Journal ArticleDOI
Colour vision, evolution, and perceptual content
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
It is argued that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions.Abstract:
Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for ‘externalism’ about perceptual content (content is distal) and ‘objectivism’ about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticised the ‘computational objectivist’ position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundamental differences among the colour vision of animals and these differences do not converge on the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my ‘comparative argument’; his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology, therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
A Rich Landscape of Affordances
Erik Rietveld,Julian Kiverstein +1 more
TL;DR: The authors argue that the affordances an environment offers to an animal are dependent on the skills the animal possesses and that the landscape of affordances we inhabit as humans is very rich and resourceful.
Journal ArticleDOI
Color for Philosophers: Unweaving the Rainbow.Color and Color Perception: A Study in Anthropocentric Realism
TL;DR: The author's account of colro recognises that the human perceptual system provides a limited and idiosyncratic picture of the world, and these limitations are shown to be consistent with a realist account of colour and to provide the necessary tools for giving an analysis of common sense knowledge of color phenomena.
Dissertation
Perception et réalité : aspects métaphysiques, ontologiques et épistémologiques
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors defend l'experience perceptive, i.e. the belief that a person has a perception perceptive in contact with the world, and propose an ontologie realiste, non reductive and non relationnelle.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gender, Development, and Post-Enlightenment Philosophies of Science
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors raise pointed questions about the complicity of Enlightenment philosophies of science with failures of Third World development policies and the current environmental crisis, and link androcentric, economistic, and nature-blind aspects of development thinking to the Enlightenment dream.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reconciling Cognitive and Perceptual Theories of Emotion: A Representational Proposal
TL;DR: The Representational Theory of Emotion (RTE) as discussed by the authors is a general representational metatheoretical framework for reconciling cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion, and it has been used extensively in the literature on emotion.
References
More filters
Book
The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception
TL;DR: The relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information for visual perception is discussed in detail in this article, where the authors also present experimental evidence for direct perception of motion in the world and movement of the self.
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme
TL;DR: The adaptationist programme is faulted for its failure to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin, and Darwin’s own pluralistic approach to identifying the agents of evolutionary change is supported.
Journal ArticleDOI
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors criticise the adaptationist program for its inability to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin (male tyrannosaurs may have used their diminutive front legs to titillate female partners, but this will not explain why they got so small).
Book
Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information
TL;DR: Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field of visual perception as discussed by the authors, where the process of vision constructs a set of representations, starting from a description of the input image and culminating with three-dimensional objects in the surrounding environment, a central theme and one that has had farreaching influence in both neuroscience and cognitive science, is the notion of different levels of analysis.