Amodal completion and relationalism

Abstract

Amodal completion is usually characterized as the representation of those parts of the perceived object that we get no sensory stimulation from. In the case of the visual sense modality, for example, amodal completion is the representation of occluded parts of objects we see. I argue that relationalism about perception, the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the relation to the perceived object, cannot give a coherent account of amodal completion. The relationalist has two options: construe the perceptual relation as the relation to the entire perceived object or as the relation to the unoccluded parts of the perceived object. I argue that neither of these options are viable.

The Activity of the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex Promotes the Top–down Regulation of Sensorimotor Synchronization

“…We also focused on the P150, considered to arise from the salience network including the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula [62], is sensitive to absence of repeated stimuli, and associated with recognition of the part-whole configuration [63,64]. Hence, we used the P150 for distinguishing whether the risk-taking was driven by mistake or promoted by the part-whole configuration [65]. Accordingly, we visually inspected ERP waveforms in defined time windows to detect P50, N100, P200, N400, and LPC for real pulses and for detecting P100, N200, P300, and N400 for missing pulses.…”

“…Neurophysiologically, modal completion is characterized by the endogenous event-related potential (ERP) component of P150, generated during cognitive processing of the part-whole configuration [63,64] as a kind of modal completion [65]. Further, recent studies [Perri et al, 2019,62] have revealed that P150 is generated by illusion and sourced around the ACC.…”

Against the very idea of a perceptual belief

“…And we also need to use amodal completion to represent those parts of non‐transparent perceived objects that are facing away from us. In short, with the exception of very simple two‐dimensional visual displays, amodal completion is a constitutive part of the way we represent perceived objects (Nanay, 2010, 2018b, forthcoming b).…”