Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience

Workshop on Attention and the Cognition-Perception Boundary (12:15-5pm in the Shaper Room, 67 Oakfield Avenue)

The distinction between perception (seeing, hearing, etc.) and cognition (thinking) is part of our commonsense view of the mind.  These seem to be clearly distinct things. But philosophical efforts to explain the distinction have tended to muddy, rather than to clarify, the issue. In this work-in-progress, I critically discuss some recent influential attempts to draw the distinction, offered by Ned Block, Tyler Burge, and E.J. Green, and sketch an alternative view, which I’m calling a “permeable membrane” theory of the perception/ cognition distinction. My view is similar to an older view, famously espoused by Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn. However, while theirs is founded on the idea of strict "informational encapsulation” (perception feeds information to cognition, but never the reverse), mine is explicitly designed to allow the information flow they forbid

Monotropism and the Priority Structure Account of Attention (work-in-progress)

Monotropism is a promising theory of autism which identifies the core aspect of autism as attentional differences. Monotropism has the potential to address the heterogeneity problem by providing an account which can explain, and connect, a wide range of seemingly unconnected symptoms and behaviours. This is a problem which has been extremely difficult for other theories of autism to overcome. Yet, despite its popularity within the autism community, monotropism has not been widely adopted within the field of autism research. I will argue that this is due to several serious limitations with the account which stem from not providing a specific explanation of what is meant by the term ‘attention’. I will then assess the compatibility between monotropism and Watzl’s priority structure account of attention. I will conclude that adopting this account of attention allows for a revised and improved account of monotropism.

Abstract: Much of the world is literally made for particular patterns of attention. The stimuli most humans encounter most of the time are the product of "attentional landscaping”, defined as the intentional activity of changing someone’s patterns of attention by making changes to the sensory environment they are exposed to. In this paper I describe attentional landscaping and argue for its significance. Attentional landscaping collectivizes attentional guidance and coordinates attention among several agents. By doing so it allowed humans to expand their agency. I analyze attentional landscaping as a form of cognitive scaffolding. Attentional landscaping, I argue, plausibly played a key role in the evolution and ontogenetic development of human sociality and cognition, and it is at the core of human social life, of communication, and of our epistemic interactions. Yet, it is plagued by a problem of hostility: attentional landscaping can be used also to undermine the interests of others and their attentional communities. I argue that humans have developed defenses against this hostility. The norms that govern ostensive communication (including practices of testimonial exchange) can be understood as social norms that function as such defence mechanisms.