Space Perception, Visual Dissonance and the Fate of Standard Representationalism

Masrour, Farid

doi:10.1111/nous.12139

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…And just like pain grows more painful, extendedness would grow larger with a stronger excitation of nerve fibers. More often, even phenomenological studies involve a mixture of notions of internal and external space, as in Wagner [ 59 ] and Masrour [ 71 , 72 ]. According to integrated information theory, colors must correspond to causal sub-structures.…”

Section: Figure A1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Does Space Feel the Way it Does? Towards a Principled Account of Spatial Experience

Haun

Tononi

2019

Entropy

123

179

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There must be a reason why an experience feels the way it does. A good place to begin addressing this question is spatial experience, because it may be more penetrable by introspection than other qualities of consciousness such as color or pain. Moreover, much of experience is spatial, from that of our body to the visual world, which appears as if painted on an extended canvas in front of our eyes. Because it is ‘right there’, we usually take space for granted and overlook its qualitative properties. However, we should realize that a great number of phenomenal distinctions and relations are required for the canvas of space to feel ‘extended’. Here we argue that, to be experienced as extended, the canvas of space must be composed of countless spots, here and there, small and large, and these spots must be related to each other in a characteristic manner through connection, fusion, and inclusion. Other aspects of the structure of spatial experience follow from extendedness: every spot can be experienced as enclosing a particular region, with its particular location, size, boundary, and distance from other spots. We then propose an account of the phenomenal properties of spatial experiences based on integrated information theory (IIT). The theory provides a principled approach for characterizing both the quantity and quality of experience by unfolding the cause-effect structure of a physical substrate. Specifically, we show that a simple simulated substrate of units connected in a grid-like manner yields a cause-effect structure whose properties can account for the main properties of spatial experience. These results uphold the hypothesis that our experience of space is supported by brain areas whose units are linked by a grid-like connectivity. They also predict that changes in connectivity, even in the absence of changes in activity, should lead to a warping of experienced space. To the extent that this approach provides an initial account of phenomenal space, it may also serve as a starting point for investigating other aspects of the quality of experience and their physical correspondents.

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Section: Figure A1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Does Space Feel the Way it Does? Towards a Principled Account of Spatial Experience

Haun

Tononi

2019

Entropy

123

179

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“…This falls short of vindicating representationalism, even in the restricted domain of spatial experience. To do that, other challenges need answers (Masrour, 2017). Moreover, as flagged in section 3.1, it remains controversial whether representationalists can explain Tier 1 visual phenomenology.…”

Section: Imaginative Entanglementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience

Green

2021

Nous

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The puzzle of cross-modal shape experience is the puzzle of reconciling the apparent differences between our visual and haptic experiences of shape with their apparent similarities. This paper proposes that we can resolve the cross-modal puzzle by reflecting on another puzzle. The puzzle of perspectival character challenges us to reconcile the variability of shape experience through shifts in perspective with its constancy. An attractive approach to the latter puzzle holds that shape experience is complex, involving both perspectival aspects and constant aspects. I argue here that parallel distinctions between perspectival and constant aspects of shape experience arise in sight and touch, and that perspectival aspects are modality-specific while at least some constant aspects are constitutively multisensory. I then address a powerful challenge to the idea that aspects of spatial phenomenology are shared cross-modally.

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“…Following Masrour (2017), we will refer to the experiences produced by a square viewed in the frontal plane and the same square viewed in depth as seemingly incompatible . They are seemingly incompatible because they seem to present distinct shape properties.…”

Section: A Dilemma For Causal Phenomenal Spatial Functionalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use Your Illusion: Spatial Functionalism, Vision Science, and the Case Against Global Skepticism

Green

Rabin

2019

Philosophical Books

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3 We do not attempt to spell out, in any detail, what it means for an experience-type to be "associated" with a concept. The basic idea is clear. The experience-type associated with concept C is the type of experience on the basis of which we tend to apply C. Squarish experiences are associated with the concept SQUARE because we apply the concept SQUARE on the basis of squarish experiences. Reddish experiences are associated with RED for analogous reasons, etcetera. Chalmers (2019) is also committed to the idea that concepts and experiences can be associated in this way. Chalmers calls the associated experiences 'the relevant experiences' (21). 4 We will occasionally speak of experiences referring to spatial properties. If the reader dislikes such talk, they should feel free to substitute whichever of 'represents', 'indicates', 'picks out', or 'has as its content' they prefer.

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Space Perception, Visual Dissonance and the Fate of Standard Representationalism

Cited by 8 publications

References 63 publications

Why Does Space Feel the Way it Does? Towards a Principled Account of Spatial Experience

Why Does Space Feel the Way it Does? Towards a Principled Account of Spatial Experience

The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience

Use Your Illusion: Spatial Functionalism, Vision Science, and the Case Against Global Skepticism

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