Gregory's Constructivist Theory of Perception

5 Key excerpts on "Gregory's Constructivist Theory of Perception"

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  Sensation, Perception and Action

  An Evolutionary Perspective

  • Johannes Zanker(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The constructivist approach to per-ception claims that the perceptual system tries to make the best sense of sensory input when incomplete or ambiguous data are provided, by applying previous knowledge about the exter-nal world (Gregory 1997). The interaction between higher-level aspects of the human mind and perceptual processes becomes apparent in the relation between perception and emotion: emotional memories can affect perceptions (like musical tunes being connected to important events in your life, or the association of beauty with pictures), and perceptions can obviously affect emotions (just think of a disgusting photograph or a repulsive screeching noise). In a similar sense there is a lot of abstract knowledge connected to all kinds of sensory informa-tion, like the perspective geometry of space, the black and yellow stripes you associate with wasps, or the tunes of your mobile phone indicating an incoming call or an alarm. The itera-tive comparison of the sensory input with internally stored knowledge, be it abstract mean-ing or emotional association, develops and refines hypotheses about the external stimulus configurations that can support recognition in noisy stimuli, such as the photograph shown in Figure 13.6. And the other way round, we can find that expectations based on previous Figure 13.6 The Dalmatian (R. C. James, as shown in Marr 1982). If you have not seen this photograph before, it is very difficult to make sense of it. Once you have been made aware that it shows a Dalmatian dog sniffing the ground in the central area of the picture, you will be able to outline the shape of the dog and you will never have any difficulties to recognise it when you see the photograph in the future.

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  Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

  The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Volume 6

  • Amy Kind(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The most current version of constructivism is the Bayesian model of perception (Brainard 2009; Clark 2013; Maloney and Mamassian 2009; Mamassian et al. 2002; Rescorla forthcoming). According to such model, the visual system performs inductive inferences on some hypotheses about the environment. These hypotheses are initially selected based on prior experience. The hypotheses are tested in real time given sensory stimulation and either confirmed or changed.

  Like Gestalt psychology, constructivism prompted reflection on the neutrality of perceptual appearances. According to constructivism, what we perceive depends on unconscious inferences that employ assumptions about the world. If the assumptions change – through, for example, the acquisition of new knowledge – then it seems that what we perceive should correspondingly change.

  Following these developments in psychology, a number of philosophers of science from the middle of the 20th century started questioning the status of observation in scientific theories (Hanson 1958; Kuhn 1962). The idea was that, contrary to common belief, observation is theory-laden and scientists working in different paradigms literally perceive different worlds. The opposing view is that observation is theory-neutral and it can serve as an impartial tribunal to adjudicate clashes of opinion.

  In philosophy of mind, this disagreement later generated two versions of constructivism. Reacting to the idea that observation is theory-laden, Jerry Fodor published an influential work that denied that perceptual inferences are affected by other mental states (Fodor 1983; 1984). Fodor proposed modularity. The modular thesis includes a number of claims, but one of the central claims is that perceiving is importantly isolated from thinking and believing. Perceptual processes are largely immune to influence from outside of perception, such that what we perceive is pretty constant through time and across world-views.

  Deniers of modularity claim that perception is ‘cognitively penetrable’ (Churchland 1988). Perception is influenced by background knowledge and expertise such that the same subject may perceive the world differently at different times as a function of a change in beliefs. Along similar lines, different subjects may perceive the world differently as a function of their differing theoretical convictions.

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  Infant Perception: From Sensation to Cognition

