The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision

Ned Block

This paper argues for a failure of correspondence between perceptual representa- Author
tion and what it is like to perceive. If what it is like to perceive is grounded in
perceptual representation, then, using considerations of veridical representation,
Ned Block
we can show that inattentive peripheral perception is less representationally pre-
[email protected]
cise than attentive foveal perception. However, there is empirical evidence to the
contrary. The conclusion is that perceptual representation cannot ground what it New York University
is like to perceive. New York, NY, U.S.A.

Keywords Commentator
Acuity | Adaptation | Appearance | Attention | Awareness | Consciousness | Con-
tent | Contrast | Endogenous attention | Exogenous attention | Grounding | Inde- Sascha B. Fink
terminacy | Marisa Carrasco | Perception | Peripheral perception | Precision | Re- [email protected]
ductionism | Representational content | Representationism | Salience | Tyler Otto von Guericke Universitt
Burge | Unconscious perception | Vagueness | Veridicality | Visual field Magdeburg, Germany

Editors

Thomas Metzinger
[email protected]
Johannes Gutenberg-Universitt
Mainz, Germany

Jennifer M. Windt
[email protected]
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia

1 Introduction

Attention increases acuity, allowing the perceiver lower visual field is about 65% more sensitive to
to see details that would otherwise be missed. In contrast (and orientation discrimination, texture
addition, for items that the perceiver does actually segmentation, gap size, speed, spatial frequency)
see, attention changes their appearance, increasing, than vision equidistant from fixation in the upper
for example, the appearances of contrast, (differ- visual field. (See Figure 1 for examples of low and
ences between light and dark), speed of a moving high contrast.) In addition, there is a great deal of
object, spatial frequency (a measure of how closely noise in perceptual systems. Percepts involving the
spaced light and dark areas are) and the size of a same area of the visual field and the same degree
gapas in Figure 4. But when attention makes of attention will typically differ in visual response
something appear bigger or faster, does it work from occasion to occasion. So on different occa-
like a magnifying glass, trading off a gain in in- sions, one can see the same object or event in the
formation at the cost of making something appear same conditions, with the same degree of atten-
bigger or faster than it is? Or does attentive per- tion, and from the same vantage point and it will
ception portray the item more as it really is? Or look different in size or speed or contrast because
are both percepts veridicalor are both non- of random factors.
veridical? Similar issues arise with regard to in- What is the consequence of these facts for
homogeneities in the visual field. Vision in the the veridicality of perception? One viewpoint
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 1 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 1: Six levels of contrast. The Wikipedia caption reads Different levels of contrast - original image top left -
less contrast to the left (50%, 75%), more to the right (25%, 50%, 75%). I take this to mean that the mid-left photo
has 50% less contrast than the upper left, the lower left photo as 75% less contrast than the upper left, etc. These per -
centages are differences from photoshop, not absolute measures of contrast of the sort to be discussed later in the pa-
per. Percent contrast in the sense to be discussed is the difference between the luminance of the lightest and darkest
parts divided by the sum of these luminances. These images come from the Wikipedia entry on contrast. According to
Wikipedia, Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU
Free Documentation License.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 2 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

