What determines what we see? A tidal wave of recent research purports to have discovered countless circumstances in which otherwise-extraperceptual states such as beliefs, moods, or goals 'penetrate' perceptual processing to literally and directly affect our visual experiences. In this talk, I'll take one of the most extensively researched and influential bodies of work claiming such top-down effects on perception (Proffitt, 2006; Witt, 2011; Proffitt & Linkenauger, in press) as a case study to evaluate these purported threats to the cognitive impenetrability of visual perception, concluding that such work fails to withstand careful scrutiny. I'll also debut a new research strategy — inspired by art history's infamous "El Greco fallacy" — aimed at discovering whether claimed top-down effects on perception are truly perceptual in nature, reporting new results suggesting that they are not.
Event Details
Does what you can do affect what you see? Paternalistic vision and the El Greco fallacy
- Event Date: November 6, 2012
- Event Start Time: 1:00 PM
- Event End Time: 2:00 PM
- Event Location: Graduate Program, Yale University, Department of Psychology
- Event Type: Talks: RuCCS Colloquia
- Event Semester: Fall 2012
- Event Contact: Chaz Firestone
- Event Extra info: <a href="http://www.yale.edu/perception/">Chaz Firestone</a>