Perception, Imagination, and the Nature of Experience

I will investigate the nature of perception and perceptual experience. The research focuses around two main questions. First, whether perceptual experiences, involved in seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting the world, can be affected by cognitive states such as beliefs, desires and expectations. This question is whether 'cognitive penetration' can occur and if it occurs I will examine in what conditions it does so.

An alleged example of cognitive penetration is reported by psychologists Plant and Peruche (2005). They discovered that, in a computer simulation, police were more likely to judge that an object in a suspect's hand was a gun (and subsequently shoot) if the suspect was black. If the police shoot because their beliefs change the way the object looks to them - that is, change their perceptual experience - then this would be a case of cognitive penetration. Although when they received training the police could overcome this bias, they couldn't do so immediately. They couldn't stop their beliefs affecting their experience. But beliefs and desires clearly don't always have an effect on experience and sometimes it seems they cannot. Consider that, no matter how much I desire my motorway service station food to be a gourmet meal, it does not taste like one.

The existence of cognitive penetration is highly disputed. My distinctive and original contribution will be to argue that cognitive penetration can take place, however, I will claim that one needs more substantial argument to show this than is usually given.

The second question is: What is the nature of perceptual experience, such that it can be so influenced by beliefs, desires and expectations? I will explore mechanisms by which cognition may affect experience. I will argue that one mechanism that can explain many cases of cognitive penetration involves perceptual imagination affecting perceptual experience. I will also argue that imagination's influence on experience can account for many features of perceptual experience that have resisted explanation, in particular, types of experience of absence.

The existence of cognitive penetration has implications for whether perceptual experience can give us knowledge. A mainstream view of experience is that it is an independent arbiter of the truth. If you believe some empirical proposition to be true and I believe it to be false then we can (often) look and see who is right. But the existence of cognitive penetration raises the spectre that we may have different experiences of the world depending on what beliefs we already hold. Thus, our experiences are not independent from our existing beliefs. I will call attention to these epistemological issues.

I will also highlight the moral and social concerns that arise from the existence of cognitive penetration. Studies, such as that of Plant and Peruche (2005) discussed above, raise questions as to whether people can be blamed for their actions in certain circumstances if their very experience of the world is skewed by their beliefs. For if their experience confirms their skewed beliefs then it looks as if subjects are stuck in a circle of bigotry. This raises issues of social policy such as should we screen police officers and other public officials for prejudice? And should they undergo training to mitigate the effects of potential bias?
In short, my research will cast light on the nature of perceptual experience and how it is influenced by our cognitive system. Insight will be gained about the nature of the representational and conscious aspects of experience. And the implications of the existence of cognitive penetration will be made vivid.

The wide range of non-academic beneficiaries are listed below together with details of how they might benefit.

(i) Medical practitioners (psychiatrists and clinical psychologists) who treat patients who suffer from hallucinations and the patients themselves.

My work on the interaction between perceptual experience and imagination will clarify the nature of both. Hallucination is a form of perceptual experience and one important theory of hallucination is that it involves mistaking perceptual imagination for perceptual experience. Thus, my work should shed light on this theory of hallucination. In addition, other theories of hallucination may be made more or less plausible by my findings. Finding out about the nature of hallucination may lead medics to find better treatment for those suffering from hallucination resulting, for example, from Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, or brain damage.

(ii) Artists

The purpose of the vast majority of art works, regardless of the medium, is to produce perceptual experiences in people. My work entails that when you have a perceptual experience, the nature of that experience may be affected by the beliefs and desires that you hold. This information is of relevance to artists whose aim is to produce works that are to be perceived. They might consider more than they do at present the mental lives of the audience who perceive their work, or what their audience have seen before, or the order in which they have seen things if they are trying to create a specific reaction in people. Alternatively, they may adopt the methodology of trying to produce pieces that may affect people very differently depending on the different beliefs and desires that they have. My work may help them determine the situations in which people's existing mental lives are more likely to affect the perceptual experience that they have of an artwork.

(iii) Policy makers and law makers.

My work will attempt to show that what people perceive depends on their prior beliefs and desires. This raises questions as to whether people can be blamed for their actions in certain circumstances if their very experience of the world is skewed by their beliefs. For if their experience confirms their skewed beliefs then it looks as if subjects are stuck in a circle of bigotry. This raises issues of social policy, such as, should we screen police officers and other public officials for prejudice? And should they undergo training to mitigate the effects of potential bias (for it seems as if certain sorts of training are able to mitigate the effects of bias)? And should we place as much weight on eye-witness testimony as we do now, or in what situations should we be wary of doing so?