Current alternatives on perceptual learning: introduction to special issue on post-cognitivist approaches to perceptual learning

Abstract

This special issue is focused on how perceptual learning is understood from a post-cognitivist approach to cognition. The process of perceptual learning is key in our cognitive life and development: we can learn to discriminate environmental aspects and hence adapt ourselves to it, using our resources intelligently. Perceptual learning, according to the classic cognitivist view, is based on the enrichment of passively received stimuli, a linear operation on sensations that results in a representation of the original information. This representation can be useful for other processes that generate an output, like a motor command, for example. On the contrary, alternative approaches to perceptual learning, different from the one depicted in the classic cognitivist theory, share the ideas that perception and action are intrinsically tied and that cognitive processes rely on embodiment and situatedness. These approaches usually claim that mental representations are not useful concepts, at least when portraying a process of perceptual learning. Approaches within post-cognitivism are not a unified theory, but a diversity of perspectives that need to establish a dialogue among their different methodologies. In particular, this special issue is focused on ecological psychology and enactivism as key traditions within the post-cognitivist constellation.