Bodily skill and internal representation in sensorimotor perception

Abstract

The sensorimotor theory of perceptual experience claims that perception is constituted by bodily interaction with the environment, drawing on practical knowledge of the systematic ways that sensory inputs are disposed to change as a result of movement. Despite the theory's associations with enactivism, it is sometimes claimed that the appeal to 'knowledge' means that the theory is committed to giving an essential theoretical role to internal representation, and therefore to a form of orthodox cognitive science. This paper defends the role ascribed to knowledge by the theory, but argues that this knowledge can and should be identified with bodily skill rather than representation. Making the further argument that the notion of 'representation hunger' can be replaced with 'prima facie representation hunger', it concludes that although the theory could optionally be developed scientifically in part by reference to internal representation, it makes a strong and natural fit with anti-representationalist embodied or enactive cognitive science.

A match made in heaven: predictive approaches to (an unorthodox) sensorimotor enactivism

“…This is an implicit and practical kind of knowledge of the lawful set of Sensorimotor Contingencies (henceforth SMCs): covariations between movement either of the perceiver or of the object perceived, and its sensory outcome (Buhrmann et al 2013, p. 2;see also O'Regan and Noë 2001, p. 943;Noë 2004, p. 63). For SMEn, perception is in part constituted by the possession and skillful execution of sensorimotor knowledge which consists in our capacity or ability to act with sensitivity to SMCs, or to the way sensory input covaries with movements of the object or the agent (see Silverman 2016Silverman , 2018. Sensorimotor knowledge can be glossed counterfactually as the knowledge of how sensory information changes after an interaction between the perceiver and an object.…”

“…As Silverman (2018) notes, SMEn seems to face a dilemma: either it takes sensorimotor knowledge as practical and faces the drawbacks mentioned above, or it takes sensorimotor knowledge to be counterfactual and risks losing the practical aspect of it. To resolve this dilemma, Silverman (2018) advances a proposal in which sensorimotor knowledge fulfils the two explanatory roles that it is meant to fulfil, while maintaining its practical character.…”

“…Noë (2004), O'Regan andNoë (2001), O'Regan (2011),Silverman (2018), for instance, can be taken to argue for a weaker perspective on the positing of representations. However,Chemero (2009), Myin (2012, 2017),Noë (2012), O'Regan and Degenaar (2014),Myin and Loughlin (2018), among others, offer a more radical perspective on their rejection of representationalism.…”

Aproximación al concepto de atención desde la perspectiva del enactivismo

“…Las constantes actualizaciones de posibilidades de acción emergen de la interacción en vivo que el agente sostiene con su medio, cuando este, por ejemplo, explora río abajo la mejor manera de agarrar el remo o balancear el bote, mientras encuentra piedras de diversos tamaños en cada momento. Este principio de autonomía puede verse aplicado en la capacidad misma de nuestro organismo de producir anticuerpos para combatir una infección, como en la posibilidad de generar las acciones necesarias para ir de la sala a la cocina para beber un vaso con agua.Las posibilidades de interacción con el entorno no son estáticas, sino que, por el contrario, se actualizan conforme se despliega el movimiento que, recordemos, depende tanto de la estructura corporal del agente como de los cambios y transformaciones que ocurren en el entorno(Silverman, 2018). En este sentido Silverman (2018) subraya un concepto clave que puede ayudar a comprender en mejor medida la relación entre la selectividad y la agencia corporal, a saber, el conocimiento sensoriomotor que refiere al saber cómo actuar en determinadas circunstancias a través del cuerpo:El conocimiento sensoriomotor es una condición de posibilidad para la mayoría de habilidades de acción: por ejemplo, no serías capaz de atrapar una pelota si no pudieras actuar de una manera que sea sensible a los cambios en la estimulación sensorial que están producidos por el movimiento de la pelota y tu propia postura corporal (p.165).Esta sensibilidad a las posibilidades de acción es precisamente la esencia de la selectividad que argumenta el modelo de Wu.…”

The structure of sensorimotor explanation

“…117-122;2005a;2012, pp. 147-151;Silverman 2017). The second condition is that there must be an item in the environment that triggers the perceiver's sensorimotor reactions (Noë 2005b;2012, p. 25).…”