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The Spatiotemporal Dimension of Singular Reference

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Spatial Cognition XII (Spatial Cognition 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 12162))

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Abstract

In the present paper I will argue in favor of a synthesis between a neo-Kantian proposal that takes the processing of spatiotemporal information as a necessary precondition for the experience of objects, and a Relational view according to which we are directly related to objects through perception. With that objective in view, I enquiry about the role of spatiotemporal regularities relative to our ability to track objects. My purpose is to show that a direct theory of perceptual reference is not reduced to the postulation of indexing particulars. I review some evidence that comes from visual attention and developmental psychology in order to show that, contrary to Fodor’s and Pylyshyn’s direct conception, processing information about spatiotemporal regularities is required to enable Multiple Object Tracking tasks and Object Previewing effects. Briefly, the point of the present paper is to reduce the proposal of conflating the Kantian view and the Relational view to the following claims: (1) Perceptual reference has as a precondition a sustained ability to track objects. (2) Proper exercises of that ability are enabled by processing information about spatiotemporal regularities.

Research for this paper has benefited from the financial support of the São Paulo Research Foundation -FAPESP- Post-Doctoral Fellowship process 2018/04058-7.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The notions of FINST or visual indexes and Object Files are now precise, technical and widely known terms in the area of visual attention psychology. The first two terms were developed from Pylyshyn et al. [36] work grounded on experimental evidence about visual attention in Multiple Object Tracking tasks (the MOT experimental paradigm) [33, 35]. The second term comes from Khaneman et al. [26] work on Object-Specific Preview Benefit effects (OSPB). For an introduction to the notions of Object Files and FINST see [20, 22, 33].

  2. 2.

    According to Robin Jeshion [25] to activate a Mental File is constitutive and essential to entertain a singular thought. She maintains also that Mental Files are ontogenetically grounded on Object Files and FINST or visual indexes. Recanati [38, 39] argues in favor of what he calls “the indexical model of perceptual concepts”. Briefly, the mechanisms to fix the reference are Mental Files anchored by Epistemic Rewarding Relations of Acquaintance. The epistemic rewarding relation makes Mental Files actually or dispositionally anchored to particulars of the world and normatively related to subject’s cognition. So that a subject can entertain a singular thought as product of the activation of a Mental File even if he is not actually acquainted with the object of his thought, although sooner or later he should be able to be acquainted with it. At least in principle it should be counterfactually possible for the subject to be acquainted with the referent of his thought. To be acquainted with objects is not then reducible to a causal relation.

  3. 3.

    This is one of the reasons why FINSTs are said to be “grabbed by” things rather than applied to objects [35]. Whereas one a is natural notion reducible to causal relations and information processing the other is a normative and cognitive one [31].

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Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Bethânia Gabrielle dos Santos, Arturo Gaitán Nicholls and Prof. Adrian Cussins.

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  1. University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Carlos Mario Márquez Sosa

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  1. Carlos Mario Márquez Sosa
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Correspondence to Carlos Mario Márquez Sosa .

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  1. University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Jurǵis Šķilters

  2. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Nora S. Newcombe

  3. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    David Uttal

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Márquez Sosa, C.M. (2020). The Spatiotemporal Dimension of Singular Reference. In: Šķilters, J., Newcombe, N., Uttal, D. (eds) Spatial Cognition XII. Spatial Cognition 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12162. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57983-8_21

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