CONSCIOUSNESS

3. Cognitive Sciences and Psychology 121
159 The Semantics of ‘Perception’: A Critical Examination of D. Milner and M.
Goodale’s Proposal Simone Marini (School of Philosophy,
Ph.D. student at University College Dublin - Schoo, Dublin, Ireland)
In this paper, I focus on D. Milner and M. Goodale’s notion of “perception” and argue:
(1) that either it is not such a radical departure from the preceding tradition of visual studies
(championed by L. Urgerleider and M. Mishkin) as they suppose, or it involves semantic
confusion; (2) that their sharp dorsal/ventral dichotomy is not well supported by empirical
findings. Milner and Goodale argue that there are two different uses of the word “perception”:
an ordinary one, which refers generically to any inputs conveyed through the senses and “is
quite common in both visual science and in everyday language” (Milner & Goodale, 2006: 2),
and a more restricted and philosophical one, “to refer to a process which allows one to assign
meaning and significance to external objects and events.” (Ibidem) They use “perception”
in the latter sense, which basically equates perception with “visual awareness” of external
stimuli, their cognitive identifications through abstract representational percepts, and their
storage in long-term memory. My worry is that Milner and Goodale’s clear-cut distinction
between dorsal/action/automatic and ventral/perception/representational may be too simplistic
and have no correspondence in the actual organization of visual processings. For instance,
fMRIs performed during visual detection tasks seem to show neural activation in both dorsal
and ventral areas (Beck et al., 2001). Furthermore, it seems that Milner and Goodale’s narrow,
‘philosophical’, use of the term “perception” already presupposes a rigid and discrete dualism
between action and perception at the level of their cortical substrates. They advanced this hypothesis
on the assumption that perception does not have an independent evolutionary value
and its ultimate scope is to facilitate action, via abstract representations of the goals we seek
to pursue. Now, if this is a correct understanding of their proposal, how does it substantially
differ from the “perceptual tradition” they are departing from? Milner and Goodale claim
that for the previous tradition the ultimate goal of vision is perception, not action, but I fear
there might be a semantic confusion here: in criticizing the “perceptual tradition”, Milner and
Goodale are using the term “perception” in its restricted sense; on the other hand, that tradition
uses the term in a broader general sense, as referring to the processings of any sensory
inputs. Thus, in the end, the difference between the “perceptual” theories of visual processings
and Milner and Goodale’s proposal might simply be that the first ones stress the importance
of perception (in the broad sense), and the latter of action, in the overall visual processings
of external stimuli to produce visuomotor outputs. Regardless, even if Milner and Goodale’s
criticism were efficacious, wouldn’t it count against their own view? If the “perceptual nonphilosophical
bias” adopted by the preceding visual scientific tradition prevented it from discerning
a separate cortical visual pathway (the dorsal pathway) which automatically processes
visual stimuli for action, couldn’t it be the case that Milner and Goodale are endorsing a different
and opposite semantic “non-philosophical bias” (that vision’s primary goal is action)
which misleads their interpretation of the experimental data available? P9
3.3 Other sensory modalities
160 The Harmonics of Hades Kristopher Patten, Michael McBeath
(Psychology, ASU - Pearl Lab, Queen Creek, AZ)
The ‘diabolus in musica’, or ‘Satan Chord’, is reputed to be the most unsettling combination
of notes that can be played by a musical instrument. Spectral analyses of the Satan Chord,
which also goes by the name of diminished fifth, reveal that the peak points of energy in
megahertz are not evenly spaced, but instead appear almost haphazard in their placement. A
variety of sounds from the natural world (animal calls, wind, running water, etc.) and musical
instruments, along with some sounds that were synthesized from different pitches of sine
tones were presented to participants. The participants were instructed to rate the sounds on
a nine point scale, with one being horrendous and nine being angelic. Once the ratings were
complete, each different sound was put through spectral analysis to determine the energy pattern.
Preliminary results show that humans prefer sounds that have nearly equidistant energy
patterns to both sounds that have no pattern to their energy signatures and sounds that have