the spurious problem of perceptual misrepresentation. Granted the possibility that perceptual attribution admits of predicate modification, it is quite possible that perceptual experience permits both rudimentary and sophisticated conceptualization. Moreover, such treatment of perceptual predication rewards by providing an account of aspect alteration exemplified by perception of ambiguous stimuli.

Direct Realism and Hallucination

10.1093/oso/9780190854751.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Christopher Maloney

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Experience ◽

Phenomenal Character ◽

Direct Realism ◽

The Past ◽

Direct Acquaintance ◽

The Creation ◽

Physical Objects

Perception provides direct acquaintance with existent physical objects, if direct realism is true. However, hallucination involves perceptual experience of what does not exist. How should a direct realist rendition of perception confront hallucination? Fictivism proposes that the creation of objects of perception is secured by a person’s perception of them. Disjunctivism differentiates hallucination from perception while mistakenly insisting that hallucination is not in the brief of any genuinely coherent theory of perception. Direct realism rejects both fictivism and disjunctivism. Perception only detects and discovers—never creates nor concocts—when it represents its objects. Perception is cognition’s grip on the objectively real. If so, then accounts may be ready at hand to accommodate the likes of perception of the past, inverted and absent phenomenal character, as well as blindsight.

Perception and Primary Knowledge

Knowing and Seeing ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198833567.003.0002 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 34-69

Author(s):

Michael Ayers

Keyword(s):

Experimental Psychology ◽

Perceptual Experience ◽

A Priori ◽

Phenomenological Analysis ◽

A Priori Knowledge ◽

Direct Realism ◽

Perceptual Awareness ◽

Perceptual Knowledge ◽

Decisive Reason ◽

Forms Of Knowledge

A phenomenological analysis of perceptual experience, conducted with an eye on experimental psychology, addresses a series of questions. What is phenomenology? What makes perception of one’s environment as one’s environment? Does the phenomenal integration of the senses give decisive reason for ‘direct realism’? Do we perceive causal relations, or only infer them? Are we perceptually aware of acting? Are we perceptually aware of the causality of perception itself, and if so, in some cases or in all? It is argued that perceiving is not only direct cognitive contact with reality, but that the perceptual relation is itself an object of perceptual awareness. Accordingly, conscious perceptual knowledge comes with knowledge that and of how one has it. Other forms of knowledge (e.g. a priori knowledge) are analogous. A distinction is drawn between primary and secondary knowledge, such that that there could be no secondary knowledge without some primary knowledge.

Direct Realism and the Analysis of Perceptual Error

Theory & Psychology ◽

10.1177/0959354300105002 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 605-613 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Graeme Galloway

Keyword(s):

Direct Realism ◽

Perceptual Error

Image and Perceptual Representation of Words in Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Learning Disability Quarterly ◽

10.2307/1510717 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 76-81

Author(s):

Kathleen M. McCoy ◽

Robert J. Weber

Keyword(s):

Processing Time ◽

Learning Disabled ◽

Time Effect ◽

Perceptual Processing ◽

Mode Interaction ◽

Normal Children ◽

Processing Mode ◽

Perceptual Representations

Results of the present study indicated that learning disabled and normal children (x age = 111.4 months) process letters in words in either perceptual or imaginal modes for the attribute letter height. A large processing time effect was noted for mode of representation with perceptual representations of letters processed more rapidly than imaginal representations. There was also a subject-type-by-processing mode interaction. The results indicate that LD and normal children do not differ in perceptual processing time; however, LD children have a smaller image capacity than normals. Correlational results also suggest that the imaginal mode is more independent of other modes for normals than for LDs.

Critical Features for Face Recognition

10.31219/osf.io/dswge ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Naphtali Abudarham ◽

Lior Shkiller ◽

Galit Yovel

Keyword(s):

Neural Network ◽

Face Recognition ◽

Deep Neural Network ◽

Recognition Algorithm ◽

Facial Features ◽

Familiar Face ◽

Unfamiliar Faces ◽

New Framework

Face recognition is a computationally challenging task that humans perform effortlessly. Nonetheless, this remarkable ability is limited to familiar faces and does not generalize to unfamiliar faces. To account for humans’ superior ability to recognize familiar faces, current theories suggest that familiar and unfamiliar faces have different perceptual representations. In the current study, we applied a reverse engineering approach to reveal which facial features are critical for familiar face recognition. In contrast to current views, we discovered that the same subset of features that are used for matching unfamiliar faces, are also used for matching as well as recognition of familiar faces. We further show that these features are also used by a deep neural network face recognition algorithm. We therefore propose a new framework that assumes similar perceptual representation for all faces and integrates cognition and perception to account for humans’ superior recognition of familiar faces.

