The Role of Sensations: Some Observations on J. J. Gibson’s Statements on Sensations

Leonurdo, Vol. 8, pp. 322-323. Pergamon Press 1975. Printed in Great Britain THE ROLE OF SENSATIONS: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON J. J. GIBSON‘S STATEMENTS ON SENSATIONS KimJames* According to J. J. Gibson: ‘Perceptionis based on the pickup of information,not on the arousal of sensation and the two processes are distinct. Having sensations is at most only an accompanimentof perceiving,not a prerequisite of perceiving. Visual sensationsare a sort ofluxuryincidentalto the seriousbusinessof perceiving the world‘ [l]. It is somewhat surprising to find him dismissingsensationsas an incidental luxury to the act of perception. Even if one accepts his hypothesis of perception wholeheartedly, as I do, it is difficult to believe that he means that sensationsare no more than a bonus for existing. From the logic of Gibson’s own statements,the existenceof sensationswould appear to be useful and meaningful for human beings. The senses, after all, cannot be divorced from perceptualprocesses . Perception dependson the detection offormless invariants [2] over time by action/reaction resonancetoenergyinputsin a perceptualsystem [3,4], even though the most efficient functioning of a perceptual system takes place with no awareness of a -particular sense being used. However, the fact that sensations yield an awareness of receptors [4] is a possible indicator of their role in cognition. Sensations are not part of the processes of perception but awareness of sensationscould form part of the total cognitive process. I believe that the formulation by Gibson of information-based perception makes possible a meaningful discussion of the role of sensations. Perceptual processes must be multi-levelhierarchical ones,wherethe output of onestage constitutesthe input to the next stage in a perceptual system (with feedback, of course). This multi-level process operates towards the maintenance of a stable state. As Gibson says: ‘A perceptualsystemissupposedto seekan equilibrium and reach an optimum, as a system should‘ [5]. Each sub-loop of the action/reaction part of the process (the active feedback regulation of input/output) constitutesa level in the hierarchy and each sub-loop must function optimally. When the optimum state of a level has been reached, a neural current that is an analogue of that level’s activityshould be discharged as an input into the next level. Perhaps I may conjecture that, if any part of the process is affected either by the external disturbance or by internal cause in such a way that the input does not cause the total perceptual system to mxmte in a mannerappropriateto the overalloptimum operation of the total hierarchy, then one is aware of a sensation. * k teducationalist living at 34 Marmara Road, London, S.E. 22, England. (Received 9 Jan. 1975.) 322 The mechanisms for preventing the organism from being dominatedby sensationsare a consequenceof the evolution of perceptual systems as informational systems. If information is not obtained at the level demandedby a species asa consequenceof its evolution, then its perceptualsystem does not function adequately at that level and this condition is also signalled to the organism by means of a sensation. Since clarification of information provided by perception is sought to somedegree,there will often be a consequentdegreeof awareness of some level of the process in the form of a sensation. It may be possible for certain inputs to pass through several lower levels before either a malfunctioning or a desire for clarificationof information at a higher level causesa sensation. Suchan input would be one that leads to contradictory interpretations at one or more levels, as in the case of optical illusionsand of impossible figures. These cases may cause sensations that are so strong that they produce conscious discomfort to the viewer. In this sense, a warning process comes into action to alert the organism that some part of a perceptual system is in a state of malfunction. A n:z!function may be caused either by the inability of an input to be transformed by higher levels of the system into higheb: order informational relationships or by a physical fault in the system itself. The signal from the warning system to the organism would be in the form of a sensation. That is, the sensation is an awareness of a malfunctioning of a perceptual sub-system at any given level that interferes with the functioning...