says that perception is mostly slightly mistaken. presented 5 rectangular blocks to subjects at
We usually see length, speed and contrast non- various positions in the visual field ranging
veridically but the extent of error is small from 5o to 70o away from the line of sight
enough not to be problematic. However, this (1997). They compared accuracy of perceptual
viewpoint cannot be right since it is only in vir- discrimination of one block from another with
tue of a history of veridical representation both accuracy of grip via a device that measured
in our own lives and in the past of our species the aperture between thumb and forefinger as
that our perceptual representations even have subjects reached out to pick up one of the
representational contents (Burge 2010). blocks. Grip accuracy is roughly the same at
Without such a history of veridical representa- 5o as at 70 o. The fine details of action are con-
tion it is not clear that perceptual representa- trolled by a largely distinct system from the
tion really makes sense. system that underlies conscious vision. So
An alternative way of thinking about the what this result dramatically illustrates is
issue is that perception is sufficiently imprecise that the precision of bodily action is unlikely
in its representational content for all these vary- to cast any light on the precision of percep-
ing percepts to be veridical. If a person is said tual phenomenology.
to be 5 feet to 6 feet tall on one occasion and 6 This is the puzzle of the title. I argue that
feet to 7 feet tall on another, both are veridical the disconnect may be real and that perceptual
if the person is 6 feet tall. One could put this phenomenology may mislead about perceptual
by saying that perceptual representation is in- representation. Perceptual phenomenology may
tervalic. The intervals however would have to not be grounded in the representational content
be pretty large given the size of these effects of perception. Further, there may be no phe-
notably the 65% difference between lower and nomenal content, that is no representational
upper visual field just mentioned. And it is hard content that emerges from the phenomenology
to square such large differences with the phe- of perception.1
nomenology of foveal vision. Hold a piece of This is a very long paper so it might be
lined paper in front of you. You seem to see the useful to know what parts to focus on. You can
difference between the white space and the lines see the basic lines of the dialectic from reading
fairly precisely. Irrelevant!, you may retort, sections 1-3. Sections 4-7 concern the experi-
Those differences in the visual field affect only mental data concerning attention and can be
peripheral perception; attentive foveal percep- skimmed without losing the thread. The argu-
tion is much more precise than inattentive peri- ment resumes with 8-10. 11 can be skipped
pheral vision. And this resolution seems to be without loss of continuity. 12 covers some of the
reflected in our phenomenological judgments: results that the argument is based on. 13 can be
move the piece of lined paper out to 30o away skipped. 14 is the conclusion.
from the line of sight. Doesnt your visual im-
pression of the contrast between the lines and 2 Background
spaces seem, well, less precise? Surprisingly
there is evidence that unattended and peri- This section describes some assumptions and
pheral perception of some properties (notably terminology. A simple percept consists of a rep-
contrast) are about as precisely represented in resentation of an environmental property and a
attentive foveal vision as in inattentive vision singular element that picks out an individual
and vision in the near periphery (up to a 30o item (Burge 2010). The representational content
angle from the line of sight). The upshot is that is the condition of veridicality and is satisfied
the phenomenology of perception may mislead only if the referent of the singular element has
us with regard to the precision of the represent- 1 Direct realists reject representational contents, holding instead that
ational content of perception. the phenomenology of perception is grounded in what properties one
One might suppose that help will come is directly aware of. They face a parallel set of issues with regard to
the question of how precise the properties are that one is directly
from bodily action. Goodale & Murphy aware of.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 3 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

the property represented by the property-rep- 2010; Tye 2009): what it is for an experience
resentation. The precision of a representation to have a certain phenomenal character = for
in my terminology is a matter of the range of it to have a certain representational content.
values attributed. For example, consider two But the identity formulation is inadequate be-
visual representations of the height of a person, cause the phenomenology is supposed to be
one representing the person as between 56 and based in the representational content and not
6 tall, the other representing the person as the other way around. Identity is symmetrical.
between 58 and 510 tall. The latter has a The grounding characterization of representa-
narrower precision. Precision in the sense used tionism avoids this problem since grounding is
here is not a matter of indeterminacy of borders asymmetrical. To say that perceptual repres-
but rather the size of the range.2 entation grounds perceptual phenomenology is
The claim that the precision of a repres- to say that it is in virtue of the representa-
entation is wide is a form of the claim that per- tional content of a percept that it has the
ception is intervalic. There are other measures phenomenology it has. And in virtue of is
of perception that are easily confused with pre- asymmetrical. (See Fine 2012 on the concept
cision. One of them is acuityalso known as of ground and my 2014a for further discussion
spatial resolution. Acuity is the ability to re- of grounding in philosophy of mind.)
solve elements of stimuli. Common measures in Representationism is often framed in
the case of vision are the extent to which the terms of supervenience: no difference in the phe-
subject can distinguish one dot from two dots, nomenology of perception without a difference
detect a gap between two figures, determine in its representational content. But superveni-
whether a rotating figure is rotating clockwise ence does not capture a key motivation behind
rather than counter-clockwise, ascertain representationism: that the representational
whether two line segments are co-linear, distin- content of perception is the source of the phe-
guish a dotted from a solid line or detect which nomenology of perception, that it is in virtue of
side of a Landolt Square a gap is on. (See Fig- the representational content of the perception
ure 4 for an example of a Landolt Square.) that it has the phenomenology it has. A super-
These and other items of terminology are venience formulation would entail that a differ-
gathered together in a glossary at the end of the ence in the precision of phenomenology requires
article. Of course other quite different defini- a difference in representational content. How-
tions of precision and acuity are just as legit- ever, on a supervenience formulation of repres-
imate as these. Note in particular that I am not entationism it would be a further question
using the notion of precision as the inverse of whether the phenomenology of perception could
variance or the notion of precision associated increase in precision without a commensurate
with the predictive coding literature. increaseor even with a decreasein precision
Representationists (also known as repres- of its representational content. On the ground-
entationalists and intentionalists) think that ing characterization, any change or difference in
what it is like to have a perceptual experience phenomenological precision is dependent on a
that is, the phenomenology of perceptual commensurate change or difference in represent-
experienceis grounded in the representa- ational precision.
tional content of the perception. (Not that The grounding formulation of representa-
representationists have used the notion of tionism rules out some but not all kinds of mul-
grounding, but I believe that it captures what tiple realization. Suppose that red782 is an ex-
they have meant.) Representationism is some- ample of the most fine-grained color we can ex-
times framed as an identity thesis (e.g., Pautz perience. And suppose that the representation-
2 As Tim Williamson noted when some of this material was ist theory of the experience as of red 782 is that
presented at Oxford, the fuzziness of the borders is vagueness this experience is grounded in representation of
rather than imprecision. Ryan Perkins & Tim Bayne argue
against representationism using considerations of vagueness
red782. Different experiences as of red 782 can be
(2013). realized by different representational states so
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 4 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

