Abstract
A traditional view of perception and action makestwo assumptions: that the causal flow betweenperception and action is primarily linear or one-way,and that they are merely instrumentally related toeach other, so that each is a means to the other.Either or both of these assumptions can be rejected.Behaviorism rejects the instrumental but not theone-way aspect of the traditional view, thus leavingitself open to charges of verificationism. Ecologicalviews reject the one-way aspect but not theinstrumental aspect of the traditional view, so thatperception and action are seen as instrumentallyinterdependent. It is argued here that a betteralternative is to reject both assumptions, resultingin a two-level interdependence view in whichperception and action co-depend on dynamicallycircular subpersonal relations and as a result may bemore than merely instrumentally interdependent. Thisis illustrated by reference to motor theories ofperception and control theories of action.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Allport, Alan: 1980, 'Patterns and Actions: Cognitive Mechanisms are Content-Specific', in Guy Claxton (ed.), Cognitive Psychology: New Directions, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 26–61.
Allport, Alan: 1984, 'Speech Production and Comprehension: One Lexicon or Two?', inW. Prinz and A. F. Sanders (eds), Cognition and Motor Processes, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 209–28.
Allport, Alan: 1987, 'Selection for Action: Some Behavioral and Neurophysiological Considerations of Attention and Action', in H. Heuer and A. F. Sanders (eds), Perspectives on Perception and Action, Hillsdale New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 395–419.
Ballard, Dana H.: 1991, 'Animate Vision', Artificial Intelligence 48, 57–86.
Barwise, Jon: 1987, 'Unburdening the Language of Thought', Mind and Language 2, 82–95.
Basar, Erol (ed.): 1990, Chaos in Brain Function, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Beatty, Jackson: 1977, 'Learned Regulation of Alpha and Theta Frequency Activity in the Human Electroencephalogram', in Gary E. Schwartz and Jackson Beatty (eds), Biofeedback: Theory and Research, Academic Press, New York, pp. 251–370.
Bisiach, Edoardo: 1988, 'Language without Thought', in L. Weiskrantz (ed.), Thought without Language, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 465–91.
Bisiach, Edoardo and Giuliano Geminiani: 1991, 'Anosognosia Related to Hemiplegia and Hemianopia', in George P. Prigatano and Daniel L. Schacter (eds), Awareness of Deficit after Brain Injury: Clinical and Theoretical Issues, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 17–39.
Brooks, Rodney A.: 1991, 'Intelligence Without Reason', Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Morgan Kauffman, San Mateo, pp. 569–95.
Burge, Tyler: 1979, 'Individualism and the Mental', Midwest Studies in Philosophy, IV.
Burge, Tyler: 1986a, 'Cartesian Error and the Objectivity of Perception', in Philip Pettit and John McDowell (eds), Subject, Thought, and Context, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 117–36.
Burge, Tyler: 1986b, 'Individualism and Psychology', The Philosophical Revew XCV(1), 3–45.
Churchland, Patricia Smith: 1986, Neurophilosophy, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Churchland, Patricia S., V. S. Ramachandran, and Terrence J. Sejnowski: 1994, 'A Critique of Pure Cision', in C. Koch and J. L. Davis (eds), Large-Scale Neuronal Theories of the Brain, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 23–60.
Clark, Andy: 1990a, 'Connectionism, Competence and Explanation', in Margaret A. Boden (ed.), The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 281–308.
Clark, Andy: 1990b, Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science and Parallel Distributed Processing, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Clark, Andy: 1997, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, TheMIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Davidson, Richard J.: 1980, 'Consciousness and Information Processing', in Julian M. Davidson and Richard J. Davidson (eds), The Psychobiology of Consciousness, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 24–5.
Davies, Martin: 1990, 'Thinking Persons and Cognitive Science', AI and Society 4, 39–50.
Davies, Martin: 1991a, 'Concepts, Connectionism and the Language of Thought', in William Ramsey, Stephen P. Stich, and David E. Rumelhardt (eds), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 229–57.
Davies, Martin: 1991b, 'Individualism & Perceptual Content', Mind 100, 461–84.
Davies, Martin: 1992, 'Perceptual Content and Local Supervenience', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XCIIV, 21–45.
