perception, skill, and cognitive penetrabilty

7/30/2019 Perception, Skill, And Cognitive Penetrabilty

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Perception, Skill, andCognitive Penetrabilty

Ellen [email protected]

Berlin School of Mind and Brain

Humboldt Universitt zu Berlin
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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What would the relation between

perception and skill have to be, if

it were to constitute a legitimateinstance of cognitive penetration?


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Ifa skill is learned through practice and is

related to perception in an explanatorily

relevant way, then such a relationship

constitutes a genuine case of cognitive

penetration.


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What is the relationship between

perception and cognition?


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Is perception more like playing

the violin or digestion?


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The issue is NOTwhetherperception is accompanied bycognition.

The issue IS whether thequalitative core of a perceptual

event is influenced, impacted,structured, or constituted bycognition.


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These lines are identical inlength.


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Perception: Expectation, Belief,

& Knowledge


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Cognitive Penetrability:

If a system is cognitively penetrable

then the function it computes is

sensitive, in a semantically coherent

way, to the organisms goals and beliefs,that is it can be altered in a way that

bears some logical relation to what a

person knows.

-Zenon Pylyshyn, Is vision continuous with

cognition?, p. 343.


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TWO ISSUES:

1) Are allcognitive

statespropositionalstates likegoals, beliefs,thoughts, andknowledge?

2) IfNO, then how

can we make

sense of a a

logical relationtoor semantic

coherence with

nonproposition-albut cognitive

states?


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Why think there are

nonpropositional, cognitive states?

Knowing-how v. knowing-that


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Ryles Regress

The consideration of propositions isitself an operation the execution ofwhich can be more or less intelligent,

less or more stupid. But if, for anyoperation to be intelligently executed,a prior theoretical operation had firstto be performed and performedintelligently, it would be a logical

impossibility for anyone ever to breakinto the circle.

-Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p.30


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Propositional rules can never

provide the specificity requiredto govern acting en situ.

Particular rules are not rules at all.


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How can perceptual processing bear a

semantically coherent or logical relation

to a cognitive state?

Dretske: Minimal rationality


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Learning and cognitive content

The reason learning is so central tointelligentbehavior, to the behavior ofpeople, is that learning is the process inwhich internal indicators are harnessed to

output and thus become relevantasrepresentations, as reasonsto theexplanation of the behavior of which they arepart. It is in the learning process thatinformation-carrying elements get a job to do

because of the information they carry andhence acquire, by means of their content, arole in the explanation of behavior.

-Dretske, Explaining Behavior, p. 104.


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Learning through Practice


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What is learned through practice?

Attention and control: that which is responsible for themanner or style in which a skill is instantiated.


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Learning and not sensitization


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Cognitive Penetrability of

Perception by Skill

If that part of skill which is developed

through practice (i.e., that aspect of

skill that is responsible for the

manner or style in which a skill is

performed) is related to early

perceptual processing in an

explanatorily relevant way, then wehave a legitimate case of the cognitive

penetrability of perception by skill.


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THANK YOU!

perception, skill, and cognitive penetrabilty

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