1,721,041 research outputs found
Perceptual imagination and perceptual memory: an overview
Get PDFThis volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, framed by an introductory overview of these topics. How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge? These are the two central questions that the contributors seek to address
Novel colour experiences and their implications
Get PDFThis chapter explores the evidence for the existence of such new colour experiences and what their philosophical ramifications would be. It defines the notion of ‘novel colours’. The only things that, plausibly, might ‘forbid’ them are certain theories of colour—theories that rule out the existence of such colours or colour experiences. In more philosophical terminology, the judgements are based on the phenomenal character of the colour experience and on the phenomenal nature of the colours. According to the standard account of the colour, black and white appear to people to be opposites and not to contain any chromatic colour. Manzotti, R. argues that when the readers examine all the visual experiences that their ever have, perceptual, illusory, or hallucinatory, the readers cannot find one that isn’t composed of solely of the elements that their have experienced when seeing the world
The structure of sensorimotor intelligence in severely and profoundly mentally handicapped children
No full textThe nature of sensorimotor development in severely mentally handicapped children is poorly understood. The aim of the study reported in this thesis is to investigate the structure of sensorimotor intelligence in this population. The Uzgiris-Hunt (1975) Scales were employed in a Piagetian approach to the assessment of severely mentally handicapped children. The results suggested deficits in imitation, and object permanence in their profile of abilities, relative to normal infants. Evidence is presented that these results were not a simple reflection of the subjects' motor handicaps, nor were they a function of institutionalisation. It appears that sensorimotor intelligence in the severely mentally handicapped is qualitatively different from that of non-retarded infants. A pilot-training study in vocal and gestural imitation and object permanence with a small group of subjects, was carried out. It was possible to train gestural imitation and object permanence, but no improvement occurred in vocal imitation. These findings are consistent with a difference position on the nature of severe mental handicap, since a fundamental departure from the normal course of development is demonstrated.</p
Introduction to the philosophy of colour
Get PDFThis chapter explores why the examination of many different aspects of colour has been a prominent feature in philosophy. It is because, first, colours are exceedingly familiar, seemingly simple features that become enigmatic under scrutiny, and they are difficult to capture in any familiar-sounding, unsophisticated theory. Second, through colour one can confront various problems that span the breadth of philosophy, including problems pertaining to perception, the mind-body relation, the nature of science, scepticism, vagueness, meta-ethics, and aesthetics. Colour’s usefulness in philosophy is also due to colour being an enduring example of perceptual variation: the experienced colour of a jacket can change depending on lighting conditions, one’s previous retinal state, and the absorption curves of different perceivers’ cones, among other things. The triggering of colour experience by non-traditional stimuli is often classified as a form of colour illusion, and the extent and nature of colours illusions is always a crucial topic to philosophy of perception
Introduction: varieties of disjunctivism
No full textThis introductory chapter argues that there are a number of different varieties of disjunctivism. But it is suggested that a mark of disjunctivism, in all of its varieties, is a refusal to credit a certain kind of significance to the fact that a pair of states can be indistinguishable from the subject's point of view. Three different varieties of disjunctivism about experience are introduced: experiential disjunctivism, according to which indistinguishable experiences can differ in intrinsic nature; epistemological disjunctivism, according to which indistinguishable experiences can differ in epistemic significance; and phenomenal disjunctivism, according to which indistinguishable experiences can differ in phenomenal character. A comparison is made with disjunctivism about bodily movement, and disjunctivism about reasons for acting. It is suggested that each variety of disjunctivism stands opposed to a Cartesian picture of the relation between the inner and the outer worlds
Object seeing and spatial perception
Get PDFThis chapter considers the _Spatiality Claim_: if one sees an object then one sees some of that object’s spatial properties. The author considers an argument for this given by Cassam (2007), and challenges Cassam’s argument. His argument involves the idea, inspired by Dretske (1969), that seeing an object requires visual differentiation. But, it is argued here, there are prima facie counter-examples to the visual differentiation condition. Next, the author discusses the Spatiality Claim directly, and defends it against potential counter-examples which come from reflection on empirical cases where subjects can see objects yet have some sort of spatial perception deficit. One theme that emerges is that insofar as versions of the Spatiality Claim are defensible, we should focus on the relatively _determinable_ spatial properties of objects and our perception of such properties
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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