About Hens and Eggs-Perception and Action, Ecology and Neuroscience:A Reply to Michaels (2000)

Abstract

Michaels (2000) suggested that vision for perception can and should be separated from vision for action. Methodological, logical, and empirical grounds for this conclusion are critically discussed. Data are presented that perception and action are not 2 different entities, and therefore, they can neither follow each other (the view that Michaels rejects) nor run in parallel (the view she appears to accept). They are 2 aspects of the same reality of behavioral control. Telling about perception is not perception itself; brains disconnected from an efficient speech apparatus may be able to extract environmental information. What is often referred to as dissociation between perception and action is not a fiction; rather, such cases indicate important distinctions between different classes of behavioral control. All classes, however, involve both perception and action.