Nature Of Perception Research Articles

The Diversity of Disjunctivism Fabian Dorsch: (Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge edited by Fiona Macpherson and Adrian Haddock)

During the last ten years or so, there has been a noticeable surge of interest in disjunctivism, accompanied by the emergence of many different promising disjunctivist positions on a large variety of philosophical issues. However, this positive development has yet to lead to a change in the general attitude towards disjunctivism, which is often one of prevailing scepticism or even disregard. It is still not rare to dismiss disjunctivism right from the start as too implausible or abstruse to be considered as a serious alternative to other views. Not surprisingly, disjunctivism has so far failed to gain the level of attention in contemporary philosophical discussions that it deserves, and which many of its rival positions already enjoy. Part of the reason for this state of the debate is perhaps that proponents and opponents of disjunctivism alike have not always been sufficiently careful in distinguishing the various forms of disjunctivism, nor in determining their precise commitments. This excellent and timely volume—together with the slightly later published collection of classical texts on disjunctivism edited by Alex Byrne and Heather Logue (2009)—is bound to remedy this situation and to improve the wider understanding of both the content and the significance of disjunctivist positions. Indeed, the essays concerned show that any serious attempt at accounting for perception, perceptual knowledge, actions or practical reasons has to take the relevant disjunctivist claims and arguments into consideration— notably those discussed in the volume at hand. The collection brings together seventeen specially written essays on disjunctivism in the philosophy of mind, epistemology and, to a smaller extent, the philosophy of agency and meta-ethics. The standard of the contributions is very high throughout and reflects the quality of the respective discussions in the current literature. As its title already suggests, the book is divided into three parts that are concerned with perception, action, and knowledge, respectively. The relative prominence of disjunctivism in the related areas of philosophy is reflected by the number of papers making up each part: there are eight essays on the nature of perceptual experiences, six on perceptual knowledge or scepticism about it, and only one on the nature of bodily action (with David-Hillel Ruben developing a disjunctive account) and two on reasons for action (with Jennifer Hornsby defending, and Jonathan Dancy attacking, a disjunctive treatment). Thus, all in all, fourteen of the seventeen papers are concerned with issues in the philosophy of perception. This is very much in line with the origin of disjunctivism in discussions of experience and its role in the acquisition of knowledge, as well as with the continuing focus

Using viewsheds, GIS, and a landscape classification to tag landscape photographs

Landscape scenery is inherently difficult to conceptualize because of its perceptual nature. Yet landscapes are an extremely important resource for tourism and quality of life so there is a need to classify and manage landscapes. This paper shows how viewshed analysis based on the known location and direction of a photo can be used to tag a photo and this provides a method for assessing the New Zealand Landscape Classification. GIS visibility and overlay functions are combined with digital elevation data and a landscape classification to produce the tagged photos. This tool links an oblique view with multiple distance perspectives to a GIS dataset. There are complexities associated with distance perspectives and the appropriate balance of foreground and distant landscape. This paper argues that the benefits of automated tagging of landscape photos are threefold. The process of modelling landscape tags forces researchers to confront the complexity of landscape character classification. This in turn leads to improved methods for representing and classifying landscape character. Secondly, once tagging methods have been developed then people may choose to use these tools rather than to manually tag photos. Thirdly, such a tool provides the opportunity to utilize the increasingly important volunteered geographic information on the Internet for understanding landscape categories. Landscape photographs and associated tags on the Internet provide insight about landscape categories employed by the public. This could lead to the development of what is labelled “tag clouds” and a landscape “folksonomy”.

Challenges and Opportunities for Next-Generation Intracortically Based Neural Prostheses

