12b – Michell Cognition notes

Question 1

What is the difference between veridical and non-veridical perception?

Answer 1

Veridical perception –when that perceived is what is the case

Non-veridical perception – when that perceived is not what is the case

Question 2

Why must environmental situations be propositional in structure?

Answer 2

Because for objects of perceptions to be true, they must be the kind of things that can be true. And the only things that can be true are propositional in structure.

Question 3

What does it mean for something to be propositional in structure?

Answer 3

It involves a subject having a predicate. E.g. this tree is green.

Question 4

How does Michell define a situation?

Answer 4

A situation is any state of affairs consisting of a subject predicated.

Question 5

What must a subject in a situation be?

Answer 5

A thing or a class of things.

Question 6

What must a predicate in a situation be?

Answer 6

1) A property (being green)

2) A relation to something else (being taller than me)

Question 7

Why, for perception to be veridical or non-veridical, must the object of perception be a situation, rather than a thing?

Answer 7

Because only something propositional in structure – i.e. a situation and not a thing –can be veridical.

Question 8

In what regard is the feature of location always present in the environmental situation?

Answer 8

It is present in the subject term of the situation. In seeing that ‘this tree is green’, the context will identify this tree, as opposed to another, and in being so distinguished, it is identified as located at some place and time. Indeed, it is the feature of location that makes the situation environmental.

Question 9

Does perception of the environmental situation, ‘this tree is green’ depend on language?

Answer 9

No. An animal could learn to respond differentially to each of the features comprising the situation. I.e. not respond if more than one tree, or not green, or not a tree.

Question 10

What would be perceived by an organism sensitive to all the features (number, colour, etc.) involved in a tree’s being green?

Answer 10

It would perceive that the tree is green.

Question 11

How does Michell define perception?

Answer 11

Perception is an organismic sensitivity to the propositional structure and content of environmental situations.

Question 12

Why is sunburn not a case of perception?

Answer 12

Sunburn is sensitivity to only one feature of a situation (the heat). So it can not be an example of perception, as perception is sensitivity only to the propositional structure and content of situations.

Question 13

How can we see an organism’s sensitivity to the propositional structure and content of environmental situations?

Answer 13

In the behaviour of the organism, as manifesting organismic sensitivity.

Question 14

In what way could remembering also be an act of organismic sensitivity to situations not currently present?

Answer 14

We never perceive the present. All our perceptions are of situations which, once perceived, are out of date. So the object of perception does not, logically, have to be of the present. Remembering may thus be the perception of situations in the past.

Question 15

How does Michell define remembering?

Answer 15

Remembering is a relation between the organism (in the present) and some environmental situation in the past, once perceived by that organism.

Question 16

What processes must occur order for remembering to make sense as direct awareness of situations in the past?

Answer 16

Causal processes of perception also must produce relatively permanent neural changes in the organism, which result in the required kind of neural sensitivity to that past situation. As in perception we are unaware of causal processes. We are directly aware of the past situations.

Question 17

How does Michell define cognition?

Answer 17

Cognition is organismic sensitivity to the propositional structure and content of environmental situations.

Question 18

What elements do we need to see in order to see the full causal process that is behaviour?

Answer 18

a) that the person thinks that in context C, bodily movements M will result in in environmental effects E.
b) bodily movements M
c) environmental effects E

Question 19

In a direct realist account, is cognition external or internal to the organism?

Answer 19

It’s both external and internal.

Question 20

Why can veridical and non-veridical mental processes not be the same kind of experience?

Answer 20

If you perceive p, and p is a situation that obtains, then perception is a relation between p and me.

If I perceive p and p does not obtain, this is nonsensical, as a relation can only obtain between real things.

In the former case there is a relation, in the latter there is none.

Question 21

What elements account for the difference between veridical and non-veridical perception?

Answer 21

The relation is different. In veridical perception it is a relation of cognition. In non-veridical perception it is a relation of error.

Question 22

What processes account for the relation of error in non-veridical cognition?

Answer 22

Cognition is organismic sensitivity to the propositional structure and content of an environmental situation. This sensitivity relies on neural processes. These neural processes may be prevented from occurring for any number of reasons, e.g. inhibition.

Question 23

How can the concept of meta-ignorance help explain error?

Answer 23

For error to exist, we must not only err that p is the case, we must be ignorant of our error. This is meta-ignorance.

That is, in cases of error, it is not only that we are prevented from knowing p; we are also prevented from knowing that we do not know p.

Question 24

The subjective indistiguishability of cognition and error is an illusion produced by _____________.

Answer 24

The subjective indistiguishability of cognition and error is an illusion produced by meta-ignorance.

Question 25

How does representational theory explain the Müller-Lyer illusion?

Answer 25

The erroneous percept of unequal lines is constructed from a representation of unequal lines kept in a storehouse of representations and combined with the sensory input.

Question 26

What are the four components in the Müller-Lyer illusion in Michell’s final account?

Answer 26

(a) we see the lines in the Müller-Lyer figure;
(b) we remember unequal lines from another situation; (c) we cannot see that the lines in the Müller-Lyer figure do not have the feature (inequality) in the remembered situation;
(d) we cannot recognise that (c) is the case.

Question 27

If a direct realist perspective is correct, psychology becomes the study of, not the isolated organism or person, but instead the __________ ___________.

Answer 27

If a direct realist perspective is correct, psychology becomes the study of, not the isolated organism or person, but instead the organism-environment system.

Question 28

Why is the organism-environment system a four-dimensional structure?

Answer 28

Because it involves time – the organism’s personal and cultural history –as well as space.