Davies, Martin: 1993, 'Aims and Claims of Externalist Arguments', Philosophical Issues 4, 228–49. Naturalism and Normativity.
Dennett, Daniel C.: 1991a, Consciousness Explained, Little Brown and Company, Boston.
Dennett, Daniel C.: 1991b, 'Mother Nature Versus the Walking Encyclopedia: A Western Drama', in W. Ramsey, S. Stich, and D. E. Rumelhart (eds), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 21–30.
di Pellegrino, G., L. Fadiga, L. Fogassi, V. Gallese, and G. Rizzolatti: 1992, 'Understanding Motor Events: A Neurophysiological Study', Experimental Brain Research 91, 176–80.
Edelman, Gerald M.: 1987, Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, Basic Books, New York.
Edelman, Gerald M.: 1989, The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness, Basic Books Inc, New York.
Elman, Jeffrey L., Elizabeth A. Bates, Mark H. Johnson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett: 1996, Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Engel, Andreas K., Peter Konig, and Wolf Singer: 1991, 'Direct Physiological Evidence for Scene Segmentation by Temporal Coding', Proceedings of the National Academy Science 88, 9136–40.
Festinger, Leon, Hiroshi Ono, Clarke A. Burnham, and Donald Bamber: 1967, 'Efference and the Conscious Experience of Perception', Journal of Experimental Psychology Monograph 74(4), 1–36.
Fodor, Jerry A. and Zenon W. Pylyshyn: 1988, 'Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture: A Critical Analysis', Cognition 28, 3–71.
Freeman, Walter J.: 1991, 'The Physiology of Perception', Scientific American 264, 34–41.
Fricker, E.: 1991, 'Content, Cause and Function', Philosophical Books 32, 136–44.
Gallistel, C. R.: 1980, The Organization of Action: A New Synthesis, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Gibson, James J.: 1986, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Goodale, Melvyn A. and A. David Milner: 1992, 'Separate Visual Pathways for Perception and Action', Trends in Neuroscience 15(1), 20–5.
Greenwood, John D.: 1991, The Future of Folk Psychology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Grossberg, Stephen and Michael Kuperstein: 1989, Neural Dynamics of Adaptive Sensory-Motor Control, Pergamon Press, New York.
Gyr, John, Richmond Willey, and Adele Henry: 1979, 'Motor-Sensory Feedback and Geometry of Visual Space: An Attempted Replication', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2, 59–94.
Harris, Charles Samuel: 1965, 'Perceptual Adaptation to Inverted, Reversed, and Displaced Vision', Psychological Review 72, 419–44.
Harris, Charles S.: 1980, 'Insight or Out of Sight?: Two Examples of Perceptual Plasticity in the Human Adult', in Charles S. Harris (ed.), Visual Coding and Adaptability, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 95–149.
Held, Richard: 1968, 'Plasticity in Sensorimotor Coordination', in Sanford J. Freedman (ed.), The Neuropsychology of Spatially Oriented Behavior, The Dorsey Press, Homewood, IL, pp. 57–62, and Physiological Psychology 54, 33–7.
Hornsby, Jennifer: 1980, Actions, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Howard, Ian P.: 1982, Human Visual Orientation, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester.
Hurley, S. L.: 1989, Natural Reasons, Oxford University Press, New York.
Hurley, S. L.: 1998a, Consciousness in Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Hurley, S. L.: 1998b, 'Vehicles, Contents, Conceptual Structure, and Externalism', Analysis 58(1), 1–6.
Hutchins, Edwin: 1995, Cognition in the Wild, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Jackendoff, Ray: 1987, Consciousness and the Computational Mind, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Jeannerod, Marc: 1979, 'Visuomotor Experiments: Failure to Replicate, or Failure to Match the Theory?', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2, 71.
Kelso, J. A. Scott: 1995, Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Kitcher, Patricia: 1990, Kan's Transcendental Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York.
Kugler, Peter N., Robert E. Shaw, Kim J. Vicente, and Jeffrey Kinsella-Shaw: 1989–1990, Inquiry Into Intentional Systems I: Issues in Ecological Physics, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld. Report no. 30/1990 Research Group on Mind and Brain, Perspectives in Theoretical Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind.
Kuperstein, Michael: 1988a, 'An Adaptive Neural Model for Mapping Invariant Target Position', Behavioral Neuroscience 102(1), 148–62.
