An empirical refutation of the direct realist theory of perception
@article{Smythies1997AnER, title={An empirical refutation of the direct realist theory of perception}, author={John Smythies and Vilayanur S. Ramachandran}, journal={Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines}, year={1997}, volume={40}, pages={437-438} }
There are currently two main philosophical theories of perception ‐ Direct Realism and the Representative Theory. The former is supported by most contemporary philosophers, whereas the latter forms the groundwork for most scientific theories in this area. The paper describes a recent experiment involving retinal and cortical rivalry that provides strong empirical evidence that the Direct Realist theory is incorrect. There are of course a large number of related experiments on visual perception…
18 Citations
An indirect defense of direct realism
- Philosophy
- 2004
Smythies and Ramachandran (1997) claim that the direct realist theory of perception has been refuted by recent psychophysics. This paper takes up the psychophysics, and the definition of direct…
The Neuroscientific Case for a Representative Theory of Perception
- Psychology, Philosophy
- 2013
It has been urged repeatedly over the last two decades that empirical findings in neuroscience and psychology provide compelling reasons for endorsing a representative theory of perception. Richard…
Theories of Perception and Recent Empirical Work
- Philosophy, Psychology
- 2018
Theories of Perception and Recent Empirical Work by Philip Zigman Advisor: David Rosenthal In this dissertation I answer the following question: Does recent empirical work give us reason to think…
An argument against the conjunction of direct realism and the standard causal picture
- Philosophy
- 2016
Recent work in defence of direct realism has concentrated on the representationalist and disjunctivist responses to the arguments from illusion and hallucination, whilst relatively little attention…
The Function of Conscious Experience: An Analogical Paradigm of Perception and Behavior
- Philosophy, Psychology
- 2002
The question of whether conscious experience has any functional purpose depends on a more fundamental issue concerning the nature of conscious experience. In particular, whether the world of…
A critique of Revonsuo's theory of consciousness
- Psychology, Philosophy
- 2009
In Inner Presence (2005), Antti Revonsuo presents a new theory—‘‘Biological Realism’’—about the nature of consciousness and its relation to its brain. The two interlinked philosophical bases of this…
Philosophy, Perception, and Neuroscience
- PhilosophyPerception
- 2009
This paper presents the results of some recent experiments in neuroscience and perceptual science that reveal the role of virtual reality in normal visual perception, and the use of television…
Putting Color Back Where It Belongs
- PsychologyConsciousness and Cognition
- 2001
It seems that Ross has failed to consider one substantial version of subjectivism in his article, and this monistic approach to color and consciousness appears to be the least implausible alternative when the authors try to understand what colors are and where they reside.
Space, Time and Consciousness
- Philosophy
- 2003
This paper describes a new theory of consciousness based on previous work by C.D. Broad, H.H. Price, Andrei Linde and others. This hypothesis states that the Universe consists of three fundamental…
How the brain decides what we see.
- PsychologyJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine
- 2005
Until recently it was thought that vision shows us what is actually 'out there' at any moment; but experiments in visual psychology have revealed that the brain will often construct sensations that override the visual input if the brain judges that the latter is too improbable.
References
SHOWING 1-2 OF 2 REFERENCES
In vitro activation of the interferon-induced, double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase PKR by RNA from the 3' untranslated regions of human alpha-tropomyosin.
- BiologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- 1996
It is reported that purified RNA from the 3' untranslated region of human alpha-tropomyosin can inhibit in vitro translation in a manner consistent with activation of PKR, suggesting that activation ofPKR could be the mechanism by which tropomyos in 3'UTR RNA exerts its tumor-suppression activity in vivo.