Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Defending the liberal-content view of perceptual experience: direct social perception of emotions and person impressions

  • S.I.: Future of Social Cognition
  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The debate about direct perception encompasses different topics, one of which concerns the richness of the contents of perceptual experiences. Can we directly perceive only low-level properties, like edges, colors etc. (the sparse-content view), or can we perceive high-level properties and entities as well (the liberal-content view)? The aim of the paper is to defend the claim that the content of our perceptual experience can include emotions and also person impressions. Using these examples, an argument is developed to defend a liberal-content view for core examples of social cognition. This view is developed and contrasted with accounts which claim that in the case of registering another person’s emotion while seeing them, we have to describe the relevant content not as the content of a perceptual experience, but of a perceptual belief. The paper defends the view that perceptual experiences can have a rich content yet remain separable from beliefs formed on the basis of the experience. How liberal and enriched the content of a perceptual experience is will depend upon the expertise a person has developed in the field. This is supported by the argument that perceptual experiences can be systematically enriched by perceiving affordances of objects, by pattern recognition or by top-down processes, as analyzed by processes of cognitive penetration or predictive coding.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. My account of the higher-level abstractness of beliefs does not imply that I think of beliefs as combinations of abstract symbols in a language of thought, like Fodor (1975), but it remains consistent with beliefs being anchored in perception (for detailed view on concepts, see Newen and Marchi 2016).

  2. Exceptions are variations which are accounted for by phenomena like change-blindness or inattentional blindness (Noë 2004). More important is the role of imagination, which shares all the other features of perceptual experiences but lacks the co-variation with an actual stimulus.

  3. One might worry whether the motor activations in the brain are a constitutive part of the perceptual process or only a causal consequence of it. A conclusive account of this distinction is not possible here. But it is sufficient to highlight that in a context of registering an affordance of an apple, such as being edible, this registration is strongly intertwined with the act of perceiving the apple and that this act of registering the affordance can happen even for agents who are not able to form language-based beliefs.

  4. See Toribio (2015) for a position combining impenetrability with a liberal-content account. But in her proposal it is not clear enough how the enrichment can be realized, especially since the enrichment has to be realized by a nonpenetrable module. Even in token cases without cognitive penetration, I allow for a weak modularity view.

  5. To strengthen the argument for the liberal-content view, I highlight one case study supporting the cognitive penetration of perceptual experience by conceptual knowledge: Winawer et al. (2007) demonstrated the influence of basic color concepts on perception. They presented Russian and English speakers with color swatches of different shades of blue. The experiment is based on different ways of categorizing shades of “blue” in both languages: Russians lexicalize the category blue with two basic level terms: “siniy”’ for darker blues and “goluboy” for lighter blues, while the English have just one basic-level term “blue.” The students were asked to decide as quickly as possible whether a top color exactly matched a color on its left or on its right. While all shades of colors were in the category “blue” for the English, the colors were part of the two different basic categories of blue for the Russian speakers. Since we expect to perceive the difference between different color categories more intensely than within-category differences, we should expect that the Russian speakers have quicker reaction times on between-category trials than within-category trials, while the English speakers should show no such effect. And this is exactly what was observed. Further evidence of a top-down influence of linguistic labels or categories on perception is reviewed by Lupyan (2012).

  6. The phrase “observing typical features constituting the emotion in this situation” is meant to be a neutral description of the fact that emotion recognition is based on a perceptual process of registering a person, her face, her body posture etc., but leaving open whether the content of this perceptual process is rich or sparse because this is what the argument is aiming for.

  7. Neural correlates may be used in a clinical or scientific context to infer whether a person is experiencing emotions, but are not used in ordinary contexts since we cannot access them in ordinary interactions.

  8. This idea is also used by v. Savigny (1988) to develop an interpretation of the later Wittgenstein.

  9. This argument for cognitive penetration in emotion recognition was first discussed in joint work by Marchi and Newen (2015).