Event Abstract Back to Event Challenges and Opportunities for Next-Generation Intracortically Based Neural Prostheses Ilka Diester1* 1 Ernst Struengmann Institute in Cooperation with Max Planck Society, Germany Neural prosthetic systems aim to restore limb control in patients with motor disorders. When natural motor pathways are destroyed, neural prostheses bypass the faulty circuits by translating neural signals directly from the brain into control signals for guiding computer cursors, prosthetic arms, and other assistive devices. Intracortical electrode arrays are the read out device measuring action potentials and local field potentials from individual neurons, or small populations of neurons, in the motor cortices and can provide considerable information for controlling prostheses. Despite several compelling proof-of-concept laboratory animal experiments and an initial human clinical trial, at least three key challenges remain which, if left unaddressed, may hamper the translation of the systems into widespread clinical use: achieving levels of performance across tasks and across environments comparable to a natural motor control, achieving robustness across multiple decades, and restoring a naturalistic proprioception and somatosensation. Recent algorithm, model, and hardware developments might help meeting the read out challenges (high performance with increased longevity). On the write in side, optogenetics which enables light to control neural activity in specific sets of neurons may allow restoring a naturalistic perception of touch. These new developments may achieve true clinical viability of neural prostheses. Keywords: brain-machine interfaces, Motor Decoding Conference: BC11 : Computational Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Bernstein Conference & Neurex Annual Meeting 2011, Freiburg, Germany, 4 Oct - 6 Oct, 2011. Presentation Type: Abstract Topic: other Citation: Diester I (2011). Challenges and Opportunities for Next-Generation Intracortically Based Neural Prostheses. Front. Comput. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: BC11 : Computational Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Bernstein Conference & Neurex Annual Meeting 2011. doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2011.53.00002 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Sep 2011; Published Online: 04 Oct 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Ilka Diester, Ernst Struengmann Institute in Cooperation with Max Planck Society, Frankfurt, Germany, ilka.diester@biologie.uni-freiburg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Ilka Diester Google Ilka Diester Google Scholar Ilka Diester PubMed Ilka Diester Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

The Perceptual Nature of the Cross-Modal Priming Effect

The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the cross-modal priming effect is perceptual and therefore consistent with the idea that knowledge is modality dependent. We used a two-way cross-modal priming paradigm in two experiments. These experiments were constructed on the basis of a two-phase priming paradigm. In the study phase of Experiment 1, participants had to categorize auditory primes as "animal" or "artifact". In the test phase, they had to perform the same categorization task with visual targets which corresponded either to the auditory primes presented in the study phase (old items) or to new stimuli (new items). To demonstrate the perceptual nature of the cross-modal priming effect, half of the auditory primes were presented with a visual mask (old-masked items). In the second experiment, the visual stimuli were used as primes and the auditory stimuli as targets, and half of the visual primes were presented with an auditory mask (a white noise). We hypothesized that if the cross-modal priming effect results from an activation of modality-specific representations, then the mask should interfere with the priming effect. In both experiments, the results corroborated our predictions. In addition, we observed a cross-modal priming effect from pictures to sounds in a long-term paradigm for the first time.

A DISJUNCTIVE THEORY OF INTROSPECTION: A REFLECTION ON ZOMBIES AND ANTON'S SYNDROME

Reflection on skeptical scenarios in the philosophy of perception, made vivid in the arguments from illusion and hallucination, have led to the formulation of theories of the metaphysical and epistemological nature of perceptual experience. In recent times, the locus of the debate concerning the nature of perceptual experience has been the dispute between disjunctivists and common-kind theorists. Disjunctivists have held that there are substantial dissimilarities (either metaphysical or epistemological or both) between veridical perceptual experiences occurring when one perceives and perceptual experiences involved in hallucination. Common-kind theorists have denied

Learning-based recovery from perceptual impairment in salt discrimination after permanently altered peripheral gustatory input

Rats lacking input to the chorda tympani (CT) nerve, a facial nerve branch innervating anterior tongue taste buds, show robust impairments in salt discrimination demonstrating its necessity. We tested the sufficiency of the CT for salt taste discrimination and whether the remaining input provided by the greater superficial petrosal (GSP) nerve, a facial nerve branch innervating palatal taste buds, or by the glossopharyngeal (GL) nerve, innervating posterior tongue taste buds, could support performance after extended postsurgical testing. Rats presurgically trained and tested in a two-response operant task to discriminate NaCl from KCl were subjected to sham surgery or transection of the CT (CTx), GL (GLx), or GSP (GSPx), alone or in combination. While initially reduced postsurgically, performance by rats with an intact GSP after CTx + GLx increased to normal over 6 wk of testing. Rats with CTx + GSPx consistently performed near chance levels. In contrast, rats with GSPx + GLx were behaviorally normal. A subset of rats subjected to sham surgery and exposed to lower concentrations during postsurgical testing emulating decreased stimulus intensity after neurotomy showed no significant impairment. These results demonstrate that CTx changes the perceptual nature of NaCl and/or KCl, leading to severe initial postsurgical impairments in discriminability, but a "new" discrimination can be relearned based on the input of the GSP. Despite losing ∼75% of their taste buds, rats are unaffected after GSPx + GLx, demonstrating that the CT is not only necessary, but also sufficient, for maintaining salt taste discrimination, notwithstanding the unlikely contribution of the small percentage of taste receptors innervated by the superior laryngeal nerve.

