Summary
This paper discusses the concept of stratification, in the sense of levels of analysis and levels of control, in relation to human perception and performance. It is contended that functional analysis is the proper level of analysis for the domain of perception and action. This is illustrated by means of models of cognitive energetics and motor control. The functional level of analysis can be situated in between the level of symbolic representations and the level of neurophysiological mechanisms. It is also argued that the concept of levels of control provides a way of integrating or relating ecological and information-processing approaches to psychology, in the sense that ecological psychology is concerned with lower and more peripheral levels of control (coordinative structures). Finally, some remarks are made on the relation between cognition and perception and action, drawing on Piaget, and it is proposed that the concept of schema is more appropriate for the domain of perception and action than is the notion of symbolic representations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbs, H. H., & Cole, K. J. (1987). Neural mechanisms of motor equivalence and goal achievement. In S. P. Wise (Ed.),Higher brain functions. New York: Wiley.
Arbib, M. A. (1987). Levels of modeling of mechanisms of visually guided behavior.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 407–465.
Arbib, M. A., & Hesse, M. (1986).The construction of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baddeley, A. (1986).Working memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bartlett, F. C. (1932).Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ben-Zeev, A. (1988). The schema paradigm in perception.Journal of Mind and Behavior, 9, 487–514.
Bernstein, N. A. (1987).Bewegungsphysiologie. Leipzig: Barth.
Boden, M. A. (1972).Purposive explanation in psychology. Hassocks: Harvester.
Bootsma, R. (1988).The timing of rapid interceptive actions. Amsterdam: Free University Press.
Broadbent, D. E. (1977). Levels, hierarchies, and the locus of control.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29, 181–201.
Bunge, M. (1980).The mind-body problem. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Chase, W. G. (1978). Elementary information processes. In W. K. Ester (Ed.),Handbook of learning and cognitive processes (Vol. 5),Human Information Processing, (pp. 18–89). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Churchland, P. M. (1981). Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes.Journal of Philosophy, 78, 67–90.
Churchland, P. S. (1986).Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cummins, R. (1975). Functional analysis.Journal of Philosophy, 72, 741–760.
Cummins, R. (1983).The nature of psychological explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cummins, R. (1989).Meaning and mental representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dewey, J. (1896). The reflex arc concept in psychology.Psychological Review, 3, 352–370.
Epstein, W. (1986). Contrasting conceptions of perception and action.Acta Psychologica, 63, 103–115.
Fodor, J. A. (1975).The language of thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fodor, J. A. (1980). Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 63–109.
Fodor, J. A. (1981). The mind-body problem.Scientific American, 244, 1, 124–132.
Fodor, J. A. (1984).The modularity of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fodor, J. A. (1985). Precis of The Modularity of Mind.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 1–42.
Fodor, J. A. (1987).Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fowler, C. A., & Turvey, M. T. (1982). Observational perspective and descriptive level in perceiving and acting. In W. B. Weimer & D. S. Palermo (Ed.),Cognition and the symbolic processes (p. 1–19). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gatlistel, C. R. (1980).The organisation of action. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gardner, H. (1985).The mind's new science. New York: Basic Books.
Gibson, E. J. (1982). The concept of affordances in development: The renascence of functionalism. In W. A. Collins (Ed.),The concept of development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gibson, J. J. (1979).The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gopher, D., & Sanders, A. F. (1984). S-Oh-R: Oh Stages! Oh Resources! In W. Prinz & A. F. Sanders (Eds.),Cognition and motor processes (pp. 231–253). Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.
Granit, R. (1977).The purposive brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gray, J. (1987). The mind-brain identity theory as a scientific hypothesis: A second look. In C. Blakemoore & S. Greenfield (Eds.),Mindwaves: Thoughts on intelligence, identity and consciousness (pp. 461–483). Oxford: Blackwell.
Hebb, D. O. (1949).The organisation of behavior. New York: Wiley.
Hebb, D. O. (1955). Drives and the C.N.S. (conceptual nervous system).Psychological Review, 62, 243–254.
Holst, E. von (1937). On the nature of order in the central nervous system. In C. R. Gallistel (Ed.),The organisation of action (pp. 81–107). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum 1980.
Holst, E. von, & Mittelstaedt, H. (1950). The reafference principle. In C. R. Gallistel (Ed.),The organisation of action (pp. 176–209). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum 1980.
Hull, C. L. (1943).Principles of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Jeannerod, M. (1988).The neural and behavioral organisation of goaldirected movements. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kahneman, D. (1973).Attention and effort. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading.Cognitive Psychology, 6, 292–323.
Lashley, K. (1951). The problem of serial order in behavior. In L. A. Jeffres (Ed.),Cerebral mechanisms in behavior. New York: Wiley.
Luria, A. R. (1973).The working brain. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Lynch, J. C. (1980). The functional organisation of the posterior parietal association cortex.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 485–534.
Matthen, M. (1988). Biological functions and perceptual content.Journal of Philosophy, 85, 5–27.
Meijer, O. G., & Roth, K. (Eds.), (1988).Complex Movement Behavior: The motor action controversy. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Mounteastle, V. B. (1986). The neural mechanisms of cognitive functions can now be studied directly.Trends in Neurosciences, 9, 505–508.
Neisser, U. (1976).Cognition and reality. San Francisco: Freeman.
Neumann, O. (1984). Automatic processing: A review of recent findings and a plea for an old theory. In W. Prinz & A. F. Sanders (Eds.),Cognition and motor processes (pp. 225–294). Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.