References

  • Abernethy, B., Gill, D. P., Parks, S. L., & Packer, S. T. (2001). Expertise and the perception of kinematic and situational probability information. Perception, 30(2), 233–252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, C. (1999). Animal concepts revisited: The use of self-monitoring as an empirical approach. Erkenntnis, 51(1), 33–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111(2), 56–274. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.111.2.256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avril, M., Leclère, C., Viaux, S., Michelet, S., Achard, C., Missonier, S., et al. (2014). Social signal processing for studying parent–infant interaction. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01437.

  • Bar, M. (2003). A cortical mechanism for triggering top-down facilitation in visual object recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 600–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bar, M. (2009). The proactive brain: Memory for predictions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, 1235–1243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bar, M., Neta, M., & Linz, H. (2006). Very first impressions. Emotion, 6(2), 269–278. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.2.269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barlassina, L., & Newen, A. (2013). The role of bodily perception in emotion: In defense of an impure somatic theory. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 89(3), 637–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baudoin, J.-Y., & Humphreys, G. W. (2006). Configural information in gender categorisation. Perception, 35(4), 531–540. doi:10.1068/p3403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, T. (2009). Perception and the reach of phenomenal content. Philosophical Quarterly, 59(236), 385–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer, M. B. (1988). A dual-process model of impression formation. In R. S. Wyer Jr. & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Advances in social cognition (Vol. 1, pp. 1–36). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, E. C., & Brüne, M. (2012). The role of prediction in social neuroscience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6(147). doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00147.

  • Brown, E. C., & Perrett, D. I. (1993). What gives a face its gender? Perception, 22(7), 829–840. doi:10.1068/p220829.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruce, V., Burton, A. M., Hanna, E., Healey, P., Mason, O., Coombes, A., et al. (1993). Sex discrimination: How do we tell the difference between male and female faces? Perception, 22(2), 131–152. doi:10.1068/p220131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butterfill, S. A. (2009). Seeing causings and hearing gestures. Philosophical Quarterly, 59(236), 405–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. M., & Russell, J. A. (1996). Do facial expression signal specific emotions? Judging emotions from the face in context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(2), 205–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chao, L. L., & Martin, A. (2000). Representation of manipulable man-made objects in the dorsal stream. Neuroimage, 12, 478–484.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 181–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devine, P. G., & Elliot, A. J. (1995). Are racial stereotypes really fading? The Princeton trilogy revisited. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(11), 1139–1150. doi:10.1177/01461672952111002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(3), 285–290. doi:10.1037/h0033731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dretske, F. (1981). Knowledge and the flow of information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagly, A. H., Ashmore, R. D., Makhijani, M. G., & Longo, L. C. (1991). What is beautiful is good, but.: A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin, 110(1), 109–128. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.110.1.109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. (1972). Emotions in the human face. New York: Pergamon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 124–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ernst, M. O., & Bülthoff, H. H. (2004). Merging the senses into a robust percept. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 162–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Firestone, C., & Scholl, B. J. (forthcoming). Cognition does not affect perception: Evaluating the evidence for ‘top-down’ effects. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

  • Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 1–74. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60317-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J. (1975). The language of thought. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J. (2008). LOT 2: The language of thought revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frischen, A., Bayliss, A. P., & Tipper, S. P. (2007). Gaze cueing of attention: Visual attention, social cognition, and individual differences. Psychological Bulletin, 133(4), 694–724. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.4.694.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friston, K., & Frith, C. (2015). A duet for one. Consciousness and Cognition. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2014.12.003.

