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Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience

Multisensory processing and perceptual consciousness: Part II

Profile image of Robert BriscoeRobert Briscoe

2017, Philosophy Compass

https://doi.org/10.1111/PHC3.12423
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Abstract

The first part of this survey article offered a cartography of some of the more extensively studied forms of multisensory processing. In this second part, I turn to examining some of the different possible ways in which the structure of conscious perceptual experience might also be characterized as multisensory. In addition, I discuss the significance of research on multisensory processing and multisensory consciousness for philosophical debates concerning the modularity of perception, cognitive penetration, and the individuation of the senses.

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    Douglas Wadle

    Synthese, 2020

    O'Callaghan is alone in offering a thoroughgoing feature association rule. 3 As we shall see, though, his proposal won't actually settle the novel feature question. Furthermore, no proposal will. Indeed, no proposal can even deliver all the uncontroversial associations of features with our intuitive, pre-theoretical understandings of the Aristotelian senses -at least not in a way that is otherwise adequate for settling the novel feature question. The lesson I draw is that our pretheoretical notions of the senses, in terms of which the novel feature debate is couched, are an inadequate basis for theorizing about the content and phenomenal character of perceptual experience. 4 Though I focus on the novel feature debate, this point holds for any debate concerning the content or phenomenology of perceptual experience (e.g., intentionalism, 5 the thick/thin contents of experience debate, cognitive penetration, etc.). I recommend that we abandon the last vestiges of the sense-by-sense approach. Instead, we should focus on the contributions of the relevant perceptual mechanisms to perceptual experience, without worrying over how these mechanisms relate to our pre-theoretical notions of the (Aristotelian) senses. (More on mechanisms and senses below.) As the novel feature debate is my point of entry, the first step will be to get a clearer understanding of what these novel features are. It is to this that I now turn.

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    Restricted Auditory Aspatialism
    Douglas Wadle

    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

    Some philosophers have argued that we do not hear sounds as located in the environment. Others have objected that this straightforwardly contradicts the phenomenology of auditory experience. And from this they draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of soundsthat they are events or properties of vibrating surfaces rather than waves or sensations. I argue that there is a minimal, but recognizable, notion of audition to which this phenomenal objection does not apply. While this notion doesn't correspond to our ordinary notion of auditory experience, it does-in conjunction with our lack of an uncontroversial individuation of the senses and recent interest in distinctively multisensory features of perceptual experiences-raise the possibility of more expansive notions of audition, including some that do plausibly count as corresponding to our everyday notion of audition, that lack the spatial phenomenology cited in the objection. Until this possibility is ruled out, the phenomenal objection and metaphysical conclusions drawn from it remain inconclusive. argued that we do not enjoy spatial audition-that is, we do not hear sounds as located in the environment, even in the bare sense of merely off in a given direction or at some particular distance (Machlachlan [1989]; ; Nudds [2001], [2009]; O'Shaughnessey [2000], [2009]; and, in a qualified form discussed below, ). Call this view 'auditory aspatialism'. In spite of my evening encounters with the Whistler, I hereby submit this as my application for (qualified) membership in the aspatialist club. In the first half of this paper I provide the philosophical background and motivation for my approach to auditory aspatialism. In the second half, I provide empirically-based arguments in its favour. These arguments consider the receptivity of the primary auditory receptor-the basilar membrane-to features of a sound wave impinging upon it and the role of these features in determining spatial features of the sound or its source. I then show how these results undermine metaphysical conclusions about the nature of sounds that the phenomenal objection has been thought to support. Auditory aspatialism confronts an immediate and obvious worry, already evident in my description of the Whistler: We do experience sounds as at a distance in some particular direction. Aspatialism straightforwardly contradicts this phenomenological evidence. Auditory spatialists have argued, from this fact and the assumption that our perceptual experiences don't systematically mislead us, that sounds are events or properties of their sources , [2009]; O'Callaghan [2007], [2010]). Recent aspatialists have responded to the objection by denying that we ever experience sounds as located and offering an error theory that explains away the recalcitrant phenomenology-generally in support of the view that sounds are (instantiated by) pressure waves ; O'Shaughnessy [2000], [2009]). If the wave view is correct, then our auditory experience cannot present sounds as located in some particular direction at a particular distance without systematically misleading us because the sound wave isn't located at a distance when heard. It is located right where the perceiver is. Hence the need for an error theory. 1 Aspatialists can also respond to the objection by restricting their aspatialism to a special notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply. This is the course taken by ) in his original formulation of auditory aspatialism. Strawson's aspatialism grew out of his project of descriptive metaphysics-an exploration of the relations between the concepts of space and objectivity in our conceptual system-rather than a concern with the metaphysics of sound Aspatialism is about the experience of sounds, not the sounds themselves. Proponents of the wave view don't deny 1 that sounds (waves, according to them) are located. They deny that we experience them as located-but see , Chapter 14) for a defence of a distal wave view). Also note, both spatialists and aspatialists agree that perception does not systematically mislead us -at least not so dramatically as to mis-locate its objects to the degree necessary were one to embrace the wave view and accept that sounds are experienced as reported in the phenomenal objection. ( §2.1). I offer a different motivation for taking the restricted aspatialist approach; namely, that, when properly developed, restricted auditory aspatialism opens a new line of resistance against the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism-one that denies that the localization phenomenology cited in the objection is due to audition ( §2.2). The rough idea is this: If restricted auditory aspatialism is true, then there is some notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply, even if it isn't the intended target of the objection. This raises the possibility that there are characterizations of the ordinary (unrestricted) auditory experience to which the objection does not apply. This possibility becomes especially salient given the lack of any generally agreed upon individuation of the senses-or even that there is just one acceptable individuation of the senses-and recent interest in the possibility of features of perceptual experiences that aren't properly associated with any of the five standard senses but are constitutively multisensory. Until the proponent of the phenomenal objection rules out this 2 possibility, the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism remains inconclusive. (Problems for meeting these burdens will also be discussed in §2.2.) Furthermore, if the localization phenomenology isn't due to audition, and sounds are the objects of audition, then the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection don't follow. Of course, this all hangs on the truth of restricted auditory aspatialism. To assess restricted aspatialism, we need to clearly characterize the relevant restricted notion of audition. And we need a principled way of assigning features of a perceptual experience to audition. This is done in terms of components of perceptual mechanisms and the features of the stimulus to which they are sensitive ( §2.3). These same tools can, I suggest, be extended in future work assessing the viability of this new line of resistance. I present the argument for the restricted form of auditory aspatialism in §3. I then return to the strategy for defending unrestricted aspatialism and how it undermines the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection ( §4). This should make the restricted aspatialist approach of interest to those concerned with the debate over the ontology of sounds, as well as more general questions concerning audition and spatial perception, without entangling us in Strawson's descriptive metaphysics. The trick, for the proponent of the restricted aspatialist approach, is to find the right notion of auditory experience-one that escapes the phenomenal objection while still being recognizably auditory. Strawson's restricted aspatialism provides a useful framework here. It is the historical On individuation of the senses, see (Coady

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