HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: E. Safra

Course/Module Coordinator: Arnon Cahen

Coordinator Email: arnon.cahen@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Cahen Arnon

Course/Module description:
To what extent is there a meaningful boundary between perception and the rest of cognition? Is perceptual experience the outcome of purely ‘bottom-up’ processes – determined solely by the nature of the perceived stimuli – or is it cognitively penetrable, that is, influenced by our background beliefs, desires, emotions, or practical skills? Is perception merely receptive and ‘dumb’, or is it active and ‘smart’? Relatedly, how are we to characterize the contents of perceptual experience: do we just see various objects and their ‘low-level’ sensory properties – colors, shapes, and textures – that are then ‘interpreted’ as being a dog a chair and a playful child, or do we see such ‘high-level’ properties directly? Finally, can be learn to perceive and if so how? These interrelated questions are at the heart of the philosophy of mind and of epistemology, and have deep implications to the nature of the relation between mind and world. They are also central to our understanding of cognitive architecture – that is, to developing a correct account of the functional and informational relations between the various mental capacities composing the mind. As such, this course is essentially interdisciplinary. We will approach these questions and their various implications from different disciplinary perspectives, discussing historic and contemporary texts from the philosophy of science and of mind, as well as experimental work in cognitive and experimental psychology.

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Students will be able to think about the nature of perception and its mutual relationship to thought, cognition and action.
Students will be able to appreciate the epistemic and empirical considerations shaping our understanding of the relations between perception and cognition.
Students will be able to appreciate the implications of different models/mental architectures to traditional epistemological challenges and the pressures such challenges place on such models.
Students will be able to comprehend and discuss contemporary empirical debates about the cognitive penetrability of perception.

Attendance requirements(%):
No requirement, but the final exam will be based on the lectures.

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lecture

Course/Module Content:
Class 1: Introduction to Cognitive Penetrability and its Implications
Class 2: Historical Motivations of Cognitive Penetration
Class 3: Modularity and Encapsulation
Class 4: Ecological Perception and Perceptual Variability
Class 5: Perceptual Learning
Class 6: Empirical Research on Perceptual Variability
Class 7: Perception and Implicit Bias
Class 8: The El Greco Fallacy and Other Concerns
Class 9: Cognitive Penetration and Mind
Class 10: Cognitive Penetration and Epistemology
Class 11: Architecture and Epistemology
Class 12+13: Cognitive Penetration and Predictive Coding
Class 14: Catch-up and Summary

Required Reading:
Selection from the following (tentative):

Banerjee, P., Chatterjee, P., & Sinha, J. (2012). Is it light or dark? Recalling moral behavior changes perception of brightness. Psychological Science, 23(4), 407-409.
Cecchi, A.S. (2014). Cognitive penetration, perceptual learning, and neural plasticity. Dialectica 68, 63–95.
Churchland, P. M. (1988). Perceptual plasticity and theoretical neutrality: A reply to Jerry Fodor. Philosophy of science, 55(2), 167-187.
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and brain sciences, 36(3), 181-204.
Connolly, K. (2014). Perceptual learning and the contents of perception. Erkenntnis, 79(6), 1407-1418.
Dretske, F. I. (1979). Simple seeing. In Body, mind, and method (pp. 1-15). Springer, Dordrecht.
Eberhardt, J. L., Goff, P. A., Purdie, V. J., & Davies, P. G. (2004). Seeing black: race, crime, and visual processing. Journal of personality and social psychology, 87(6), 876.
Firestone, C., & Scholl, B. J. (2014). “Top-down” effects where none should be found: The El Greco fallacy in perception research. Psychological science, 25(1), 38-46.
Firestone, C., & Scholl, B. J. (2016). Cognition does not affect perception: Evaluating the evidence for “top-down” effects. Behavioral and brain sciences, 39.
Fodor, J. A. (1988). A Reply to Churchland's" Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality". Philosophy of Science, 55(2), 188-198.
Fodor, J. (1984). Observation reconsidered. Philosophy of science, 51(1), 23-43.
Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind. MIT press. (Excerpts)
Gibson, J. J. (2014). The ecological approach to visual perception: classic edition. Psychology Press. (Excerpts)
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Theory and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of science. University of Chicago Press.
Goldstein, E. B. (1981). The ecology of JJ Gibson's perception. Leonardo, 191-195.
Goldstone, R. L. (2003). Learning to perceive while perceiving to learn. Perceptual organization in vision: Behavioral and neural perspectives, 233278.
Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of discovery: An inquiry into the conceptual foundations of science (Vol. 251). CUP Archive. (Excerpts)
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago press. (Excerpts)
Levin, D. T., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Distortions in the perceived lightness of faces: the role of race categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135(4), 501.
Lupyan, G. (2015). Cognitive penetrability of perception in the age of prediction: Predictive systems are penetrable systems. Review of philosophy and psychology, 6(4), 547-569.
Macpherson, F. (2012). Cognitive penetration of colour experience: Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 24-62.
Macpherson, F. (2017). The relationship between cognitive penetration and predictive coding. Consciousness and cognition, 47, 6-16.
Phillips, B. (2019). The shifting border between perception and cognition. Noûs, 53(2), 316-346.
Pylyshyn, Z. (1999). Is vision continuous with cognition?: The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception. Behavioral and brain sciences, 22(3), 341-365.
Shea, N. (2015). Distinguishing top-down from bottom-up effects. In Stokes, D., Matthen, M. & Biggs, S. (Eds.). Perception and Its Modalities (73–91). New York: Oxford University Press.
Siegel, S. (2013). The epistemic impact of the etiology of experience. Philosophical Studies, 162(3), 697-722.
Siegel, S. (2019). Cognitive penetrability and perceptual justification. Contemporary Epistemology: An Anthology, 164-178.
Silins, N. (2016). Cognitive penetration and the epistemology of perception. Philosophy Compass, 11(1), 24-42.
Stefanucci, J. K., & Geuss, M. N. (2009). Big people, little world: The body influences size perception. Perception, 38(12), 1782-1795.
Stokes, D. (2013). Cognitive penetrability of perception. Philosophy Compass, 8(7), 646-663.
Vetter, P., & Newen, A. (2014). Varieties of cognitive penetration in visual perception. Consciousness and cognition, 27, 62-75.

Various papers from:
Zeimbeki, J. and Raftopoulos, A. (2015). The cognitive penetrability of perception: New philosophical perspectives. Oxford University Press.

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Philip Robbins, “Modularity of Mind” SEP (2017)
James Bogen, “Theory and Observation in Science” SEP (2017)
Kevin Connolly, “Perceptual Learning” SEP (2017)

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 70 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 30 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: