Varieties of perceptual truth and their possible evolutionary roots

Psychon Bull Rev. 2015 Dec;22(6):1519-22. doi: 10.3758/s13423-014-0741-z. Epub 2014 Oct 11.

Abstract

Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (2014) observe that perception evolves to serve as an interface between the perceiver and the world and proceed to reason that percepts need not, or even cannot, resemble their objects. I accept their premise, but argue that there are interesting ways in which perception can be truthful, with regard not to "objects" but to relations, and that evolutionary pressure is expected to favor rather than rule out such veridicality.

Keywords: Causal induction; Concepts and categories; Perceptual categorization and identification; Visual perception.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Biological Evolution*
  • Humans
  • Perception*
  • Psychological Theory*