long as they all involve the representation of 3 The inhomogeneous visual field
red782.
The grounding characterization captures a Although this article is mainly about differences
representation-first view and excludes phe- in perception wrought by differences in attention,
nomenology-first doctrines that are often por- it will be helpful to start with a discussion of sim-
trayed as representationist. Phenomenology-first ilar issues that arise independently of attention
views suppose that phenomenology grounds at because of the massive inhomogeneities in the
least some kinds of representational contents visual field. I will discuss the perception of con-
(Hill 2009; Kriegel 2011, 2013; Shoemaker trast. The visual system is much more sensitive to
2007). And it also excludes versions of repres- differences in luminance than to luminance itself
entationism that treat both the phenomenology and contrast is a matter of luminance differences.
and representational content of perception as (Luminance is a measure of the light reflected
grounded in something else (Chalmers 2006; from a surface.) Contrast can be defined in a
Siegel 2013). That is a plus for the grounding number of different ways, all ways of capturing
characterizationdistinguishing between funda- the average difference in luminance between the
mentally different points of view. Although I light and dark parts of an array. The four patches
wont talk about this much here, I think the in Figure 2 have roughly equal apparent contrasts
considerations I will be raising will cast doubt if one is fixating the cross though there is sub-
on views that phenomenology grounds any kind stantial variation among persons in comparative
of representational content.3 sensitivities in the visual field. But the top patch
The reader may feel that both peripheral has a 30% contrast and the bottom patch has a
and unattended perception are odd and unim- 15% contrast. (To fixate the cross is to point your
portant phenomena that cannot be the test of eyes at it.) Vision in the lower visual field (the
any theory of perception. However, peripheral South) has about 65% better sensitivity than vis-
unattended perception is ubiquitous. The fovea ion in the upper visual field on average along the
is the high density center of the retina. If you vertical meridian (the vertical line through the
hold your hand at arms length, your foveal per- fixation point) for points of equal eccentricity.
ception encompasses about double the width of And sensitivity is better along the horizontal me-
your thumb. Much of perception at any fixation ridian than the vertical meridian, that is East and
occurs outside that area and a similar point ap- West have higher sensitivity than points of equal
plies to attention. However, even if you think eccentricity in the North and South. This sensit-
that both peripheral and unattended perception ivity advantage is about 63%. Marisa Carrasco
are atypical, you should recognize that atypical suggests that the advantage of the horizontal over
cases often are a window into the nature of a vertical meridians probably has to do with the
phenomenon. The experiment in which a beam presence of more relevant information on the hori-
of light goes through two slits was crucial in zontal meridian (Carrasco et al. 2001). These dif-
demonstrating a wave aspect of light (Feynman ferences in sensitivity manifest themselves phe-
1988). nomenologically in differences among patches re-
quired for equal apparent contrasts. It takes a
3 Some of the philosophers who call themselves representationalists, 30% contrast patch in the North to phenomenolo-
for example Michael Tye (2009), have endorsed object-involving
representational contents. Suppose I am looking at a tomato and
gically match a 10% contrast patch in the East at
having an experience that represents the tomato as being red 782. You the equal eccentricity depicted in Figure 2. Per-
are looking at an exactly similar tomato in identical circumstances formance asymmetries along these lines have been
and also having an experience that represents it as having red 782. Ac-
cording to Tye, we are having phenomenally different experiences in observed for gap size, spatial frequency (roughly
virtue of looking at different tomatoes. As Burge has noted in an density of stripes), orientation discrimination, tex-
article on direct realism (2005), there are object-involving phenom-
enal types (of the sort Tye is talking about), but there are also non- ture segmentation, letter recognition and motion
object-involving phenomenal types. Representationism as discussed perception. Performance asymmetries of this sort
here is concerned with the latter types. I mentioned in footnote 1
that the same issues about precision arise for direct realismand the
have been shown in comparisons between an on-
same applies to Tyes view. screen stimulus and a stimulus from the recent
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 5 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 2: If you fixate (i.e., point your eyes at) the plus sign, these four different patches should look roughly equal in
contrast at normal reading distance (roughly 15 inches away). The one above the horizontal meridian has twice the con-
trast of the one below the meridian (30% vs 15%). The two patches on the horizontal meridian have 10% contrast. It
takes a 30% patch in the North to match the 10% patch equidistant from the plus sign in the East. Much of the work
of investigating this phenomenon comes from Marisa Carrascos lab. See Cameron et al. (2002) and Carrasco et al.
(2001). Note that there is a large degree of variation from person to person so the patches may not look exactly the
same in contrast to you. (The patches are called Gabor patches or sometimes just gabors.) Thanks to Jared Abrams
for making this figure for me. @copyright Ned Block

past in visual short term memory for 1-3 seconds, does not prove that they look the same. And
albeit at a slightly lower level (Montaser-Kouhsari their looking the same does not prove that the
& Carrasco 2009). These differences are thought phenomenology of each of the two patches is the
to be due to anatomical asymmetries (Abrams et same as we know from the phenomenal Sorites
al. 2012). problem (Morrison 2013). However, the fact that
I will assume that the percepts of North and they look the same is evidence that they are the
East have the same contrast phenomenologies same phenomenologically and we would need a
when seen (simultaneously) in peripheral vision. reason to resist that conclusion. Similar issues will
Of course the fact that they dont look different be taken up later in section 8 and 10.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 6 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

I take it as obvious that the North and the same degree of attention are likely to differ
East patches are determinately different in ap- in apparent contrast (and other properties) due
parent contrast when sequentially foveated and to these random factors. It is hard to see a ra-
attended. The fact that the percepts are sequen- tionale for supposing that spatial inhomogeneit-
tial makes it unlikely that we are misled about ies engender illusion while claiming the opposite
the determinate difference by any analog of the for temporal inhomogeneities. And claiming
beats one hears when guitar strings vibrate at that both engender illusion would make most
slightly different pitches. (I will return to this perception illusory.
issue in section 10.) This is where my appeal to Tyler Burges
North and East look the same in peri- recent book comes in (2010). As Burge notes,
pheral vision and different in foveal vision. How we can explain the operation of constancy
could this be explained in terms of representa- mechanisms in perception only by appeal to
tional content? The only representational ex- their function in veridically representing the
planation I can think of would be based on the distal environment. And that function precludes
idea that the content of foveal representation of perception being mostly non-veridical.4
contrast is more precise than the content of I will say more by way of justification of
peripheral representation of contrast. However, the verididality claim later but for now let us
as I will explain below, there is evidence that accept that claim and think about the con-
the representation of contrast in the fovea is the sequences for representationism. Note that the
same in precision as the representation of con- veridicality assumption is meant to apply to
trast in the periphery. So the burden is on the non-categorical perception of properties that
representationist to explain the difference admit of degrees and is not meant to apply to
between foveal and peripheral experience of con- categorical perception. Afraz et al. (2010)
trast without appeal to a difference in repres- showed that gender neutral faces are more likely
entational precision. I will now turn to a much to look male in some areas of the visual field
longer version of the argument which does not and female in others. The veridical percept in
have the form of a burden of proof argument this case would represent the gender-neutral
but which makes use of the notion of phenom- faces as androgynous so both of the percepts
enal precision. described are non-veridical. Many varying mag-
I claim that when you fixate on and at- 4 The popular predictive coding framework (Clark 2013; Hohwy
tend to the cross, both your perception of the 2013) is a kind of Bayesian approach that is sometimes thought to
provide a revolutionary alternative to the view of perception as con-
North patch and your perception of the East stitutively involving veridically conditions. Of course all of vision sci-
patch normally veridically represent the con- ence involves a background of Bayesian probabilistic processes. And
trasts of those patches despite the fact that one prediction in the visual system is ubiquitous and important. But
these approaches do not undermine the veridicality of perception. A
sees them only in peripheral vision. Many de- recent review of Jakob Hohwys 2013 book on predictive coding
tails cannot be seen in peripheral vision but (Wilkinson 2014) singles out the predictive coding explanation of
binocular rivalry as the parade case, claiming that the predictive
what can be seen is seen veridically in normal coding framework provides a very satisfying account of binocular
circumstances. Of course the comparisons are il- rivalry. Clark (2013, pp. 184-185) also emphasizes the supposed ex-
planation of binocular rivalry. Binocular rivalry is a surprising visual
lusory: patches that are different in contrast phenomenon in which different stimuli are presented at the same
look the same. But the issue I am raising is time to the two eyes, e.g., a face to one eye and a house to the other.
whether the individual percepts of single What the subject sees however is an alternation between a face
filling the whole visual field, then a house, then a face, etc. It is
patches are illusory. One reason to think there widely agreed in vision science that the rough outline of the binocu-
is no illusion is that the same kind of differences lar rivalry phenomenon is explained by a combination of reciprocal
inhibition and adaptation: the competing interpretations reciprocally
in perception caused by spatial inhomogeneities inhibit one another, and when one is in the ascendancy, adaptation
in the visual field occur in all percepts due to weakens it until the other takes over. Hohwy and his colleagues more
or less concede this (Hohwy et al. 2008) saying that the predictive
temporal inhomogeneitiesthat is, random coding framework explains why we have reciprocal inhibition and ad-
noise in the visual system that differs from per- aptation in the first place. But to the extent that this reflects what
cept to percept. Any two percepts of the same is good about the predictive coding framework, it is not a revolution-
ary alternative to standard vision science but rather an evolutionary
items at the same point in the visual field with gloss on it.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 7 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

