Beyond Vision: Extending the Scope of a Sensorimotor Account of Perception

Abstract

Abstract. We examine the scope of some sensorimotor accounts of perception, and their application in developmental robotics. Current interest in sensorimotor theories, and the enactive paradigm, was stimulated by the seminal book The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) [32]. However, both in this initial book and subsequently there has been much work on visual perception and less attention to other perceptual modalities. We suggest that the insights gained from an exploration of the visual domain need supplementing, and in some respects qualifying: some significant characteristics of vision do not hold for audition, in particular for the perception of speech. This leads into a discussion of the importance of integrating different perceptual modes, with particular reference to robots and human-robot interaction. We examine the effect of including audition in accounts of perception, and suggest that it makes sense to avoid the unnecessary straight jacket of a model based primarily on vision and touch alone. The sensorimotor approach can be extended to other perceptual modes.

Proprioception in Action: A Matter of Ecological and Social Interaction

“…While ESMT has been mostly developed for the visual and tactile modalities, we believe that the arguments and evidence in favor of ESMT should generalize to other perceptive modalities (Lyon, 2014 ). Here, we have focused on applying this theory to the PK modality.…”

Towards a sensorimotor approach to flavour and smell

“…Research into precisely how the sensorimotor account could be extended beyond vision and touch is limited (though for discussion of its applicability to smell see Cooke & Myin, 2011; for audition see Noë, 2004, pp. 160–161; and Lyon, 2014). Nevertheless, arguments against sensorimotor enactivism have emerged that take certain sense modalities, particularly taste and smell, to serve as problem cases for the theory.…”

Book Review: Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory

“…Other authors also propose extensions. Lyon (2014) explores the implications of extending sensorimotor theory beyond vision and touch, in particular to audition. Rucinska (2014) extends sensorimotor theory to explain basic forms of pretense.…”

“…In the context of AI and robotics, for example, we need to clearly distinguish between sensorimotor and autopoietic enactivism. The popularity of the sensorimotor approach is largely explained by its applicability to the design of AI and robotics (e.g., Hoffmann, 2014;Lyon, 2014), and by O'Regan's (2014) claim that it could lead to genuine examples of conscious machines. But this appeal is counterbalanced by a set of philosophical difficulties (Bishop and Martin, 2014), including a lack of clear definitions as to what it means to be an agent or to perform an action (Thompson, 2005).…”