  • Gallagher, S. (2008). Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(2), 535–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao, T., Newman, G. E., & Scholl, B. J. (2009). The psychophysics of chasing: A case study in the perception of animacy. Cognitive Psychology, 59(2), 154–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, C. D., & Li, W. (2013). Top-down influences on visual processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(5), 350–363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glock, H. J. (2010). Concepts, abilities and propositions. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 81(2010), 115–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gobet, F. (1997). Roles of pattern recognition and search in expert problem solving. Thinking and Reasoning, 3(4), 291–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gobet, F., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(2), 159–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths, P. E. (1997). What emotions really are. The problem of psychological categories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths, P. E. (2004). Emotions as natural and normative kinds. Philosophy of Science, 71, 901–911.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A., & Gobbini, M. I. (2000). The distributed human neural system for face perception. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 223–233. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01482-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heberlein, A. S., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. (2004). Cortical regions for judgments of emotions and personality traits from pointlight walkers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7), 1143–1158. doi:10.1162/0898929041920423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heelas, P. (1986). Emotion talk across cultures. In R. Harré (Ed.), The social construction of the emotions (pp. 234–266). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hohwy, J. (2014). The predictive mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huberle, E., & Karnath, H. O. (2012). The role of temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) in global gestalt perception. Brain, Structure and Function, 217(3), 735–746.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley, S. L. (1998). Consciousness in action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keltner, D., Ekman, P., Gonzaga, G. C., & Beer, J. (2003). Facial expression of emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 415–431). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kveraga, K., Boshyan, J., & Bar, M. (2009). The proactive brain: Using memory-based predictions in visual recognition. In S. Dickinson, M. Tarr, A. Leonardis, & B. Schiele (Eds.), Object categorization: Computer and human vision perspectives (pp. 384–400). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kveraga, K., Ghuman, A. S., Kassam, K. S., Aminoff, E., Hamalainen, M. S., & Chaumon, M. (2011). Early onset of neural synchronization in the contextual associations network. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(8), 3389–3394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Le Doux, J. (1998). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leopold, D., & Rhodes, G. (2010). A comparative view of face perception. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 124(3), 233–251. doi:10.1037/a0019460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, M. H., Kwan, V. S. Y., Cheung, A., & Fiske, S. T. (2005). Stereotype content model explains prejudice for an envied outgroup: Scale of anti-Asian American stereotypes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(1), 34–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lupyan, G. (2012). Linguistically modulated perception and cognition: The label-feedback hypothesis. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 54. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00054.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lutz, C. (1986). Emotion words on Ifaluk. In R. Harré (Ed.), The social construction of the emotions (pp. 267–288). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macpherson, F. (2012). Cognitive penetration of colour experience. Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84(1), 24–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macrae, C. N., & Quadflieg, S. (2010). Perceiving people. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology II (pp. 428–463). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maley, C. J. (2011). Analog and digital, continuous and discrete. Philosophical Studies, 155(1), 117–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marchi, F., & Newen, A. (2015). Cognitive penetrability and emotion recognition in human facial expressions. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(828). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00828.

  • Martin, D., & Macrae, C. N. (2007). A face with a cue: Exploring the inevitability of person categorization. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(5), 806–816.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matsumoto, D., & Ekman, P. (1988). Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion (JACFEE) [Slides]. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco State University, Department of Psychology, Intercultural and Emotion Research Laboratory.

  • Nanay, B. (2011). Do we see apples as edible? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 92, 305–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, C. A. (2001). The development and neural bases of face recognition. Infant and Child Development, 10(1–2), 3–18. doi:10.1002/icd.239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newen, A. (2015). Understanding others—The person model theory. In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds.), Open MIND 26. doi:10.15502/9783958570320.

  • Newen, A., & Bartels, A. (2007). Animal minds and the possession of concepts. Philosophical Psychology, 20(3), 283–308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newen, A., & Marchi, F. (2016). Concepts and their organizational structure: Concepts are templates based on mental files. In D. Hommen, C. Kann, & T. Osswald (Hg.), Concepts and categorization. Systematic and historical perspectives (pp. 197–227). Münster: Mentis.