nitudes such as size and contrast are not per- we can do is indicate a phenomenon that the
ceived categorically in this way so there is no reader has to experience for him or herself. One
corresponding reality check for such mag- type of example exploits the difference between
nitudes. (Some magnitudes such as orientation an object close up and the same object at a dis-
may mix categorical and non-categorical percep- tance. An object may look to have the same
tion.) properties at both distances but with different
A percept that attributes a property to an precisions. An object may look crimson close up
item is veridical only if the item has the attrib- but merely red (and not any particular shade)
uted property. However, the veridical percepts at a distance.
of North and East (when fixating the cross) at- If the phenomenology of perception is
tribute the same contrast property since they grounded in its representational content and if
look the same in contrast. Let us ask what the there is such a thing as phenomenal precision,
content of the (veridical) percepts of North and an increase in phenomenal precision depends on
East are when one is fixating the cross and they a corresponding increase in representational pre-
look the same in contrast. That is, what con- cision. Representational precision can be in-
trast would the percepts of North and East at- dexed numericallya representational content
tribute to those patches? Since East is a 10% of the length of something as 1 inch2 inches
patch and North is a 30% patch, and both are (i.e., between 1 and 2 inches) is more precise
veridical, it follows that the percepts have to at- than a representational content of it as 1 inch
tribute the same contrast to them (since they 3 inches. According to representationism, phe-
look the same). What attributions would be the nomenal precision is just the phenomenology of
same and also veridical? The patches would the precision of representational content. We ex-
have to be represented as having a range of con- perience a percept with representational content
trasts between 10% and 30% at a minimum. of 1 inch-2 inches as having more (i.e., nar-
That is, the minimal imprecision in the repres- rower, smaller range) precisionas being more
entation is 20%, the imprecision of a representa- phenomenally determinate than we experi-
tion of 10%-30% contrast (including the end- ence a percept with representational content 1
points). inch3 inches.5
Now let us ask what the contrast-content Note that I am not saying that we can al-
is when we fixate (and attend to) the East ways ask whether a certain item of phenomeno-
patch, the 10% patch. If the precision is the logy is more precise or less precise than a cer-
same as in peripheral perception (i.e., 20%), the tain representational content (though I think
percept could have a content of 10% plus or there are some cases where this does make
minus 10%, i.e., 0% to 20%. (A 0% contrast sense). What I am saying is that a representa-
patch would be invisible, so presumably impre- tionist has to hold that a difference in phenom-
cision ranges should be weighted towards higher enal precision is grounded in a differenceof
absolute values of the magnitude perceived. the appropriate sign and magnitudeof repres-
Variability in perceptual response increases with entational precision.
the absolute value of the magnitude perceived Here is the application of these ideas
one form of the Weber-Fechner Law. This is a about precision: Foveate North and East in turn
complication that I will mainly ignore.) And for (i.e., serially). I claim that they look determin-
similar reasons, if the precision is the same in ately different. According to what I mean by
foveal as in peripheral perception, the contrast looking determinately different, for items to
content of the percept of the North patch when look determinately different, their phenomenolo-
one fixates it would be 20%-40%.
5 For a direct realist, phenomenal precision is just the precision of the
The representational precision is 20% but properties we are directly aware of. We can be directly aware of
what about the phenomenal precision? Can we properties with different precisions, for example, crimson, or altern-
make sense of this idea? As with all that is phe- atively red. Similarly we can be directly aware of a 10%-20% con-
trast property and also a 10%-30% contrast property and the differ-
nomenal, no definition is possible. The best that ence constitutes a phenomenal precision difference.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 8 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

