Cognitive Penetrability and Ethical Perception Revised Version

Does the Emotional Modulation of Visual Experience Entail the Cognitive Penetrability or Emotional Penetrability of Early Vision?

I argue that emotive states affect perceptual processing either directly or indirectly with latencies that fall within late vision and not early vision. These effects differ from the effects of, and are subserved by different neuronal mechanisms than those that subserve, attentional effects on perception, although the two sorts of effects may interact. It follows that the emotive effects found ...

No Evidence of Narrowly Defined Cognitive Penetrability in Unambiguous Vision

The classical notion of cognitive impenetrability suggests that perceptual processing is an automatic modular system and not under conscious control. Near consensus is now emerging that this classical notion is untenable. However, as recently pointed out by Firestone and Scholl, this consensus is built on quicksand. In most studies claiming perception is cognitively penetrable, it remains uncle...

Is perception cognitively penetrable? A philosophically satisfying and empirically testable reframing

The question of whether perception can be penetrated by cognition is in the limelight again. The reason this question keeps coming up is that there is so much at stake: Is it possible to have theory-neutral observation? Is it possible to study perception without recourse to expectations, context, and beliefs? What are the boundaries between perception, memory, and inference (and do they even ex...

Editorial: Pre-cueing Effects on Perception and Cognitive Penetrability

Cognitive Penetrability of Perception in the Age of Prediction: Predictive Systems are Penetrable Systems

The goal of perceptual systems is to allow organisms to adaptively respond to ecologically relevant stimuli. Because all perceptual inputs are ambiguous, perception needs to rely on prior knowledge accumulated over evolutionary and developmental time to turn sensory energy into information useful for guiding behavior. It remains controversial whether the guidance of perception extends to cognit...