Newell, A. (1980). Physical symbol systems.Cognitive Science, 4, 135–183.
Oldfield, R. C., & Zangwill, O. L. (1942 – 1943). Head's concept of the schema and its application in contemporary British psychology (I – IV),British Journal of Psychology, 32 – 33.
Pattee, H. H. (1973). The physical basis and origin of hierarchical control. In H. H. Pattee (Ed.),Hierarchy Theory. The challenge of complex systems (pp. 73–108). New York: Braziller.
Pew, R. W. (1984). A distributed processing view of human motor control. In W. Prinz & A. E. Sanders (Eds.),Cognition and motor processes (pp. 19–28). Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.
Piaget, J. (1967).Biologie et connaissance. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Posner, M. I. (1978).Chronometric explorations of mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Posner, M. I., & Keele, S. W. (1968). On the genesis of abstract ideas.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77, 353–363.
Posner, M. I., & Snyder, C. C. R. (1975). Facilitation and inhibition in the processing of signals. In P. M. A. Rabbitt & S. Dornic (Eds.),Attention and Performance: V (pp. 669–682). London: Academic Press.
Pribram, K. H., & McGuinness, D. (1975). Arousal, activation and effort in the control of attention.Psychological Review, 82, 116–149.
Putnam, H. (1980). The nature of mental states. In N. Block (Ed.),Readings in the philosophy of psychology (Vol 1, pp. 221–231). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Putnam, H. (1981). Reductionism and the nature of psychology. In J. Haugeland (Ed.),Mind design (pp. 205–219). Montgomery: Bradford.
Putnam, H. (1988).Representation and reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quine, W. V. O. (1962). Two dogmas of empiricism. In W. V. O. Quine (Ed.),From a logical point of view (pp. 20–46). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rabbitt, P. (1984). The control of attention in visual search. In R. Parasuraman & D. R. Davies (Eds.),Varieties of attention (pp. 273–291). New York: Academic Press.
Rabbitt, E (1986). Models and paradigms in the study of stress effects. In G. R. J. Hockey, A. W. K. Gailard, & M. G. H. Coles (Eds.),Energetics and human information processing (pp. 155–174). Dordrecht: Nijhof.
Reed, E. S. (1984). From action gestalts to direct action. In H. T. A. Whiting (Ed.),Human motor actions: Bernstein reassessed (pp. 157–170). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Reed, E. S. (1988). Applying the theory of action systems to the study of motor skills. In O. G. Meijer & K. Roth (Eds.),Complex movement behavior: The motor action controversy. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Sanders, A. F. (1980). Stage analysis of reaction processes. In G. E. Stelmach & J. Requin (Eds.),Tutorials in motor behavior (pp. 331–354). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Sanders, A. F. (1983). Towards a model of stress and human performance.Acta Psychologica, 53, 61–97.
Sanders, C., & Rappard, H. V. (1985). Psychology and philosophy of science. In K. B. Madsen & L. P. Mos (Eds.),Annals of Theoretical Psychology (pp. 219–268). New York, London: Plenum Press.
Scheerer, E. (1984). Motor theories of cognitive structure: A historical review. In W. Prinz & A. F. Sanders (Eds.),Cognition and motor processes (pp. 77–98). Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.
Schmidt, R. A. (1975). A schema theory of discrete motor learning.Psychological Review, 82, 225–260.
Schneider, W. (1985). Toward a model of attention and the development of automatic processing. In M. I. Posner & O. S. M. Marin (Eds.),Attention and performance: 11 (pp. 475–492). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Shepard, R. N. (1984). Ecological constraints on internal representation: Resonant kinematics of perceiving, imagining, thinking, and dreaming.Psychological Review, 91, 417–447.
Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory.Psychological Review, 84, 127–189.
Stelmach, G. E., & Diggles, V. A. (1982). Control theories in motor behavior.Acta Psychologica, 50, 83–105.
Stuss, D. T., & Benson, D. F. (1986).The frontal lobes. New York: Raven Press.
Toulmin, S. (1972). The mentality of man's brain. In A. G. Karczmar & J. C. Eccles (Eds.),Brain and human behavior. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.
Turvey, M. T. (1977). Preliminaries to a theory of action with reference to vision. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.),Perceiving, acting, knowing (pp. 24–265). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Turvey, M. T., & Carello, C. (1981). Cognition: The view from ecological realism.Cognition, 10, 313–321.
Weimer, W. B. (1977). A conceptual framework for cognitive psychology: Motor theories of the mind. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.),Perceiving, acting, knowing (pp. 267–311). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Weiss, P. (1941). Self-differentiation of the basic patterns of co-ordination.Comparative Psychology Monographs,12 (4).
Wilkes, K. V. (1978).Physicalism. London: Routledge.
Wilkes, K. V. (1980). Brain states.British Journal for the Philosophy of Sience, 31, 111–129.
Wilkes, K. V. (1982). Functionalism, psychology and the philosophy of mind. In J. I. Biro & R. W. Shahan (Eds.),Mind, brain, and function (pp. 146–168). Brighton: Harvester.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1976). Reductionism, levels of organisation, and the mind-body problem. In C. G. Globus, G. Maxwell, & I. Savodnik (Eds.),Consciousness and the brain (pp. 205–267). New York: Plenum Press.
Wright, L. (1973). Functions.Philosophical Review, 82, 139–168.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Looren de Jong, H., Sanders, A.F. Stratification in perception and action. Psychol. Res 52, 216–228 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877530
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877530