The sensory nature of knowledge: Sensory priming effects in semantic categorization

The aim of the present study was to show the perceptual nature of conceptual knowledge by using a priming paradigm that excluded an interpretation exclusively in terms of amodal representation. This paradigm was divided into two phases. The first phase consisted in learning a systematic association between a geometrical shape and a white noise. The second phase consisted of a short-term priming paradigm in which a primed shape (either associated or not with a sound in the first phase) preceded a picture of an object, which the participants had to categorize as representing a large or a small object. The objects were chosen in such a way that their principal function either was associated with the production of noise ("noisy" target) or was not typically associated the production of noise ("silent" target). The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the prime and the target was 100 ms or 500 ms. The results revealed an interference effect with a 100-ms SOA and a facilitatory effect with a 500-ms SOA for the noisy targets only. We interpreted the interference effect obtained at the 100-ms SOA as the result of an overlap between the components reactivated by the sound prime and those activated by the processing of the noisy target. At an SOA of 500 ms, there was no temporal overlap. The observed facilitatory effect was explained by the preactivation of auditory areas by the sound prime, thus facilitating the categorization of the noisy targets only.

Isolating the perceptual nature of the face composite effect from decisional response processes: Electrophysiological evidence

Isolating the perceptual nature of the face composite effect from decisional response processes: Electrophysiological evidence

The sensory nature of episodic memory: Sensory priming effects due to memory trace activation.

The aim of this study was to provide evidence that memory and perceptual processing are underpinned by the same mechanisms. Specifically, the authors conducted 3 experiments that emphasized the sensory aspect of memory traces. They examined their predictions with a short-term priming paradigm based on 2 distinct phases: a learning phase consisting of the association between a geometrical shape and a white noise and a priming phase examining the priming effect of the geometrical shape, seen in the learning phase, on the processing of target tones. In the 3 experiments, the authors found that only the prime associated with the sound in the learning phase had an effect on the target processing. The perceptual nature of the auditory component reactivated by the prime was shown in Experiments 1 and 2 via manipulation of the white noise duration in the learning phase and the stimulus onset asynchrony in the priming phase. Moreover, Experiment 3 highlighted the importance of the simultaneous association of sensory components in the learning phase, which makes it possible to integrate these components in a memory trace.

Expertise and Intuition: A Tale of Three Theories

Several authors have hailed intuition as one of the defining features of expertise. In particular, while disagreeing on almost anything that touches on human cognition and artificial intelligence, Hubert Dreyfus and Herbert Simon agreed on this point. However, the highly influential theories of intuition they proposed differed in major ways, especially with respect to the role given to search and as to whether intuition is holistic or analytic. Both theories suffer from empirical weaknesses. In this paper, we show how, with some additions, a recent theory of expert memory (the template theory) offers a coherent and wide-ranging explanation of intuition in expert behaviour. It is shown that the theory accounts for the key features of intuition: it explains the rapid onset of intuition and its perceptual nature, provides mechanisms for learning, incorporates processes showing how perception is linked to action and emotion, and how experts capture the entirety of a situation. In doing so, the new theory addresses the issues problematic for Dreyfus’s and Simon’s theories. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Using Time-To-Contact information to assess potential collision modulates both visual and temporal prediction networks

Accurate estimates of the time-to-contact (TTC) of approaching objects are crucial for survival. We used an ecologically valid driving simulation to compare and contrast the neural substrates of egocentric (head-on approach) and allocentric (lateral approach) TTC tasks in a fully factorial, event-related fMRI design. Compared to colour control tasks, both egocentric and allocentric TTC tasks activated left ventral premotor cortex/frontal operculum and inferior parietal cortex, the same areas that have previously been implicated in temporal attentional orienting. Despite differences in visual and cognitive demands, both TTC and temporal orienting paradigms encourage the use of temporally predictive information to guide behaviour, suggesting these areas may form a core network for temporal prediction. We also demonstrated that the temporal derivative of the perceptual index tau (tau-dot) held predictive value for making collision judgements and varied inversely with activity in primary visual cortex (V1). Specifically, V1 activity increased with the increasing likelihood of reporting a collision, suggesting top–down attentional modulation of early visual processing areas as a function of subjective collision. Finally, egocentric viewpoints provoked a response bias for reporting collisions, rather than no-collisions, reflecting increased caution for head-on approaches. Associated increases in SMA activity suggest motor preparation mechanisms were engaged, despite the perceptual nature of the task.

