Abstract
Learning to perceive is faced with a classical paradox: if understanding is required for perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also known as the “laws” of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this proposal that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human learning. In this paper we propose Piaget’s theory of equilibration as a potential candidate to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms, in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget’s theory and the sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the personal level.
Highlights
The sensorimotor approach to perceptual experience (O’Regan and Noë, 2001; Noë, 2004) proposes that at the root of perception there always lies a skilful engagement with the world, with an emphasis on the active connotation of the verb to engage
How is it possible to learn to perceive anything new if perception itself always relies on existing knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs), as the theory claims?
We have proposed a conceptual framework for understanding open-ended perceptual learning in the context of a missing theory of learning for the sensorimotor approach to perception
Summary
The sensorimotor approach to perceptual experience (O’Regan and Noë, 2001; Noë, 2004) proposes that at the root of perception there always lies a skilful engagement with the world, with an emphasis on the active connotation of the verb to engage. The very notion of SMCs, the core concept of the theory, had no formal expression in dynamical systems terms until a recent mathematical formalization was introduced by Buhrmann et al (2013). The goal of the current paper is to proceed along similar lines of theoretical development and examine another central, and heretofore neglected, aspect of the sensorimotor approach: perceptual learning. The primary literature discusses various examples of skill acquisition and adaptation to sensorimotor disruptions, it has to date offered no explicit theory of perceptual learning. Such a theory would have to account for how it is possible to perceive anything new if perception relies on pre-existing sensorimotor skills. It would have to account for the seemingly open-ended character of human perceptual learning, which is able to exceed any prescribed set of relevant species-ecological criteria by constantly opening up novel domains of significance (e.g., wine-tasting, refined construction of musical instruments)
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