A construção da experiência perceptiva: o que isso quer dizer?

Principia an international journal of epistemology ◽

10.5007/1808-1711.2017v21n2p167 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 167-188

Author(s):

Gary Hatfield

Keyword(s):

Physical Properties ◽

Perceptual Experience ◽

Visual Space ◽

Direct Realism ◽

Stimulus Information ◽

Spatial Properties

Classical constructivists such as Rock and Hoffman contend that the processes of perception are intelligent and construct perceptual experience by going beyond the stimulus information or by creating a percept that deviates from the physical properties of the object. On these terms, Gibson’s theory of perception is anti-constructivist. After reviewing classical constructivism, this article maintains, first, that the phenomenology of visual space shows a deviation from physical spatial properties, by being contracted in depth, even under fullcue conditions, a fact that makes trouble for Gibson’s version of direct realism. Second, independently of the first argument, it contends that perception is pervasively constructed in the sense that stimulus information must be transformed to yield perception. Accordingly, perception is radically constructed in its very bones.

Three comments on Teller’s “bridge locus”

Visual Neuroscience ◽

10.1017/s0952523813000527 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 30 (5-6) ◽

pp. 219-222 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

J. ANTHONY MOVSHON

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Experience ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Visual Pathway ◽

Perceptual Awareness ◽

Neural Correlate ◽

Current Thinking ◽

Close Relationship ◽

The Relationship ◽

Neural Correlate Of Consciousness

AbstractThe notion of a set of neurons that form a “bridge locus” serving as the immediate substrate of visual perception is examined in the light of evidence on the architecture of the visual pathway, of current thinking about perceptual representations, and of the basis of perceptual awareness. The bridge locus is likely to be part of a tangled web of representations, and this complexity raises the question of whether another scheme that relies less on geography might offer a better framework. The bridge locus bears a close relationship to the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC), and like the NCC may be a concept which is no longer precise enough to provide a useful basis for reasoning about the relationship between brain activity and perceptual experience.

Direct Realism and the Extended Mind

10.1093/oso/9780190854751.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Christopher Maloney

Keyword(s):

Phenomenal Character ◽

Extended Mind ◽

Perceptual Content ◽

Direct Realism ◽

Cognitive Representation ◽

Direct Acquaintance ◽

The World

Representationalism rightly treats perception as a type of cognitive representation. However, it wrongly proposes that perceptual content determines phenomenal character. Rather, it is the form, not the content, of a perceptual representation that constitutes phenomenal character. For direct realism is true: Perception is that form of cognition in which representation and represented are the same. Other forms of cognition recruit representations that are distinct from what they represent. In contrast, perceptual representation extends the mind's reach into the world by casting the very object perceived in the role of a self-referential demonstrative. By fusing representation and represented perception provides direct acquaintance with what is seen exactly as it is seen to be and thus determines phenomenal character.

Perception

The Epistemic Role of Consciousness ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199917662.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 74-112

Author(s):

Declan Smithies

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Experience ◽

Phenomenal Character ◽

Phenomenal Consciousness ◽

Justify Belief ◽

Evil Demon ◽

De Re ◽

Epistemic Role ◽

New Evil Demon Problem

Chapter 3 explores the epistemic role of consciousness in perception. Section 3.1 argues that unconscious perceptual representation in blindsight cannot justify beliefs about the external world. Section 3.2 argues that this is because phenomenal consciousness, rather than access consciousness or metacognitive consciousness, is necessary for perceptual representation to justify belief. Section 3.3 argues that perceptual experience has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character—namely, presentational force—that is not only necessary but also sufficient for perception to justify belief. Section 3.4 uses a version of the new evil demon problem to argue that the justifying role of perceptual experience supervenes on its phenomenal character alone. Section 3.5 defends this supervenience thesis against the objection that phenomenal duplicates who perceive distinct objects thereby have justification to believe different de re propositions.

Perceptual experience as a bridge between the retina and a bicoded cognitive map

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x1300037x ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 36 (5) ◽

pp. 549-549

Author(s):

Frank H. Durgin ◽

Zhi Li

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Perceptual Experience ◽

Route Planning ◽

Cognitive Maps ◽

Surface Orientation ◽

Cognitive Map ◽

Egocentric Distance ◽

Systematic Biases ◽

Metric Information

AbstractThe bicoded cognitive maps described by Jeffery et al. are compared to metric perceptual representations. Systematic biases in perceptual experience of egocentric distance, height, and surface orientation may reflect information processing choices to retain information critical for immediate action (Durgin et al. 2010a). Different information processing goals (route planning vs. immediate action) require different metric information.