  Perception of Space, Speech, and Sound

  • Leslie B. Cohen, Philip Salapatek, Leslie B. Cohen, Philip Salapatek(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Rather than refutation we will accept as given the constructivistic view and seek to account for the empirical data using this particular model. In the present chapter we shall use a constructivistic model—namely that of the self—to argue that social perception in particular is a function of the interaction between the infant's cognitions and its social world. After presenting the stimulus-oriented, traditional constructivis- tic, and ethological positions, we will present a theory and data toward a model of the development of the self in infancy. This model will then be used to explain a variety of data on social perception in infancy. L ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES A. Mechanistic Position One view of perception is that the information within the stimulus is more important than the act of reconstructing the information according to the organism's plans, strategies, and needs. The structure is thought to be in the stimulus, not in the organism. Although the organism may possess structures for uncovering the stimulus properties, these properties reside in the stimulus itself. This view is exemplified by the Gibsons and by ethologists such as Lorenz. The Gibsons's (E. J. Gibson, 1969; J. J. Gibson, 1963, 1966) view of perception is essentially that of a passive organism absorbing information which is already structured. Although the organism actively seeks and attends to information, he does not structure it himself. "I assume with J. J. Gibson (1966) that there is a structure in the world and structure in the stimulus, and that it is the structure in the stimulus . . . that constitutes information about the world [E. J. Gibson, 1969, pp. 13-14]." Therefore this theory is stimulus-oriented. The organism must discover the invariances present in the environment, even though the environment itself changes. Learning does not occur through a constructivist process, but through the infant's increasing ability to extract information

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  New Testament Theology in a Secular World

  A Constructivist Work in Philosophical Epistemology and Christian Apologetics

  • Peter Lampe, Robert L. Brawley(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • T&T Clark

    (Publisher)

  11 The constructivist position thus harmonizes with results that cognitive neurobiology has produced. 12 Our brain is not in direct contact with the external world. On the contrary, contact is mediated through sensory receptors, which in a large measure select the input 13 and whose methods of selecting depend on the species. The various species of living creatures have developed sense organs with different make-ups corresponding to the necessities of their life – some even developed infrared or magnetic sensors – so that although they move about in the same biotope, they live in differently perceived worlds (‘worlds of experience’). Selecting from the ocean of energy surrounding us, our sense organs react to only a modicum of elementary events in it, for example to only specific light or sound waves and their simple properties (frequency and amplitude). The huge excess of the selected elementary events is not available for use in the perception process; thus, the input of the external world is minimal. All other contents of perception – such as colour – are made accessible by the brain; they are constructed. This is to say: just as our sense organs do not receive a great deal of what takes place in the exterior world, inversely our perceived world contains a great deal that does not exist in the exterior world. Most notably, everything in perception that has meaning remains without external correspondence. Meaning does not emerge until the brain compares and combines the incoming sensory data, and assembles them into meaningful units, then into objects and finally into scenes. This meaning-generating general concepts (‘justice’, ‘similarity’, ‘black’, geometrical qualities such as ‘triangular’, etc.) ( Problems of Philosophy [1912] = Probleme der Philosophie [Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1967], 81ff.). 10 The Greek Sceptics already spoke of a mixture ( mi/gma ) (Sextus Empiricus, Phyrr. 1.124). 11 Cf. Roth, Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit , 306–11.

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  Intelligence Science

  • Zhongzhi Shi(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  As what was pointed out above, there exists light distribution in any point in the space. The change of the viewpoint must cause the change of light distribution, but the light distribution always contains certain structure. Gibson believes that the perception system extracts invariance from the series of flowing. His theory is called the ecology theory of the perception now, and forms a school. Gibson refers to the superficial perception with structure as normal or ecological perception. He thinks, compared with his own view, the Gestalt theory is mainly based on the analysis of the perception in special circumstances. In this kind of circumstance, constructing is reduced or a not relevant one, just like the structure of this paper is irrelevant with the content printed above it at all. In the constructing theory, the perception often utilizes information from memory. And Gibson thinks that the world which has structure and is highly structured has supplied with abundant and accurate information. The observer can choose from it, and needn’t choose from the information that was stored in the past. Gibson believes that it is usually the perception that guides our movements. This is different with the movement theories of the perception. The movement theory assumes the signal that our muscles got has been turned into the impact on the perception. The developing athletic skill guides the developing perception skill. The ecology theory firmly believes people all treat the world by similar means. It places emphasis on the importance of overall complex of the information that can be got in the natural environment. 152 Intelligence Science Gibson’s ecology perception theory has certain scientific basis. He assumes that the perception reaction is an innate view and is in accordance with the deep perception of new born animal.

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