Kuperstein, Michael: 1988b, 'Neural Model of Adaptive Hand-Eye Coordination for Single Postures', Science 239, 1308–11.
Lacroix, J. Michael: 1986, 'Mechanisms of Biobeedback Conrol', in Richard J. Davidson, Gary E. Schwartz, and David Shapiro (eds), Consciousness and Self-Regulation: Advances in Research and Theory, Vol. 4, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 137–62.
Langton, Christopher G. (ed.): 1995, Artificial Life: An Overview, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Lee, D. N. and D. S. Young: 1986, 'Gearing Action to the Environment', Experimental Brain Research 15, 217–29.
Llinas, Rodolfo: 1987, '“Mindness” as a Functional State of the Brain', in Colin Blakemore and Susan Greenfield (eds), Mindwaves, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 339–58.
Mace, William M.: 1977, 'James J Gibson's Strategy for Perceiving: Ask Not What's Inside Your Head, but what Your Head's Inside of', in Robert Shaw and John Bransford (eds), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 43–65.
MacKay, Donald G.: 1987, The Organization of Perception and Action: A Theory for Language and Other Cognitive Skills, Springer-Verlag, New York.
Marken, Richard S.: 1986, 'Perceptual Organization of Behavior: A Hierarchical Control Model of Coordinated Action', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 12(3), 267–76.
McGinn, Colin: 1989, Mental Content, Blackwell, Oxford.
Millikan, Ruth: 1991, 'Perceptual Content and Fregean Myth', Mind C(4), 439–59.
Millikan, Ruth: 1993, 'Content and Vehicle', in Naomi Eilan, Rosaleen McCarthy, and Bill Brewer (eds), Spatial Representation, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 256–68.
Milner, A. D. and M. A. Goodale: 1995, The Visual Brain in Action, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Milner, D. and M. Rugg (eds): 1991, The Neuropsychology of Consciousness, Academic Press, London.
Morton, Adam: 1988, 'The Chaology of Mind', Analysis 48(3), 135–42.
Nagel, Thomas: 1969, 'The Boundaries of Inner Space', The Journal of Philosophy 66(14), 452–8.
Neisser, Ulric: 1988, 'Five Kinds of Self-knowledge', Philosphical Psychology 1(1), 35–59.
Nelson, R. J.: 1969, 'Behaviorism is False', The Journal of Philosophy 66(14), 417–52.
Nunez, Rafael and Walter J. Freeman (eds): 1999, Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention, and Emotion, Imprint Academic, Bowling Green.
Petitot, Jean: 1995, 'Moprhodynamics and Attractor Syntax: Constituency in Visual Perception and Cognition Grammar', in Robert F. Port and Timothy Van Gelder (eds), Mind as Motion, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 227–281.
Pollock, Jordan B.: 1995, 'The Induction of Dynamical Recognizers', in Robert F. Port and Timothy Van Gelder (eds), Mind as Motion, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 283–312.
Port, Robert F. and Timothy van Gelder (eds): 1995, Mind as Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Powers, William T.: 1973, Behavior: The Control of Perception, Aldine, Chicago.
Powers, William T.: 1980, 'A Systems Approach to Consciousness', in Julian M. Davidson and Richard J. Davidson (eds), The Psychobiology of Consciousness, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 217–42.
Prinz, Wolfgang: 1990, 'A Common Coding Approach to Perception and Action', in O. Neumann and W. Prinz (eds), Relations between Perception and Action: Current Approaches, Springer, Berlin, pp. 167–201.
Ramsey, William, Stephen Stich, and Joseph Garon: 1990, 'Connectionism, Eliminativism and the Future of Folk Psychology', in James E. Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 4, Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind. Ridgeview, Atascadero, CA, pp. 499–533.
Rolls, Edmund: 1989, 'The Representation and Storage of Information in Neuronal Networks in the Primate Cerebral Cortex and Hippocampus', in R. Durbin, C. Miall, and G. Mitchison (eds), The Computing Neuron, Addison-Wesley, Wokingham, pp. 125–59.
Rosenfield, David B.: 1989, The Invention of Memory, Basic Books, New York.
