A number of studies in the apparent motion literature were examined using the cognitive penetrability criterion to determine the extent to which beliefs affect the perception of apparent motion. It was found that the interaction between the perceptual processes mediating apparent motion and higher order processes appears to be limited. In addition, perceptual and inferential beliefs appear to have different effects on perceived motion optimality and direction. Our findings suggest that the system underlying apparent motion perception has more than one (...) stage and is informationally encapsulated from cognitive factors. (shrink)

Amit's Hebbian model risks being overexplanatory, since it does not depend on specific physiological modelling of cortical ANNs, but concentrates on those phenomena which are modelled by a large class of ANNs. While offering a strong demonstration of the presence of Hebb's “cell assemblies,” it does not offer an equal account of Hebb's “phase sequence” concept.

This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other third-person perspective models. To approach such questions the first-person nature of consciousness needs to be taken seriously in combination with third-person models of the brain.

A commentary on a target article by Alison Gopnik (1993) How we know our minds: the illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality. Focusing on evidence of how children acquire a theory of mind, this commentary argues that there are internal inconsistencies in theories that both argue for the functional role of conscious experiences and the irreducibility of those experiences to third-person viewable information processing.

On the basis of neuropsychological evidence, it is clear that attention should be given a role in any model of consciousness. What is known about the many instances of dissociation between explicit and implicit knowledge after brain damage suggests that conscious experience might not be linked to a restricted area of the brain. Even if it were true that there is a single brain area devoted to consciousness, the subicular area would seem to be an unlikely possibility.

Central to contemporary cognitive science is the notion that mental processes involve computations defined over internal representations. This view stands in sharp contrast to the to visual perception and cognition, whose most prominent proponent has been J.J. Gibson. In the direct theory, perception does not involve computations of any sort; it is the result of the direct pickup of available information. The publication of Gibson's recent book (Gibson 1979) offers an opportunity to examine his approach, and, more generally, to contrast (...) the theory of direct perception with the computational/representational view. In the first part of the present article (Sections 2direct perceptioncase study”: the problem of perceiving the three-dimensional shape of moving objects is examined. This problem, which has been extensively studied within the immediate perception framework, serves to illustrate some of the inherent shortcomings of that approach. Finally, in Section 5, an attempt is made to place the theory of direct perception in perspective by embedding it in a more comprehensive framework. (shrink)

(2014). Nonconceptualism and the cognitive impenetrability of early vision. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 621-642. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2014.893386.

An active role for conscious processes in the production of behaviour is proposed, involving top level controls in a hierarchy of behavioural control. It is suggested that by inhibiting or sensitizing lower levels in the hierarchy conscious processes can play a role in the organization of ongoing behaviour. Conscious control can be more or less evident, according to prevailing circumstances.

Gray extrapolates from circuit models of psychopathology to propose neural substrates for the contents of consciousness. I raise three concerns: knowledge of synaptic arrangements may be inadequate to fully support his model; latent inhibition deficits in schizophrenia, a focus of this and related models, are complex and deserve replication; and this conjecture omits discussion of the neuropsychological basis for the contents of the unconscious.

There are good, even if inconclusive, reasons to think that cognitive penetration of perception occurs: that cognitive states like belief causally affect, in a relatively direct way, the contents of perceptual experience. The supposed importance of – indeed as it is suggested here, what is definitive of – this possible phenomenon is that it would result in important epistemic and scientific consequences. One interesting and intuitive consequence entirely unremarked in the extant literature concerns the perception of art. Intuition has it (...) that knowledge about art changes how one aesthetically evaluates artworks. A profound explanation of this intuitive fact is that perceptual experiences vary with artistic expertise. Cognitive penetration provides an explanatory mechanism for this latter effect. What one knows or otherwise thinks about art may affect, in one of two ways sketched below, how one perceives art. Differences in aesthetic evaluation may follow, either because high-level aesthetic properties can be perceptually represented or because they causally depend on low-level perceptible properties. All of this lends credence to the hypothesis that the expert better judges art because she better perceives art. And she better perceives art because she better knows art. (shrink)

Perception is typically distinguished from cognition. For example, seeing is importantly different from believing. And while what one sees clearly influences what one thinks, it is debatable whether what one believes and otherwise thinks can influence, in some direct and non-trivial way, what one sees. The latter possible relation is the cognitive penetration of perception. Cognitive penetration, if it occurs, has implications for philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. This paper offers an analysis of the phenomenon, (...) its theoretical consequences, and a variety of experimental results and possible interpretations of them. The paper concludes by proposing some constraints for analyses and definitions of cognitive penetrability. (shrink)