Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-17T21:30:28.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Not even wrong: The “it's just X” fallacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2017

Gary Lupyan
Gary Lupyan*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706. [email protected]://sapir.psych.wisc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I applaud Firestone & Scholl (F&S) in calling for more rigor. But, although F&S are correct that some published work on top-down effects suffers from confounds, their sweeping claim that there are no top-down effects on perception is premised on incorrect assumptions. F&S's thesis is wrong. Perception is richly and interestingly influenced by cognition.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boutonnet, B. & Lupyan, G. (2015) Words jump-start vision: A label advantage in object recognition. Journal of Neuroscience 32(25):9329–35. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5111-14.2015.Google Scholar
Bulthoff, I., Bulthoff, H. & Sinha, P. (1998) Top-down influences on stereoscopic depth-perception. Nature Neuroscience 1(3):254–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, Y.-C. & Scholl, B. J. (2016) The perception of history: Seeing causal history in static shapes induces illusory motion perception. Psychological Science 27:923–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Çukur, T., Nishimoto, S., Huth, A. G. & Gallant, J. L. (2013) Attention during natural vision warps semantic representation across the human brain. Nature Neuroscience 16(6):763–70. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
D'Esposito, M. & Postle, B. R. (2015) The cognitive neuroscience of working memory. Annual Review of Psychology 66:115–42. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015031.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Firestone, C. & Scholl, B. J. (2014a) “Please tap the shape, anywhere you like”: Shape skeletons in human vision revealed by an exceedingly simple measure. Psychological Science 25(2):377–86. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613507584.Google Scholar
Gao, T., Newman, G. E. & Scholl, B. J. (2009) The psychophysics of chasing: A case study in the perception of animacy. Cognitive Psychology 59(2):154–79. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2009.03.001.Google Scholar
Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S. & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2006) Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience 9(11):1367–68. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1038/nn1794.Google Scholar
Klemfuss, N., Prinzmetal, W. & Ivry, R. B. (2012) How does language change perception: A cautionary note. Frontiers in Psychology 3:Article 78. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00078.Google Scholar
Landau, A. N., Aziz-Zadeh, L. & Ivry, R. B. (2010) The influence of language on perception: Listening to sentences about faces affects the perception of faces. The Journal of Neuroscience 30(45):15254–61. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2046-10.2010.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. (2015a) Cognitive penetrability of perception in the age of prediction: Predictive systems are penetrable systems. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6:547–69.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. (2015b) Object knowledge changes visual appearance: Semantic effects on color afterimages. Acta Psychologica 161:117–30.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. & Clark, A. (2015) Words and the world: Predictive coding and the language-perception-cognition interface. Current Directions in Psychological Science 24(4):279–84.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. & Spivey, M. J. (2008) Perceptual processing is facilitated by ascribing meaning to novel stimuli. Current Biology 18:R410–12.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G., Thompson-Schill, S. L. & Swingley, D. (2010) Conceptual penetration of visual processing. Psychological Science 21(5):682–91.Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. & Ward, E. J. (2013) Language can boost otherwise unseen objects into visual awareness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 110(35):14196–201. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1303312110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martín, A., Chambeaud, J. G. & Barraza, J. F. (2015) The effect of object familiarity on the perception of motion. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance 41(2):283–88. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000027.Google Scholar
Moore, C. & Cavanagh, P. (1998) Recovery of 3D volume from 2-tone images of novel objects. Cognition 67(1–2):45–71. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00014-6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelekanos, V. & Moutoussis, K. (2011) The effect of language on visual contrast sensitivity. Perception 40(12):1402–12. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1068/p7010.Google Scholar
Pratte, M. S. & Tong, F. (2014) Spatial specificity of working memory representations in the early visual cortex. Journal of Vision 14(3): 22. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1167/14.3.22.Google Scholar
Scocchia, L., Cicchini, G. M. & Triesch, J. (2013) What's “up”? Working memory contents can bias orientation processing. Vision Research 78:46–55. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2012.12.003.Google Scholar
Sterzer, P., Frith, C. & Petrovic, P. (2008) Believing is seeing: Expectations alter visual awareness. Current Biology 18(16):R697–98. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.06.021.Google Scholar
Vrins, S., de Wit, T. C. J. & van Lier, R. (2009) Bricks, butter, and slices of cucumber: Investigating semantic influences in amodal completion. Perception 38(1):17–29.Google Scholar