gies cannot be almost completely overlapping. sion of perception of contrast must be narrower
Why is lack of almost complete overlap import- (i.e., smaller range, greater precision) in foveal
ant? The representational contents of percep- vision than in peripheral visionin order to ex-
tion can be very imprecise even though discrim- plain why North and East look the same in re-
ination is fine grained. One might represent one spect of contrast in peripheral vision but de-
patch as 10%-30% in contrast and another terminately different in foveal vision. Even if we
patch as 10.5%-30.5% and as noted by Jeremy cannot make sense of an absolute value of phe-
Goodman (2013) that would in principle allow nomenal precision at least we can make sense of
for discrimination between them. If the phe- differences in it. We might think of this as a
nomenal precision of these percepts is also very phenomenal precision principle:
wide, then the phenomenologies of these per-
cepts would not be determinately different from If two things look the same in peripheral
one anothergiven what I mean by these vision and determinately different in foveal
terms. vision, then the phenomenal precision of
Dont get me wrong: I do think that items foveal vision is narrower (smaller range)
can look different on the basis of different but than that of peripheral vision.
overlapping contents. For example, if one is fo-
veating a patch and simultaneously sees a patch At least for one of the foveal percepts, and why
of the same contrast in peripheral vision, the would one have narrower precision but not the
two will look different in contrast. Each of the other? And so according to the representation-
two percepts can be veridical (even though the ist, representational precision must be narrower
comparative percept is not). And being in foveal than in peripheral vision as welloth-
veridical and being of the same contrast, the in- erwise there would be a difference in phenom-
tervallic contents have to overlap. enal precision that was not grounded in a differ-
You may be skeptical about whether there ence in representational precision. (The peri-
is such a thing as phenomenal precision and pheral perceptions are simultaneous and the fo-
whether there is such a thing as phenomenal veal perceptions are serial. The inhomogeneities
overlap. But a representationist should not be described here hold both for simulaneous and
skeptical. If ones visual experience represents serial presentations, albeit at a slightly reduced
one length as between 1 inch and 2 inches and a level in serial presentations. This has been
second as between 1 inch and 3 inches, then it shown separately for inhomogeneities in the
is hard to see how a representationist could visual field (Montaser-Kouhsari & Carrasco
deny that the phenomenal character that is 2009) and for the attentional effects to be dis-
grounded in the first is more precise than the cussed later (Rolfs et al. 2013)).
phenomenal character that is grounded in the Note that as far as the doctrine of super-
second. And if one patch is represented as 10%- venience of phenomenology on representation is
30% in contrast and another patch as 10.5%- concerned, North and East could look the same
30.5% the representationist would need a good but still be represented differently. The ground-
reason to claim that the phenomenologies did ing formulation says: With qualifications to be
not almost completely overlap. Given that rep- mentioned: different representational contents
resentationism would seem to be committed to require different phenomenologies; superveni-
phenomenal precision and phenomenal overlap, ence speaks to the converse only. Qualifications:
it would seem legitimate to assume them in an there may be different representational para-
argument against representationism. meters, only one of which is the ground of the
North and East look the same when fixat- relevant phenomenology. So there could be mul-
ing the cross and determinately different when tiple representational realizations of a single
fixating (and attending) to each in turn. What type of phenomenal state where the representa-
does this fact tell us about representational and tional differences reflect differences in the para-
phenomenal precisions? The phenomenal preci- meters that are irrelevant to grounding. And:
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 9 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

