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Psychological Experiments and Phenomenal Experience in Size and Shape Constancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Gary Hatfield
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Abstract

Some experiments in perceptual psychology measure perceivers’ phenomenal experiences of objects versus their cognitive assessments of object properties. Analyzing such experiments, this article responds to Pizlo’s claim that much work on shape constancy before 1985 confused problems of shape ambiguity with problems of shape constancy. Pizlo fails to grasp the logic of experimental designs directed toward phenomenal aspects of shape constancy. In the domain of size perception, Granrud’s studies of size constancy in children and adults distinguish phenomenal from cognitive factors.

Type
Cognitive and Psychological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 940 - 953
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thanks to Uljana Feest, Mazviita Chirimuuta, and Eric Schwitzgebel for comments at PSA12 and the members of the Seminar on Experimental Psychology and Phenomenology, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, for discussion of a subsequent version.

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