Hearing Illusory Sounds in Noise: Sensory-Perceptual Transformations in Primary Auditory Cortex

A sound that is interrupted by silence is perceived as discontinuous. However, when the silence is replaced by noise, the target sound may be heard as uninterrupted. Understanding the neural basis of this continuity illusion may elucidate the ability to track sounds of interest in noisy auditory scenes, but yet little is known. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study in humans we report that activity in primary auditory cortex reflects perceived continuity of illusory tones in noise. Exploiting a parametric manipulation of the illusory stimuli, we show that stimulus-evoked activity does not correlate with the basic acoustic properties of tones or noises, but rather with the abstract dependencies among them. Importantly, changes of neural responses to acoustically identical stimuli parallel changes of listeners' report of perceived continuity of these same stimuli, thus confirming the perceptual nature of these responses. Our findings show that, beyond the sensory representation of an auditory scene, primary auditory areas play a constructive role in the grouping of scene segments into unified auditory percepts.

The timecourse of higher-level face aftereffects

Perceptual aftereffects for simple visual attributes processed early in the cortical hierarchy increase logarithmically with adapting duration and decay exponentially with test duration. This classic timecourse has been reported recently for a face identity aftereffect [Leopold, D. A., Rhodes, G., Müller, K.-M., & Jeffery, L. (2005). The dynamics of visual adaptation to faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 272, 897–904], suggesting that the dynamics of visual adaptation may be similar throughout the visual system. An alternative interpretation, however, is that the classic timecourse is a flow-on effect of adaptation of a low-level, retinotopic component of the face identity aftereffect. Here, we examined the timecourse of the higher-level (size-invariant) components of two face aftereffects, the face identity aftereffect and the figural face aftereffect. Both showed the classic pattern of logarithmic build-up and exponential decay. These results indicate that the classic timecourse of face aftereffects is not a flow-on effect of low-level retinotopic adaptation, and support the hypothesis that dynamics of visual adaptation are similar at higher and lower levels of the cortical visual hierarchy. They also reinforce the perceptual nature of face aftereffects, ruling out demand characteristics and other post-perceptual factors as plausible accounts.

Brentano on the Doxastic Nature of Perceptual Experience

Brentano on the Doxastic Nature of Perceptual Experience

Manufacturing firm reaction to supplier failure and recovery

PurposeManufacturing firm reaction to a supply failure is important because buyer dissatisfaction may induce related development or switching costs. The purpose of this paper is to ask: what is the impact of a supply failure and recovery on manufacturing firm dissatisfaction with the supplier?Design/methodology/approachA case study approach is used based on interviews of key informants, examining four US manufacturers classified by industry type (aerospace and electronics) and firm size (large and small).FindingsManufacturing firm dissatisfaction increases relative to the accumulated impact of the supply failure, and is reduced when the manufacturer has slack to absorb the failure or shares blame for it. The supplier's failure recovery reduces dissatisfaction to the extent that it demonstrates the supplier's long‐term commitment to the relationship. The findings indicate that attributes of the failure, the failure recovery, and context must be taken into account when considering how a supplier's recovery may ameliorate the negative impact of a supply failure.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are constrained by the number of cases we collected and by the limitations of retrospective interviews.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that manufacturers can over‐react to a failure because of the perceptual nature of risk, or under‐react to a failure because of excess slack or switching costs.Originality/valueThis paper adds significant detail to our understanding of how supplier failure and recovery impact a manufacturer's dissatisfaction with a supplier, the antecedent to costs involved with supplier development or switching.

When left becomes right and vice versa: Mirrored vision after cerebral hypoxia

The combination of acquired mirror writing and reading is an extremely rare neurological disorder. It is encountered when brain damaged patients prefer horizontally mirrored over normal script in writing and reading. Previous theories have related this pathology to a disinhibition of mirrored engrams in the non-dominant hemisphere, possibly accompanied by a reversal of the preferred scanning direction. Here, we report the experimental investigation of PR, a patient who developed pronounced mirror writing and reading following septic shock that caused hypoxic brain damage. A series of five oculomotor experiments revealed that the patient's preferred scanning direction was indeed reversed. However, PR showed striking scanpath abnormalities and mirror reversals that cannot be explained by previous theories. Considered together with mirror phenomena she displayed in neuropsychological tasks and everyday activities, our findings suggest a horizontal reversal of visual information on a perceptual level. In addition, a systematic manipulation of visual variables within two further experiments had dramatic effects on her mirror phenomena. When confronted with moving, flickering or briefly presented stimuli, PR showed hardly any left-right reversals. Not only do these findings underline the perceptual nature of her disorder, but also allow interpretation of the pathology in terms of a dissociation between visual subsystems. We speculate that early visual cortices are crucially involved in this dissociation. More generally, her mirrored vision may represent an extreme clinical manifestation of the relative instability of the horizontal axis in spatial vision.

