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Psychophysical Methods and the Evasion of Introspection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

M. Chirimuuta
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Abstract

In this paper I argue that certain methodological conventions within psychophysics reflect a continued uncertainty over the reliability of subjects’ introspective judgements. Firstly, different psychophysical methods do not rely equally on the introspective capabilities of experimental subjects. I contrast “minimally introspective” tasks with “introspection-reliant” ones. It is only in the latter that introspection can be said to have a nontrivial role in the subjects’ performance. Secondly, my distinction maps onto a number of important methodological divisions in vision science. The introspection-reliant categorization captures many of the tasks typically considered less able to yield useful information regarding the processes underlying visual sensation.

Type
Cognitive and Psychological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 914 - 926
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Uljana Feest, Gary Hatfield, and Fred Kingdom for many helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks also to the other panelists at the PSA 2012 Symposium, Anthony Jack and Eric Schwitzgebel, and to the audience members for questions and discussion.

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