Francesco Marchi

Ruhr-Universität Bochum | RUB · Institut für Philosophie II

There is a view on consciousness that has strong intuitive appeal and empirical support: the intermediate-level theory of consciousness, proposed mainly by Ray Jackendoff and by Jesse Prinz. This theory identifies a specific “intermediate” level of representation as the basis of human phenomenal consciousness, which sits between high-level non-pers...

In this article, we show how the phenomenon of self-deception when adequately analyzed, can be incorporated into a predictive processing framework. We describe four strategies by which a subject may become self-deceived to account for typical cases of self-deception. We then argue that the four strategies can be modeled within this framework, under...

According to the received view in the philosophical literature on pictorial perception, when perceiving an object in a picture, we perceive both the picture’s surface and the depicted object, but the surface is only unconsciously represented. Furthermore, it is suggested, such unconscious representation does not need attention. This poses a crucial...

In this chapter I introduce the terminology and concepts that are crucial for the development of my arguments in the book and discuss how the two key elements of my discussion, namely perception and cognition, can be kept apart in a mental processing system. In the overarching argumentative line of this book, which revolves around the cognitive pen...

This chapter examines how the PEM framework introduced in the previous chapter may be applied, even in its more general form, to model attentional cognitive penetration. Section 8.1 argues that the biased competition theory of attention and the metacognitive view presented in Chaps. 3 and 4 are compatible with PEM. In Sect. 8.2, I discuss how atten...

In this chapter, I discuss how each of the steps taken in this book to argue that attentional processes can generate cognitively penetrated perceptual experiences may be reconceived in the prediction error minimization framework. Section 7.1 introduces the framework of predictive processing in general and prediction error minimization (PEM) in part...

In this chapter, I present the cognitive penetrability hypothesis in full detail. In Sect. 3.1, I offer an historical contextualization of the discussion of top-down effects of cognition on perception, of which cognitive penetrability is a special case. I discuss some of the most relevant objections to the occurrence of such effects and elucidate w...

After having presented the theory of attention that I endorse in this book, I can now turn to my primary research question, namely: can attentional processes generate cognitively penetrated experiences? In this chapter, I offer a positive answer to this question in the light of the biased competition theory of attentional processes and of the four...

In this chapter, I discuss how perception and cognition can be kept apart even in continuous processing systems. Section 2.1 discusses the desiderata of a gradualist approach to the mind, where there is no sharp distinction between perception and cognition. Section 2.2 is dedicated to the question of whether it is possible to keep perception and co...

The aim of this chapter is to offer preliminary clarifications about how attention can be characterized in a theory-neutral way and, subsequently, what a theory of attention aims to explain. In Sect. 4.1, I relate this chapter to the previous one and the overarching theme of the book by discussing the importance of clarifying the notion of attentio...

The aim of this chapter is to offer a new theory of attention which is based and expands upon the popular biased competition theory. The theory is introduced by contrast to alternative views and in the light of some basic intuitions about attention that have driven research on this topic since the beginning. I propose a philosophical account of att...

This monograph presents a clear account of when and how attentional processes can shape perceptual experience. This argument is based on the prediction-error minimization model of the mind. The author believes that the topic of attention should take a more central role in the debate about the influence of cognition on perception. Inside, he shows h...

Research on sentiment analysis is in its mature status. Studies on this topic have proposed various solutions and datasets to guide machine-learning approaches. However, so far the sentiment scoring is restricted to the level of short textual units such as sentences. Our comparison shows that there is a huge gap between machines and human judges wh...

Over the past few years, opinion mining or subjectivity scoring has been studied quite extensively, and technical solutions are proposed. However, so far, the subjectivity scoring is restricted to the level of short textual units such as sentences. A desired situation would be that there are also solutions computing subjectivity scores on the level...

A recent approach to the cognitive penetrability of perception, i.e. the possibility that perception is shaped top-down by high-level cognitive states such as beliefs and desires, proposes to understand the phenomenon on the basis of its consequences, among which there is a challenge for the epistemic role of perceptual experience in justifying bel...

How can we investigate the foundations of consciousness? In addressing this question, we will focus on the two main strategies that authors have adopted so far. On the one hand, there is research aimed at characterizing a specific content, which should account for conscious states. We may call this the content approach. On the other hand, one finds...

Do our background beliefs, desires, and mental images influence our perceptual experience of the emotions of others? In this paper, we will address the possibility of cognitive penetration (CP) of perceptual experience in the domain of social cognition. In particular, we focus on emotion recognition based on the visual experience of facial expressi...

Adams & Kveraga argue that social visual perception is cognitively penetrable by extending a top-down model for visual object recognition to visual perception of social cues. Here I suggest that, in their view, a clear link between the top-down contextual influences that modulate social visual perception and the perceptual experience of a subject i...

In this article we review the basic idea of the “intermediate level” hypothesis about consciousness as proposed by Ray Jackendoff, then developed by Crick and Koch and finally by Prinz. According to this hypothesis, consciousness arises only at an intermediate-level, which lies between rough sensory inputs and the more abstract representations used...