phenomenology might be grounded in represent- ference (of the right direction) in representa-
ational content even though the grain of phe- tional precision, then representational precision
nomenology is coarser than that of representa- has to be narrower in foveal than peripheral
tional content. So there might be differences in perception. That is, the representationist should
fine-grained representational content that do hold that peripheral perception is less represent-
not make a phenomenal difference. ationally precise than foveal perception.
No one would object to the idea that pure Here comes the punch line: Robert Hess &
dispositions like fragility or solubility could be David Field (1993) compared the discrimination
grounded in different molecular structures in of the locations and contrasts of patches of dif-
the case of different substances. And physical- ferent contrasts. They presented triples of
ists about phenomenology have held that the patches in which the middle patches could differ
underlying basis of a common phenomenology from the flankers in (1) locations and (2) con-
might be one physical state in humans and an- trasts. They asked subjects two questions con-
other in robots. However, I have argued that cerning each triple: whether the middle patch
the grounding framework reveals that physical- differed from the flanker patches in location and
ists should not acknowledge this kind of mul- contrast. What they found was that discrimina-
tiple realizability (2014a). Applied to this case, tion of locations falls off greatly in the peri-
the idea is that a representationist account phery but discrimination of contrasts does not.
should give us a representationist answer to the They conclude (pp. 2664, 2666), we show
question of what it is in virtue of which the that for normal periphery, elevated spatial un-
phenomenology of the peripheral percepts of certainty is not associated with elevated levels
North and East are the same. Phenomenal of contrast uncertainty at any spatial scale A
sameness requires representational sameness as change in positional error of a factor of 14
a ground. And that representational sameness from the fovea to the periphery has an associ-
in this case has to be a precision range of 10%- ated contrast error that does not significantly
30% or more. increase over the same range of eccentricities.
Of course the notions of phenomenal preci- The graphs are striking: position error increases
sion and almost complete overlap of phenomen- greatly with peripherality of the stimuli but
ologies are obscure. The methodological situ- contrast error is a flat line. See Figure 3 for one
ation we are in is that we have a well-developed of the figures that illustrates this fact. As far as
science of perception but very little science of I can tell, this result is widely accepted. Even a
the phenomenology of perception. One response critical reply (Levi & Klein 1996) says Their
very common until recentlyis to avoid is- results (discussed below) show that position dis-
sues of phenomenology like the plague. But the crimination is selectively degraded in the peri-
time may be ripe to try to leverage the science phery, while contrast discrimination is not af-
of perception to get some insight into the phe- fected. Levi and Klein dispute the alleged ex-
nomenology of perception. And that project planation of the result, not the result.
cannot help but start with some vague intuitive Note that I am taking the fact that con-
notions. trast discrimination does not diminish in peri-
Here is where we are: foveal percepts of pheral vision to be evidence that representa-
the contrasts of North and East are determin- tional precision does not decrease in peri-
ately different in phenomenology but peripheral pheral vision. Hess & Field (1993) describe a
percepts of them are the same in phenomeno- model of the result in terms of constant un-
logy so the phenomenal precision of North and certainty for contrast across the visual field
East, each seen foveally is narrower than the but increasing uncertainty for location. Their
phenomenal precision of North and East seen concern is whether the subjects visual repres-
peripherally. If representationism is to avoid a entations produce locational errors as a result
difference in phenomenal precision that is not of undersampling. They argue that under-
based in a corresponding and commensurate dif- sampling should affect contrast errors too.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 10 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

