Integrating perception and action through cognitive neuropsychology (broadly conceived).

This special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology aims at providing a forum for empirical and theoretical research on the integration of perceptual and motor processes in the human mind. The initiative originated at a workshop on “Integrative approaches to perception and action” (Trieste, 27 October, 2006), a satellite event to the 14th Kanizsa Lecture. The 2006 lecture addressed the architecture of human vision from a broad perspective, reviewing a range of neuropsychological, imaging, and behavioural data to reveal the organization of visual pathways and relate it to the functions of vision. The satellite workshop presented alternative views and additional empirical findings, providing an exciting backdrop for the lecture. The number of valuable insights that ensued encouraged us to develop the project into a collection of printed papers. This special issue is the outcome of this process. Historically, the cognitive sciences have used the adjective “integrative” in different ways. The earliest dates back at least to the publication of Sherrington’s classic, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System (Sherrington, 1906), which aimed at studying how separate organs and body parts are brought together into a unified, organized organism by the workings of the nervous system. The integrative phenomena that came under Sherrington’s scrutiny were limited by his emphasis on reflexes as units of integration and by his corresponding interest in animal preparations displaying reflex behaviour (Levine, 2007). However, there is little doubt that understanding how different brain mechanisms relate to one another and to other bodily mechanisms, such as those mediating actions, remains central to contemporary cognitive science. A second sense refers to the need of integrating different levels of explanation when studying the mind/brain. Indeed, the idea that approaches limited to a single level of analysis do not suffice to unravel how the brain works forms the core dictum of integrative neuroscience