Visual consciousness, representations and actions

Abstract

This article considers the problem of the nature of human visual consciousness in light of objective limitations of visual mechanisms known from psychology and physiology. The problem has attracted attention of specialists in the fields of cognitive science and consciousness studies in the past two decades because of resonant experimental work on phenomena of change blindness and inattentional blindness. The author assumes that, despite known limitations of human visual cognition, subjects have the impression of a stable and rich visual experience. It is pointed out that there are three main factors that create this impression, namely bodily activity, immediate visual representations and the impression of the presence of hidden parts of perceived objects and scenes (amodal perception). It is asserted that without explaining these three essential aspects of the problem, it is impossible to understand the nature of human visual consciousness. The only theory that explicitly addresses all three aspects of the problem is the sensory-motor account of vision and visual consciousness of J. K. O’Regan and A. Noë. Nevertheless it is argued that the attempt of these authors to deny the immediate visual representations is not justified. At the present moment, empirical studies of the phenomenon of change blindness cannot support the claim the subjects lack visual representations. The conception of visual ensembles offers the most promising way of understanding the character of visual representations. In addition, modern Bayesian models of perception may help to account for the phenomenon of amodal perception, which is the third component of the problem. It is maintained that the problem of the nature of human visual consciousness should be addressed within the representational perspective.