Schoner, G. and J. A. S. Kelso: 1988, 'Dynamic Pattern Generation in Behavioral and Neural Systems', Science 239, 1988.
Shaw, Robert and John Bransford: 1977, 'Introduction: Psychological Approaches to the Problem of Knowledge', in Robert Shaw and John Bransford (eds), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 1–39.
Shebilske, Wayne L.: 1984, 'Context Effects and Efferent Factors in Perception and Cognition', in W. Prinz and A. F. Sanders (eds), Cognition and Motor Processes, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 99–119.
Shebilske, Wayne L.: 1987, 'An Ecological Efference Mediation Theory of Natural Event Perception', in Herbert Heuer and A. F. Sanders (eds), Perspectives on Perception and Actions, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 195–213.
Sheerer, Eckart: 1984, 'Motor Theories of Cognitive Structure: A Historial Review', in W. Prinz and A. F. Sanders (eds), Cognition and Motor Processes, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Skarda, Christine A. and Walter J. Freeman: 1987, 'How Brains Make Chaos in Order to Make Sense of the World', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10, 161–95.
Smolensky, Paul: 1988, 'On The Proper Treatment of Connectionism', Behavioral and Brain Science 11, 1–74.
Sperry, R. W.: 1952, 'Neurology and the Mind-Brain Problem', American Scientist 40, 291–312.
Sperry, R. W.: 1990, 'Forebrain Commissurotomy and Conscious Awareness', in Colwyn Trevarthen (ed.), Brain Circuits and Functions of the Mind, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 371–88.
Stich, Stephen: 1991, 'Do True Believers Exist?', Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society Supplement LXV, 229–44.
Stich, Stephen: 1996, Deconstructing the Mind, Oxford University Press, New York.
Taylor, James G.: 1962, The Behavioral Basis of Perception, Yale University Press, New Haven & London.
Thelen, Esther and Linda B. Smith: 1994, A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Trevarthen, Colwyn: 1978, 'Modes of Perceiving and Modes of Acting', in Herbert L. Pick and Elliot Saltzman (eds), Modes of Perceiving and Processing Information, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ pp. 99–136.
Trevarthen, Colwyn: 1984, 'Biodynamic Structures,Cognitive Correlates of Motive Sets and the Development of Motives in Infants', in W. Prinz and A. F. Sanders (eds), Cognition and Motor Processes, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 327–50.
Turvey, M. T.: 1977, 'Preliminaries to a Theory of Action with Reference to Vision', in Robert Shaw and John Bransford (eds), Perceiving, Acting and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 211–65.
Turvey, M. T.: 1979, 'The Thesis of the Efference-Mediation of Vision Cannot be Rationalized', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2, 81–3.
Turvey, M. T.: 1990, 'Coordination', American Psychologist 45(8), 938–53.
Turvey, M. T., C. Carello, and Nam-Gyoon Kim: 1990, 'Links Between Active Perception and the Control of Action', in H. Haken and M. Stadler (eds), Synergetics of Cognition, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 269–95.
Turvey, M. T., Solomon Yosef, and Gregory Burton: 1989, 'An Ecological Analysis of Knowing by Wielding', Journal of the Experimental Analysis or Behavior 52(3), 387–407.
Ullman, S.: 1980, 'Against Direct Perception', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3, 373–415.
van Gelder, Tim: 1990, 'Compositionality: A Connectionist Variation on a Classical Theme', Cognitive Science 14, 355–84.
van Gelder, Tim: 1991, '“What is the 'D' in PDP?” A Survey of the Concept of Distribution', in W. Ramsey, S. Stich, and D. E. Rumelhart (eds), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 33–59.
Varela, Francisco J.: 1979, Principles of Biological Autonomy, North Holland, New York.
Weimer, Walter B.: 1977, 'A Conceptual Framework for Cognitive Psychology: Motor Theories of the Mind', in Robert Shaw and John Bransford (eds), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 267–311.
Welch, Robert B.: 1979, 'Separating the Issues Involved in the Role of Bodily Movement in Perception and Perceptual-Motor Coordination', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2, 85–6.
Yates, Aubrey J.: 1980, Biofeedback and the Modification of Behavior, Plenum Press, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hurley, S. Perception And Action: Alternative Views. Synthese 129, 3–40 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012643006930
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012643006930