Commonalities between Perception and Cognition

Michela C Tacca

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00358

Abstract

Perception and cognition are highly interrelated. Given the influence that these systems exert on one another, it is important to explain how perceptual representations and cognitive representations interact. In this paper, I analyze the similarities between visual perceptual representations and cognitive representations in terms of their structural properties and content. Specifically, I argue that the spatial structure underlying visual object representation displays systematicity – a property that is considered to be characteristic of propositional cognitive representations. To this end, I propose a logical characterization of visual feature binding as described by Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory and argue that systematicity is not only a property of language-like representations, but also of spatially organized visual representations. Furthermore, I argue that if systematicity is taken to be a criterion to distinguish between conceptual and non-conceptual representations, then visual representations, that display systematicity, might count as an early type of conceptual representations. Showing these analogies between visual perception and cognition is an important step toward understanding the interface between the two systems. The ideas here presented might also set the stage for new empirical studies that directly compare binding (and other relational operations) in visual perception and higher cognition.

Highlights

The analysis proposed in this paper of how visual representations spatially combine leads, instead, to a different conclusion: the appeal to the spatial structure of vision seems to count in favor of the conceptualist thesis, rather than providing a strong argument for the existence of representations with a non-conceptual content
I argue that visual representations share a structural property with cognitive representations; namely, that spatial recombination of visual representations into an object representation displays systematicity
This conclusion contrasts the traditional view in philosophy, according to which only sentential-cognitive representations implement a systematic structure of constituents, and it is in line with findings in physiology and psychology of how the visual system creates object representations

Summary

Introduction

I argue that the spatial structure underlying visual object representation displays systematicity – a property that is considered to be characteristic of propositional cognitive representations. From a philosophical point of view, visual perception and cognition process information by means of representations that differ in both their structure and content (Heck, 2007; Fodor, 2008).

Results

Conclusion