Is Color Experience Cognitively Penetrable?

Abstract

Is color experience cognitively penetrable? Some philosophers have recently argued that it is. In this paper, we take issue with the claim that color experience is cognitively penetrable. We argue that the notion of cognitive penetration that has recently dominated the literature is flawed since it fails to distinguish between the modulation of perceptual content by non-perceptual principles and genuine cognitive penetration. We use this distinction to show that studies suggesting that color experience can be modulated by factors of the cognitive system do not establish that color experience is cognitively penetrable. Additionally, we argue that even if color experience turns out to be modulated by color-related beliefs and knowledge beyond non-perceptual principles, it does not follow that color experience is cognitively penetrable since the experiences of determinate hues involve post-perceptual processes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications that these ideas may have on debates in philosophy.

Unconscious Imagination and the Mental Imagery Debate

“…Just like the processes taking place in LGN or the primary visual cortex, which ultimately lead to a conscious experience, are not constitutive of the phenomenology of the experience, so sensorimotor know-how need not be constitutive of the phenomenology of experience. We can compare these dorsal-stream processes to the intra-perceptual principles or ‘organizing principles of vision,’ that modulate early visual processes (Fodor, 1983; Pylyshyn, 1999; Raftopoulos, 2001; Brogaard and Gatzia, 2017). For example, in the case of amodal completion, partially occluded figures such as the polygon in the middle in Figure 1 are not perceived as the fragments of the foregrounded figures.…”

Finding the “odd one out”: Memory color effects and the logic of appearance

“…Perceptual matching tasks such as these may also be less susceptible to alternative explanations based on differences in memory rather than perception (Cooper et al, 2012;Firestone & Scholl, 2015b). In light of these factors, and in light also of this classic study's prominence in contemporary debates over cognitive (im)penetrability (Brogaard & Gatzia, 2017;Deroy, 2013;Gatzia, 2017;Gross et al, 2014;MacPherson, 2012;Stokes, in press;Vetter & Newen, 2014; Zeimbekis, 2013), we asked whether the relevant effect might also be susceptible to an investigation based on perceptual "logic".…”

Introduction to Volume 11, Issue 1 of topiCS

“…Two years ago, in January 2017 (Volume 9, Issue 1), we published our Cortical Color topic edited by Berit Brogaard (University of Miami) as well as several Best Ofs. Papers from the Cortical Color topic have garnered eight citations in the ISI database (including five for the Brogaard & Gatzia, , paper), whereas seven of the papers in that year's two Best Ofs have a total of eight citations.…”