Thanks to audiences in Dubrovnik, Norwich, and Budapest, especially Benj Hellie, Elizabeth Irvine, Hemdat Lerman, Fiona Macpherson, Declan Smithies, Patrick Wilken and Wayne Wu. Thanks also to Tim Bayne, Ned Block, Cecilia Heyes, Mike Martin, Hanna Pickard, Nick Shea, Henry Shelvin, Matt Soteriou, and especially to Max Coltheart for extremely helpful written comments.
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Perception and Iconic Memory: What Sperling Doesn't Show
Article first published online: 6 SEP 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01422.x
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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How to Cite
PHILLIPS, I. B. (2011), Perception and Iconic Memory: What Sperling Doesn't Show. Mind & Language, 26: 381–411. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01422.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 6 SEP 2011
- Article first published online: 6 SEP 2011
- Abstract
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Philosophers have lately seized upon Sperling's partial report technique and subsequent work on iconic memory in support of controversial claims about perceptual experience, in particular that phenomenology overflows cognitive access. Drawing on mounting evidence concerning postdictive perception, I offer an interpretation of Sperling's data in terms of cue-sensitive experience which fails to support any such claims. Arguments for overflow based on change-detection paradigms (e.g. Landman et al., 2003; Sligte et al., 2008) cannot be blocked in this way. However, such paradigms are fundamentally different from Sperling's and, for rather different reasons, equally fail to establish controversial claims about perceptual experience.