scholarly journals The significance of encapsulation of visual perception for philosophy of mind and aesthetic analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-92
Author(s):  
Vladimir Konecni
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Opinion Article

This Opinion Article highlights three sets of important implications of the very recent work by C. Firestone and B. Scholl on the encapsulation of visual perception: (a) methodological implications, especially with regard to experimental areas of cognitive science, such as cognitive social psychology; (h) implications of interest to philosophers of mind, some of whose more extravagant recent claims have been based on the assumption of "top-down" cognitive effects on perception; and (c) implications that challenge some recent work in philosophical and psychological aesthetics regarding art expertise, as well as defend the logic of A. Danto's theorizing from attacks that are based on the assumption of "top-down- cognitive effects.

Aesthetics and Cognitive Science

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Currie
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Human Motivation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The subject of this article is the connection between art and all those aspects of mind that have, to some degree, an empirical side. It covers results in neuropsychology and neuroscience, in cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as in various parts of the philosophy of mind. This article, however, ignores questions about the natural history of our mental capacities. To the extent that art has human psychology as its subject, there must be potential for conflict with the sciences of mind. As philosophers have recently noted, results in social psychology challenge our ordinary conception of human motivation, suggesting that moral character either does not exist at all or plays an insignificant role in shaping behaviour.

What to say to a skeptical metaphysician: A defense manual for cognitive and behavioral scientists

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Ross ◽  
David Spurrett
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship

A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism.We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics.

An even stronger case for the cognitive impenetrability of visual perception

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-383
Author(s):  
Lester E. Krueger
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Cognitive Penetrability

Pylyshyn could have strengthened his case by avoiding side issues and by taking a sterner, firmer line on the unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable) problems plaguing the sensitivity (d') measure of top-down, cognitive effects, as well as the general (nearly utter!) lack of convincing evidence provided by proponents of the cognitive penetrability of visual perception.

Social Psychology as a Cognitive Science

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 839-840
Author(s):  
James S. Uleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science

‘A Radical causation’: Coleridge's Lyrics and Collective Guilt

Romanticism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany Pladek
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Ideal Form ◽  
Ethical Work ◽  
Positive Social Change ◽  
Meaningful Relationships

This paper argues that the early lyrics of Samuel Taylor Coleridge explore the ethical work of collective guilt, a feeling with enormous Romantic and contemporary significance. Coleridge's lyrics formally model collective guilt while making a cautious case for its social value. By reading ‘Fears in Solitude’ and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner through recent work in social psychology and the philosophy of ethics, I show how Coleridge creates causalities of feeling, affirming meaningful relationships of responsibility that go beyond personal guilt. I conclude that Romantic lyric offers an ideal form not only for illustrating how collective guilt works as a ‘structure of feeling’, but also for examining the emotion's potential to create positive social change.

In the Middle of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Moral Repair ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
Moral Time

This chapter explores the specific challenges that cognitive science and social psychology pose to those literary concepts and modes that are grounded in traditional moral understandings of selfhood and action, including integrity of character and notions such as tragic realization and moral repair. Focusing on the concept of moral time, the chapter explores two literary texts in which profound middle-of-life dramas take place: Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle” and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. A form of slow psychic time entirely lost to view in recent cognitive science is shown to take place in James’s tale, while The Winter’s Tale insists on the forms of moral and emotional experience that are beyond reflection and explanation. The readings presented are set in relation to key critical debates on the works, to challenge a persistent evasion of moral frameworks in contemporary anti-normative approaches.

scholarly journals Top-down control of visual cortex by the frontal eye fields through oscillatory realignment

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenica Veniero ◽  
Joachim Gross ◽  
Stephanie Morand ◽  
Felix Duecker ◽  
Alexander T. Sack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Single Pulse ◽  
Frontal Eye Fields ◽  
Phase Reset ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Beta Frequency