  • Newen, A., Welpinghus, A., & Juckel, G. (2015). Emotion recognition as pattern recognition: The relevance of perception. Mind & Language, 30(2), 187–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Noë, A. (2004). Action in perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Regan, J. K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 883–917.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pacherie, E. (2005). Perceiving intentions. In J. Sàágua (Ed.), A Explicação da Interpretação Humana (pp. 401–414). Lisbon: Edições Colibri.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panksepp, J. (2000). Emotion as a natural kind within the brain. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 137–55). New York: Guilford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parr, L. A. (2008). Facial expression categorization by chimpanzees using standardized stimuli. Emotion, 8(2), 216–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parr, L. A., & Heintz, M. (2009). Facial expression recognition in rhesus monkeys, Macaca mulatta. Animal Behavior, 77(6), 1507–1513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, J., Clifford, C., & Tong, F. (2008). The functional impact of mental imagery on conscious perception. Current Biology, 18(13), 982–986.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Proverbio, A. M., Adorni, R., & D’Aniello, G. E. (2011). 250 ms to code for action affordance during observation of manipulable objects. Neuropsychologia, 49, 2711–2717.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rennig, J., Bilalić, M., Huberle, E., Karnath, H. O., & Himmelbach, M. (2013). The temporo-parietal junction contributes to global gestalt perception-evidence from studies in chess experts. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 28(7), 513.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, T., & Bruce, V. (1988). Feature saliency in judging the sex and familiarity of faces. Perception, 17(4), 829–840. doi:10.1068/p170475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rutherford, M. D., & Kuhlmeier, V. A. (2013). Social perception: Detection and interpretation of animacy, agency, and intention. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E. (2002). A phenomenal, dispositional account of belief. Noûs, 36, 249–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schyns, P. G., Bonnar, L., & Gosselin, F. (2002). Show me the features! Understanding recognition from the use of visual information. Psychological Science, 13(5), 402–409. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2006). Which properties are represented in perception? In T. S. Gendler & J. Hawthorne (Eds.), Perceptual experience (pp. 481–503). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2009). The visual experience of causation. Philosophical Quarterly, 59(236), 519–540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2010). The contents of visual experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2012). Cognitive penetrability and perceptual justification. Noûs, 46(2), 201–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toribio, J. (2015). Visual experience: Rich but impenetrable. Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-015-0889-8.

  • Trujillo, L. T., Allen, J. J. B., Schnyer, D. M., & Peterson, M. A. (2010). Neurophysiological evidence for the influence of past experience on figure-ground perception. Journal of Vision. doi:10.1167/10.2.5.

  • Tye, M. (1995). Ten problems of consciousness: A representational theory of the phenomenal mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • v. Savigny, E. (1988/1989). Wittgensteins ,,Philosophische Untersuchungen“. Ein Kommentar für Leser. 2 Bände, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann.

  • van Gelder, T., & Port, R. F. (1995). It’s about time: An overview of the dynamical approach to cognition. In T. van Gelder & R. F. Port (Eds.), Mind as motion: Explorations in the dynamics of cognition (pp. 1–44). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vetter, P., & Newen, A. (2014). Varieties of cognitive penetration in visual perception. Consciousness and Cognition, 27, 62–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagemans, J., Elder, J. H., Kubovy, M., Palmer, S. E., Peterson, M. A., Singh, M., et al. (2012a). A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: I. Perceptual grouping and figure-ground organization. Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1172–1217.

  • Wagemans, J., Feldman, J., Gepshtein, S., Kimchi, R., Pomerantz, J. R., van der Helm, P. A., et al. (2012b). A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: II. Conceptual and theoretical foundations. Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1218–1252.

  • Welpinghus, A. (2015). Emotions as natural and social kinds. Münster: Mentis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welpinghus, A., & Newen, A. (2012). Emotion und Kultur: Wie individuieren wir Emotionen und welche Rolle spielen kulturelle Faktoren dabei? Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung, 66(3), 367–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M., Wu, L., Wade, A., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). The Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 104(19), 7780–7785.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi, D. (2011). Empathy and direct social perception: A phenomenological proposal. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2(3), 541–558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zinck, A., & Newen, A. (2008). Classifying emotions: A developmental account. Synthese, 1, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy II, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150a, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Albert Newen

Authors
  1. Albert Newen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Albert Newen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Newen, A. Defending the liberal-content view of perceptual experience: direct social perception of emotions and person impressions. Synthese 194, 761–785 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1030-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1030-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation