The double content of perception

John Dilworth

pp. 225-243

in: Synthese 146 (3), 2005.

Abstract

Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y′(X′) as a higher level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y′(X′) must be ’de-contextualized’ or decoded to arrive at the X-related content X′, resulting in a double content structure for perceptual data, that persists in higher-order conscious perceptual content. Some implications and applications of this DC view are also discussed.