The Senses Considered as One Perceptual System

ABSTRACT

J. J. Gibson (1966) rejected many classical assumptions about perception but retained 1 that dates back to classical antiquity: the assumption of separate senses. We suggest that Gibson's retention of this assumption compromised his novel concept of perceptual systems. We argue that lawful, 1:1 specification of the animal–environment interaction, which is necessary for perception to be direct, cannot exist in individual forms of ambient energy, such as light, or sound. We argue that specification exists exclusively in emergent, higher order patterns that extend across different forms of ambient energy. These emergent, higher order patterns constitute the global array. If specification exists exclusively in the global array, then direct perception cannot be based upon detection of patterns that are confined to individual forms of ambient energy and, therefore, Gibson's argument for the existence of several distinct perceptual systems cannot be correct. We argue that the senses function as a single, irreducible perceptual system that is sensitive exclusively to patterns in the global array. That is, rather than distinct perceptual systems there exists only 1 perceptual system.

Acknowledgments

We thank Pablo Covarrubias, Felipe Cabrera, Ángel Jiménez, and Alan Costall for their patience and forbearance in the creation of this paper. Thomas A. Stoffregen offers his thanks to Trish Walsh for her love and support—while they lasted.

Notes

¹ Exceptions are surprisingly rare. Examples include free fall or weightlessness, where there may be no mechanical energy, and caves or mines, which may exclude most electromagnetic energy (this is why deep mines are chosen as venues for neutrino detectors; e.g., Sanchez et al., 2003).

² This conception may be similar to Fowler's (2004) claim that “distal things are amodal” (p. 197). See also Principle I from M. J. Richardson, Shockley, Fajen, Riley, and Turvey (2008).

³ The fact that comprehension is improved when the optical and acoustical consequences of speech are simultaneously available is tangential to this point. Related issues, such as the McGurk effect, were discussed by Stoffregen and Bardy (2001, Sections 3, 6.2.6).

⁴ Our comments apply only to the equations in J. J. Gibson et al. (1955). The authors acknowledged that their equations omitted necessary information about kinetics (p. 384). Subsequent efforts to identify information in optics have rarely been so frank about the fundamental incompleteness of the effort (e.g., D. A. Lee, 1980; cf. Bingham & Stassen, 1994).

⁵ As noted by Stoffregen and Bardy (2001, Sections 6.2.3. and R11), sensory loss (e.g., blindness) affects the pickup of information from the global array but has no effect on the existence of information in the global array.

⁶ Issues of simulation, fidelity, presence, and immersion extend back to classical antiquity, perhaps most famously in the myth of Amphitryon (e.g., Dupuy, 2008). The logical problems inherent with simulation in the context of experimental stimuli and virtual reality are not new.

⁷ Rosenblum et al. (2016, p. 268) contrasted “modality neutral” consequences of speech to “sensory specific dimensions” of stimulation. This contrast closely resembles the Aristotelian distinction between common sensibles and special objects of perception and, accordingly, entails the assumption of separate senses.