56
G. Riva, M.T. Anguera, B.K. Wiederhold and F. Mantovani (Eds.)
From Communication to Presence: Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the
Ultimate Communicative Experience. Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli
IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2006, (c) All rights reserved - http://www.emergingcommunication.com
The Enactive View has different corollaries.
- The differences in our perceptual experience correspond to differences in the
sensorimotor expectations associated with certain objects or properties: Two
objects are perceived differently, because in encountering them we bring to bear
different sets of sensorimotor expectations.
- The very same real property (e.g. shape) may be apprehended differently - e.g.
by touch or vision: the mode of sampling varies dramatically, and with it the
associated sensorimotor contingencies.
- Despite specific differences, many objects will share large parts of the
sensorimotor signatures: It is these commonalities that make the experiences
sensorially characterized: visual rather than, auditory or tactile.
Even if the Enactive View is a promising theoretical approach, the actual formulation
is not immune to criticisms [8, 41, 42]. As underlined by Clark:
“I have raised three challenges for Noë-style sensorimotor contingency theory. The
first challenge is to find a safe haven between two unsatisfactory readings of the
central claim that perceptual experience is conditioned by expectancies concerning
sensory stimulation. One reading looks circular, since it depicts the expectancies as
already operating in the realm of experience... The second challenge is to fix the
intended force of the central claim. Is the claim that there is a conceptual connection
between sensorimotor knowing and the contents of perceptual experience?... The
third, and perhaps most serious, challenge is to accommodate (or give principled
reasons to reject) the fairly extensive empirical data suggesting that the contents of
conscious visual experience are optimized for selection, choice and reason rather
than the fine guidance of action.” (p.8).
3.3.2.2 The Theory ofEvent Coding
The Theory of Event Coding [43], is a broad framework for understanding
relationships between perception, cognition, and action planning that shares many
similarities with the Enactive View.
According to the Theory of Event Coding [43] the cognitive representations for
perceived events (perception) and intended or to-be generated events (action) are
formed by a common representational domain.
From this broad position it is possible to identify three different corollaries (pp.
860-861):
- Common coding of perceptual content and action goals: perceiving and action
planning are functionally equivalent, inasmuch as they are merely alternative
ways of doing the same thing: internally representing external events;
- Feature-based coding of perceived and produced events: If actions are
represented in a way that is at least very similar to how visual objects are
represented, the principles underlying the organization of perceptual and action-
related information should be comparable;
- Distal coding of event features. The cognitive codes that represent perceptual
objects are identical to those representing action plans because both kinds of
code refer to external (distal) events.
This position, too, has raised many concerns. In particular, as underlined by the same