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Setting Things before the Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

By
M. G. F. Martin
Edited by
Anthony O'Hear
Foreword by
Tim Crane
Anthony O'Hear
Affiliation:
University of Buckingham
Tim Crane
Affiliation:
Central European University, Budapest
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Summary

Listening to someone from some distance in a crowded room you may experience the following phenomenon: when looking at them speak, you may both hear and see where the source of the sounds is; but when your eyes are turned elsewhere, you may no longer be able to detect exactly where the voice must be coming from. With your eyes again fixed on the speaker, and the movement of her lips a clear sense of the source of the sound will return. This ‘ventriloquist’ effect reflects the ways in which visual cognition can dominate auditory perception. And this phenomenological observation is one that you can verify or disconfirm in your own case just by the slightest reflection on what it is like for you to listen to someone with or without visual contact with them.

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Chapter
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The Philosophy of Mind , pp. 246 - 282
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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