Dubious Claims about Simplicity and Likelihood: Comment on Pinna and Conti (2019)

Abstract

Pinna and Conti (Brain Sci., 2019, 9, 149, doi:10.3390/brainsci9060149) presented phenomena concerning the salience and role of contrast polarity in human visual perception, particularly in amodal completion. These phenomena are indeed illustrative thereof, but here, the focus is on their claims (1) that neither simplicity nor likelihood approaches can account for these phenomena; and (2) that simplicity and likelihood are equivalent. I argue that their first claim is based on incorrect assumptions, whereas their second claim is simply untrue.

On the Role of Contrast Polarity: In Response to van der Helm’s Comments

“…We discussed and counter-commented van der Helm's [1] comments on Pinna and Conti [2] going into detail of his critiques and rejecting all of them point-by-point. We proceeded by summarizing hypotheses and discussion of the previous work, then commenting on each critique through old and new phenomena and clarifying the meaning of our previous conclusions.…”

“…Van der Helm [1] commented in a surprisingly polemical way on a recent paper of ours [2]. In this work, we answer his comments by proceeding in an objective manner on the basis of what was truly written and demonstrated in that paper on the basis of mere phenomenal evidence.…”

Gestalts at threshold could reveal Gestalts as predictions

“…This principle is often contrasted with the simplicity principle, the idea that perceptual organization is chosen to be as simple as possible 36 , 37 . There have been attempts to reconcile these two opposing schools of thought under the Bayesian framework 38 – 42 , but not without controversy (e.g., 43 ). This controversy is beyond the scope of the current study and we will instead focus on three key observations based on empirical data that can inspire testable hypotheses.…”

Vividness, Consciousness and Mental Imagery: A Start on Connecting the Dots

“…To appreciate the difference in perspectives between the experimental phenomenology approach adopted by Pinna and Conti and the computational contenders, in this Special Issue, the readers can find a very stimulating commentary debate between these authors and the (unfortunately) late Peter van der Helm. The latter author claimed [6] that simplicity and likelihood approaches can account for the phenomena described by Pinna and Conti; and argues that Pinna and Conti's approach erroneously confounds simplicity and likelihood. In their rebuttal, Pinna and Conti [7] rejected van der Helm's interpretation of their hypotheses and methodological approach, noting that none of van der Helm's comments were directly related to their stimuli.…”