Publication Date:
2024-04-08
Description:
When viewing a circular coin rotated in depth, it fills an elliptical region of the distal scene. For some, this appears to generate a two-fold experience, in which one sees the coin as simultaneously circular (in light of its 3D shape) and elliptical (in light of its 2D ‘perspectival shape’ or ‘p-shape’). An energetic philosophical debate asks whether the latter p-shapes are genuinely presented in perceptual experience (as ‘perspectivalists’ argue) or if, instead, this appearance is somehow derived or inferred from experience (as ‘anti-perspectivalists’ argue). This debate, however, has largely turned on introspection. In a recent study, Morales et al. (2020) aim to provide the first empirical test of this question. They asked subjects to find an elliptical coin seen face-on from a search array that also included a circular coin seen either face-on or at an angle. They found that subjects reacted more slowly when the distracting circle was seen at an angle, such that its p-shape matched that of the target ellipse. From this, they concluded that the similar p-shape between the ellipse and circle constituted a phenomenal similarity between the two, and thus that perspectivalism is true. We show that these results can also be explained by pre-attentive guidance by unconscious representations (in what follows, just “unconscious pre-attentive guidance”) and that this explanation is at least as plausible as one from phenomenal similarity. Thus, we conclude that the experiment does not support perspectivalism over anti-perspectivalism.
Keywords:
attention; higher-order theories of consciousness; inattentional blindness; masking; mental qualities; neurophenomenal structuralism; phenomenal content; unconscious mental states
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bic Book Industry Communication::H Humanities::HP Philosophy::HPM Philosophy of mind
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bic Book Industry Communication::J Society & social sciences::JM Psychology
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bic Book Industry Communication::J Society & social sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition & cognitive psychology
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thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTM Philosophy of mind
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thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology
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thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition and cognitive psychology
Language:
English
Format:
image/jpeg
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