Enquiries to Anina Rich (anina.r...@mq.edu.au)

PARC / Cognitive Science seminar
Thurs 11th Feb, 10.30am
Seminar room 3.10, 3rd floor Australian Hearing Hub

Title: High-level perception in synaesthesia
Speaker: Associate Professor Aleksandra Mroczko-Wasowicz (Institute of 
Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan)

Presenter's website: www.mroczko-wasowicz.com<http://www.mroczko-wasowicz.com>

Abstract:
In this talk I will discuss a wide scope of perceptual experience, i.e., not 
exclusively identified with the sensory stimulation but also including 
non-sensory aspects like categorizing, conceptualization, and top-down 
influences. Such an expansive view of perception has recently become a part of 
a philosophical debate on whether high-level properties (i.e., properties over 
and above those directly transduced by the sensory modalities) are admissible 
to enter the  contents of perception and phenomenal consciousness. Examples of 
such properties might be kind properties (recognizing that something belongs to 
a certain category), generic properties, uses or functions for a perceiver, 
numerical values, and other semantic properties representing some things or 
concepts. These properties are meant to be abstract, generalized, and cognitive 
in their nature. I propose that conscious experience in synaesthetic perception 
is a striking example in support of the liberal thesis that contents of 
perceptual experience may include high-level properties. Synaesthesia is 
traditionally considered to be a perceptual phenomenon in which the stimulation 
of one sensory modality (the inducer) elicits involuntary and consistent 
sensory experiences in the same or another modality (the concurrent). 
Increasing evidence for the role of semantic representations in the induction 
of synaesthesia demonstrates however that for many forms of synaesthesia the 
inducers are not strictly sensory. They are cultural constructs, e.g., numbers, 
letters, time units, musical notes or instruments, and sports-specific 
movements. The categorization of these objects/events is likely high level, 
involving a conceptual component. Thus, synaesthetic inducer-concurrent 
pairings embrace both non-sensory and sensory phenomenology



Professor John Sutton

Deputy Head, Dept of Cognitive Science

Macquarie University

Sydney, NSW 2109

Australia

john.sut...@mq.edu.au

http://johnsutton.net/

<http://johnsutton.net/>https://mq.academia.edu/JohnSutton

https://www.cogsci.mq.edu.au/members/profile.php?memberID=237
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