Dissociating object familiarity from linguistic properties in mirror word reading

BackgroundIt is known that the orthographic properties of linguistic stimuli are processed within the left occipitotemporal cortex at about 150–200 ms. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to words in standard or mirror orientation to investigate the role of visual word form in reading. Word inversion was performed to determine whether rotated words lose their linguistic properties.MethodsAbout 1300 Italian words and legal pseudo-words were presented to 18 right-handed Italian students engaged in a letter detection task. EEG was recorded from 128 scalp sites.ResultsERPs showed an early effect of word orientation at ~150 ms, with larger N1 amplitudes to rotated than to standard words. Low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) revealed an increase in N1 to rotated words primarily in the right occipital lobe (BA 18), which may indicate an effect of stimulus familiarity. N1 was greater to target than to non-target letters at left lateral occipital sites, thus reflecting the first stage of orthographic processing. LORETA revealed a strong focus of activation for this effect in the left fusiform gyrus (BA 37), which is consistent with the so-called visual word form area (VWFA). Standard words (compared to pseudowords) elicited an enhancement of left occipito/temporal negativity at about 250–350 ms, followed by a larger anterior P3, a reduced frontal N400 and a huge late positivity. Lexical effects for rotated strings were delayed by about 100 ms at occipito/temporal sites, and were totally absent at later processing stages. This suggests the presence of implicit reading processes, which were pre-attentive and of perceptual nature for mirror strings.ConclusionThe contrast between inverted and standard words did not lead to the identification of a purely linguistic brain region. This finding suggests some caveats in the interpretation of the inversion effect in subtractive paradigms.

Affordances in the design of enactive systems

Enactive interfaces must incorporate intuitive activity that characterizes naturalistic perception. However, the manner in which information is presented is not more important than the contents: what information is presented. In this contribution, we address the contents of perception. We argue that people perceive affordances, that is, the possible actions that are available in any given situation. We further argue that enactive interfaces should be designed to optimize presentation of information about the possible actions that are available to a person using the enactive interface. The design of enactive interfaces might be guided by an extension of the theory of ecological interface design (Vicente in Hum Factors 44:62---78, 2002) to include multimodal information that is accessed through fast, intuitive exploratory movement. We review two empirical studies that illustrate our arguments. Careful analysis of affordances, together with our increasing understanding of the enactive perception of affordances, should influence the design of enactive interfaces.

Operations management and advanced manufacturing technologies in SMEs

PurposeIncreased requirements for competitiveness, innovation, quality, flexibility and information processing capability has led a number of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT). Seeks to explore this.Design/methodology/approachUsing a contingency theory perspective, a survey study of 118 Canadian manufacturers was made to determine the performance outcomes of the “fit” or alignment between the critical success factors (CSFs) of operations management in SMEs and their level of proficiency in the use of AMT.FindingsIt was found that while increased CSF and AMT assimilation levels directly impact operational performance in terms of increased productivity, cost reductions, flexibility, quality, and integration, a mismatch between the two significantly reduces performance. From an information processing view of the firm, it was also found that increased uncertainty in the SMEs' environment leads to increased CSF levels but not to increased assimilation of AMT.Research limitations/implicationsCommon to survey studies, the nature of the sample and perceptual nature of certain measures impose care in generalizing the results of the study.Originality/valueProvides information showing that enterprises must increase their ability to manage both manufacturing and information technologies.

Authenticity, Public Memories, and the Problematics of Post-Holocaust Remembrances: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Wilkomirski Affair

This essay provides a rhetorical analysis of the Wilkomirski Affair and some of the recent public debates that have discussed the importance of childhood memoirs and the formation of authentic Holocaust identities. The author argues that rhetorical processes are involved in both the construction of what are deemed “authentic” memoirs and the formation of the standards of evaluation that are used in legitimating those authenticated memories. Moreover, the author contends that the perceptual nature of this authenticating process means that some Holocaust memories are co-produced by authors and their critics. By comparing some of the textual claims that appeared in Wilkomirski's Fragments with some of the audience interpretations of those claims, rhetorical scholars gain an appreciation of the polysemic nature of first and “second” generation child survivor memoirs. The essay concludes by evaluating the perceived effectiveness of Wilkomirski's performance as a Jewish victim of the Holocaust, and argues that the affective nature of some “prosthetic memories” may occasionally provide us with irresponsible and inauthentic Holocaust memories.