AbstractVoluntary allocation of visual attention is controlled by top-down signals generated within the Frontal Eye Fields (FEFs) that can change the excitability of lower-level visual areas. However, the mechanism through which this control is achieved remains elusive. Here, we emulated the generation of an attentional signal using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to activate the FEFs and tracked its consequences over the visual cortex. First, we documented changes to brain oscillations using electroencephalography and found evidence for a phase reset over occipital sites at beta frequency. We then probed for perceptual consequences of this top-down triggered phase reset and assessed its anatomical specificity. We show that FEF activation leads to cyclic modulation of visual perception and extrastriate but not primary visual cortex excitability, again at beta frequency. We conclude that top-down signals originating in FEF causally shape visual cortex activity and perception through mechanisms of oscillatory realignment.

scholarly journals Causal modulation of right hemisphere fronto-parietal phase synchrony with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation during a conscious visual detection task

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé Stengel ◽  
Marine Vernet ◽  
Julià L. Amengual ◽  
Antoni Valero-Cabré
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Frequency Band ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Visual Detection ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Beta

AbstractCorrelational evidence in non-human primates has reported increases of fronto-parietal high-beta (22–30 Hz) synchrony during the top-down allocation of visuo-spatial attention. But may inter-regional synchronization at this specific frequency band provide a causal mechanism by which top-down attentional processes facilitate conscious visual perception? To address this question, we analyzed electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from a group of healthy participants who performed a conscious visual detection task while we delivered brief (4 pulses) rhythmic (30 Hz) or random bursts of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to the right Frontal Eye Field (FEF) prior to the onset of a lateralized target. We report increases of inter-regional synchronization in the high-beta band (25–35 Hz) between the electrode closest to the stimulated region (the right FEF) and right parietal EEG leads, and increases of local inter-trial coherence within the same frequency band over bilateral parietal EEG contacts, both driven by rhythmic but not random TMS patterns. Such increases were accompained by improvements of conscious visual sensitivity for left visual targets in the rhythmic but not the random TMS condition. These outcomes suggest that high-beta inter-regional synchrony can be modulated non-invasively and that high-beta oscillatory activity across the right dorsal fronto-parietal network may contribute to the facilitation of conscious visual perception. Our work supports future applications of non-invasive brain stimulation to restore impaired visually-guided behaviors by operating on top-down attentional modulatory mechanisms.

Psychology: Autonomous or Anomalous?

Dialogue ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kernohan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Essential Difference ◽  
Anomalous Monism

In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. (Token identities are identities between individual events; type identities represent a stronger claim of identities between interesting sorts of events.) Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, neurophysiology. Both are mentalistic theories, allowing psychology to make use of intentional descriptions in its theorizing. Anomalous monism uses a belief/desire/action psychology; cognitive science makes use of information-bearing states. But these similarities must not be allowed to conceal an essential difference between the two positions. Cognitive psychology claims to be a science, making interesting, lawlike generalizations for the purpose of explaining mental activity. Anomalous monism denies that psychology is a science by denying that psychological laws can be formulated. Davidson has other ideas for psychology connected with his work on meaning and truth. Hence, the title of one of his essays on anomalous monism is “Psychology as Philosophy”.

scholarly journals The Superior Visual Perception Hypothesis: Neuroaesthetics of Cave Art

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Per Olav Folgerø ◽  
Christer Johansson ◽  
Linn Heidi Stokkedal
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Animal Movement ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Brain Anatomy ◽  
Normal Brain ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Cave Art

Cave Art in the Upper Paleolithic presents a boost of creativity and visual thinking. What can explain these savant-like paintings? The normal brain function in modern man rarely supports the creation of highly detailed paintings, particularly the convincing representation of animal movement, without extensive training and access to modern technology. Differences in neuro-signaling and brain anatomy between modern and archaic Homo sapiens could also cause differences in perception. The brain of archaic Homo sapiens could perceive raw detailed information without using pre-established top-down concepts, as opposed to the common understanding of the normal modern non-savant brain driven by top-down control. Some ancient genes preserved in modern humans may be expressed in rare disorders. Researchers have compared Cave Art with art made by people with autism spectrum disorder. We propose that archaic primary consciousness, as opposed to modern secondary consciousness, included a savant-like perception with a superior richness of details compared to modern man. Modern people with high frequencies of Neanderthal genes, have notable anatomical features such as increased skull width in the occipital and parietal visual areas. We hypothesize that the anatomical differences are functional and may allow a different path to visual perception.

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