1. Visual Perception and the Emergence of Minimal Representation
- Author
-
Argyris Arnellos and Alvaro Moreno
- Subjects
vision ,Visual perception ,nervous-system ,media_common.quotation_subject ,perception ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Structural representation ,03 medical and health sciences ,Hypothesis and Theory ,Perception ,Behavioral study ,minimal representation ,Obstacle avoidance ,Psychology ,content ,constancy mechanism ,neurodynamic structure ,General Psychology ,Naturalism ,030304 developmental biology ,media_common ,cubozoa ,Cognitive science ,0303 health sciences ,tripedalia-cystophora ,Representation (systemics) ,structural similarity ,06 humanities and the arts ,BF1-990 ,060302 philosophy ,liberal representationalism ,box jellyfish ,Tripedalia - Abstract
There is a long-lasting quest of demarcating a minimally representational behavior. Based on neurophysiologically-informed behavioral studies, we argue in detail that one of the simplest cases of organismic behavior based on low-resolution spatial vision-the visually-guided obstacle avoidance in the cubozoan medusa Tripedalia cystophora-implies already a minimal form of representation. We further argue that the characteristics and properties of this form of constancy-employing structural representation distinguish it substantially from putative representational states associated with mere sensory indicators, and we reply to some possible objections from the liberal representationalists camp by defending and qualitatively demarcating the minimal nature of our case. Finally, we briefly discuss the implications of our thesis within a naturalistic framework. This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, Spain (AA, RYC-2015-18437 for the stages of the conception and researching); the University of the Basque Country (AA, PES18/92, for the stages of the conception and researching), (AM, PES18/92), the Basque Government (AM, IT 1228-19), and MINECO (AM, PID2019-104576GB-I00)
- Published
- 2021