The Problem of Perception

THE PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION I. THE PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION AND CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY FROM its beginning experimental psychology has perseveringly attempted, with an increasingly rigorous precision, to amass all the facts which might throw light on the psychological phenomenon involved in the process of perception. The wealth of material thus gathered, and still being added to by new observations, naturally stimulated endeavors to find for it a rational explanation which would be adequate. A detailed history of opinions, or a step-by-step analysis of these attempted explanations is beside the point here.1 A brief exposition, systematical rather than historical, will suffice to bring out certain essential aspects of the problem which are the principal issues in a still open discussion. Associationism, at least in its most recent manifestations, is in agreement with the psychology of form in accepting these postulates: a) Sensation, in its simplest form, is a pure abstraction; as such, therefore, it is rarely encountered in our cognitive life; 2 b) The normal human cognitive operation is therefore a complex operation, commonly designated by the name " perception "; c) Concerning the object of perception, the perceiving subject identifies the thing before him, recognizes in it a table, an 1 Instead of mentioning again the classical works familiar to all psychologists, we shall be content here to refer to expositions that are more accessible: E. Pialat, "Une conception nouvelle de la vie psychique: 'La Gestalttheorie,'" Revue NeoScolaatique de Philosophie, XXXI, (1989), 48-74; T.V. Moore, "Gestalt Psychology and Scholastic Philosophy," The New Scholasticism, Vll (1988), 298-825; VIII (1984), 46-80; P. Guillaume, La Psychologie de la forme, (Paris: Flammarion), 1987. • Cf. E. B. Titchener, Manuel de Psychologie (Paris: Alcan, 1922), pp. 854-856, 874; G. Dumas, Nouveau TraiU de Psychologic (Paris: Alcan, 1986), p. 1. 266 THE PROBLETh{ OF PERCEPTION .267 orange, etc. This identification, however, consists not in the apprehension of the individual concrete substance, but in the substitution of a verbal symbol for a sensory synthesis composed of sensations and images, or a configuration, a structure, a form (Gestalt). Consequently, consideration is restricted to what is called the perception of number, of space, of movement, of forms, of positions, etc.3 In short, despite notable divergences , contemporary psychologists continue on the whole to offer us a rigorously phenomenalist and sensationalist explanation of perception. Keeping in view this preoccupation with. the phenomenalist and sensationalist which unites the two explanations and has a strong influence on the ends of investigators, we shall endeavor to define the contrasts which define the two attitudes. Since each side has recourse to different descriptive concepts, the statement of the problem of perception must be twofold and the procedures employed in resolving the problem itself must reflect opposite methods. Since for associationism, the first complex experience can be reduced to simple elements-into psychic atoms-it fittingly applies the procedures of analysis which have been so successful in chemistry and physics. Perception is broken down into sensations and images, and an attempt made to discover the dynamic principles which initiate and direct the organization of the parts in reconstructing the whole according to an order of growing complexity. Once it is admitted that the establishment of an existential link among the elements of perception results from the exercise of the functions of attention and association, an effort is made to set forth the laws which condition the influence of these functions. Finally, when the content of perception has been translated into terms of signification, on the plane of consciousness, a reconstruction of the history of consciousness from its original flowering until its burial in the obscure depths of the subconscious can be undertaken. A brief description borrowed from one of the 8 Cf. Boring, Langfeld, Weld, et alii, Psychology: a Factual Textbook (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1935), pp. 207-273. ~68 NOEL MAILLOUX protagonists of the movement, the head of the Cornell School, will help to render this abstract schema more understandable: Our description of the psychology of perception is now complete. It has embraced four principal points. First, according to the general laws of attention and the special laws of the connection of sensations, the sensations have been joined, united...