CRITERIA FOR OBJECT PERCEPTION

Abstract

Although there exists considerable experimental data relevant to the explanation and simulation of perception, and although the histories of psychology and of philosophy are freighted with conceptualizations of perceptual phenomena, we still appear to be without an adequate account of the criteria for appropriately claiming that some system or organism A perceives an object of type X. 1 attempt to provide a useful account of truth-conditions for third-person claims about the perception of objects. It is hoped that, because this account employs rather “neutral“ concepts drawn from communications theory, it will be acceptable to philosophers (both materialist and mentalist) as well as to experimental psychologists (both behavioral and neural).