Penetrability Of Perception Research Articles

Color Concepts as a Factor of Cognitive Penetration of Perception

The aim of the paper is to analyse the influence of linguistic concepts of an agent on the qualitative aspects of her perception. We examine conceptualist and non-conceptualist approaches to the problem of what the content of perceptions is. The conceptualist approach asserts that the content of perception is similar to the content of beliefs: both types of content are assumed to be expressible in language. The non-conceptualist approach to the content of perception assumes that the content of perception cannot be conceptualized due to too much information available to the agent through visual perception. However, the assumption about non-conceptual content of perception leads to some serious difficulties with explaining the phenomenon of cognitive penetration of perception. This is an empirically established fact that some cognitive states may influence on the qualitative aspects of agent’s perception. We show that cognitive penetration of perception implies that perception and those cognitive states which affect it should have comparable content and this mechanism is based on the influence of expectations on perception.

Does emotion influence visual perception? Depends on how you look at it

ABSTRACTOne of the biggest challenges in the study of emotion–cognition interaction is addressing the question of whether and how emotions influence processes of perception as distinct from other higher-level cognitive processes. Most theories of emotion agree that an emotion episode begins with a sensory experience – such as a visual percept – that elicits a cascade of affective, cognitive, physiological, and/or behavioural responses (the ordering and inclusion of those latter components being forever debated). However, for decades, a subset of philosophers and scientists have suggested that the presumed perception → emotion relationship is in fact bidirectional, with emotion also altering the perceptual process. In the present review we reflect on the history and empirical support (or, some might argue, lack thereof) for the notion that emotion influences visual perception. We examine ways in which researchers have attempted to test the question, and the ways in which this pursuit is so difficult. As is the case with the ongoing debate about the cognitive penetrability of perception, we conclude that nothing is conclusive in the debate about the emotional penetrability of perception. We nonetheless don rose-coloured glasses as we look forward to the future of this research topic.

Bodily action penetrates affective perception.

Fantoni & Gerbino (2014) showed that subtle postural shifts associated with reaching can have a strong hedonic impact and affect how actors experience facial expressions of emotion. Using a novel Motor Action Mood Induction Procedure (MAMIP), they found consistent congruency effects in participants who performed a facial emotion identification task after a sequence of visually-guided reaches: a face perceived as neutral in a baseline condition appeared slightly happy after comfortable actions and slightly angry after uncomfortable actions. However, skeptics about the penetrability of perception (Zeimbekis & Raftopoulos, 2015) would consider such evidence insufficient to demonstrate that observer’s internal states induced by action comfort/discomfort affect perception in a top-down fashion. The action-modulated mood might have produced a back-end memory effect capable of affecting post-perceptual and decision processing, but not front-end perception.Here, we present evidence that performing a facial emotion detection (not identification) task after MAMIP exhibits systematic mood-congruent sensitivity changes, rather than response bias changes attributable to cognitive set shifts; i.e., we show that observer’s internal states induced by bodily action can modulate affective perception. The detection threshold for happiness was lower after fifty comfortable than uncomfortable reaches; while the detection threshold for anger was lower after fifty uncomfortable than comfortable reaches. Action valence induced an overall sensitivity improvement in detecting subtle variations of congruent facial expressions (happiness after positive comfortable actions, anger after negative uncomfortable actions), in the absence of significant response bias shifts. Notably, both comfortable and uncomfortable reaches impact sensitivity in an approximately symmetric way relative to a baseline inaction condition. All of these constitute compelling evidence of a genuine top-down effect on perception: specifically, facial expressions of emotion are penetrable by action-induced mood. Affective priming by action valence is a candidate mechanism for the influence of observer’s internal states on properties experienced as phenomenally objective and yet loaded with meaning.

Action valence and affective perception.

Respecting all constraints proposed by Firestone & Scholl (F&S), we have shown that perceived facial expressions of emotion depend on the congruency between bodily action (comfort/discomfort) and target emotion (happiness/anger) valence. Our studies challenge any bold claim against penetrability of perception and suggest that perceptual theory can benefit from demonstrations of how-under controlled circumstances-observer's states can mold expressive qualities.

Reply to Macpherson: Further illustrations of the cognitive penetrability of perception

My reply to Macpherson begins by addressing whether it is effects of cognition on early vision or perceptual performance that I am interested in. I proceed to address Macpherson’s comments on evidence from cross-modal effects, interpretations of linguistic effects on image detection, evidence from illusions, and the usefulness of predictive coding for understanding cognitive penetration. By stressing the interactive and distributed nature of neural processing, I am committing to a collapse between perception and cognition. Following such a collapse, the very question of whether cognition affects perception becomes ill-posed, but this may be for the best.

Skill, Nonpropositional Thought, and the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception

In the current literature, discussions of cognitive penetrability focus largely either on interpreting empirical evidence in ways that is relevant to the question of modularity (Pylyshyn Behav Brain Sci 22(3):343–391, 1999; Wu Philos Stud 165(2):647–669, 2012; Macpherson Philos Phenomenol Res, 84(1):24–62, 2012) or in offering epistemological considerations regarding which properties are represented in perception (Siegel Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 481–503, 2006, Philos Q 59(236):519–540, 2009, Nous 46(2):201–222, 2011; Prinz Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 434–460, 2006). In contrast to these debates, in this paper, I explore conceptual issues regarding how we ought to understand the “cognitive” side of cognitive penetrability. I argue that it is only on its most narrow construal that a full-fledged defense of cognitive impenetrability has been forwarded. Specifically, I argue that the defenders of modularity (DOM from hereon) have tacitly identified cognitive states with propositional states, and have thus only defended the idea that early perceptual systems are immune to the impacts of propositional knowledge. My aim then is to raise doubts about the identification of cognitive states with propositional ones. In particular, by focusing on skill, I will broaden the conceptual space for a greater number of states to have the potential to impact perceptual processing in a way that would constitute a genuine instance of cognitive penetrability.

Perception of Absence and Penetration from Expectation

I argue that perception of absence presents a top-down effect from expectations on perception, but then show that this cognitive effect is atypical and indirect. This calls into question usefulness of some of the existing notions of cognitive penetrability of perception and generates new questions about indirect cognitive influences on perception.