And because it does not, they conclude that that are the probable basis of the inhomogeneit-
the explanation is uncalibrated neural disar- ies discussed here are bound to affect uncon-
ray: We propose that, for reasons as yet un- scious perception in the same way as conscious
known, the periphery, unlike the fovea, has perception.
not undergone sufficient self-calibration to re- The Hess & Field result shows a kind of
solve all of its innate anatomical neuronal dis- homogeneity in the visual field in regard to con-
order (p. 2669). But we dont have to buy trast but as I have emphasized in regard to the
into neural disarray to accept the observation phenomenon of Figure 2, the visual field is in-
that contrast uncertainty does not decrease in homogeneous in regard to contrast. How are
the periphery. these compatible? The inhomogeneities in Fig-
We feel that foveal attended perception is ure 1 reflect contrast sensitivity whereas the ho-
crisp, i.e., high in precision but for some mogeneity showed by Hess & Field reflect con-
propertiescontrast and probably gap size, spa- trast precision.
tial frequency (stripe density) and speedthere Here is the argument summarized:
is some reason to think that foveal and peri-
pheral perception are equally precise. The resol- 1. The peripheral percepts of North and East,
ution is that some propertiese.g., location being the same in contrast phenomenology,
really are represented more imprecisely in the are the same in contrast-representational con-
periphery than in the fovea (by a factor of 14). tentsif phenomenology is grounded in rep-
(And some properties seem to be represented resentation.
more precisely in the periphery, e.g., flicker rate 2. The peripheral percepts of North and East
for some spatial frequencies; Strasburger et al. are both veridical; that is, North and East
2011). So we cant think of peripheral percep- have the properties attributed to them in
tion as imprecise in regard to all properties we peripheral perception.
can see. And for the properties that do not de- 3. Given veridicality and the difference between
cline in precision in the periphery, the repres- North and East in actual contrast, the rep-
entational point of view doesnt seem to work resentational contents of the peripheral per-
very well. cepts must be rather imprecise. Since North
Acuity is lower in the periphery than in fo- is 30% and East is 10%, and since the con-
veal vision. Anton-Erxleben & Carrasco (2013) tent characterizes both, the peripheral repres-
describe five mechanisms that jointly explain entational contrast-content has a precision
the decrease in acuity with eccentricity. Cone range of at least 10%-30%.
density and the density of the retinal ganglion 4. Foveal percepts of North and Eastone at a
cells that process cone signals decrease with ec- time are determinately different in phe-
centricity. In addition, average receptive fields nomenology
are larger in the periphery. (The receptive field 5. The phenomenal precision principle: If two
of a neuron is the area of space that a neuron things look the same in peripheral vision and
responds to. See glossary.) So the elements of a determinately different in foveal vision, then
grid will not be visible in the periphery if they the phenomenal precision of foveal vision is
are too finely spaced (i.e., if the spatial fre- narrower (smaller range) than that of peri-
quency is too high). To compensate for this, pheral vision.
Hess & Field used only very coarse grids in the 6. So the phenomenal precision of the foveal
periphery. So what the result suggests is that percepts of North and East must be narrower
contrast uncertainty does not increase in the than that of the peripheral percepts of these
peripheryfor grids that one can actually see patches.
in the periphery. 7. Representationism requires that a difference
But why do the behavioral results reflect in phenomenal precision be grounded in a
on representational precision rather than phe- commensurate difference in representational
nomenal precision? The anatomical asymmetries precision.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 11 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

9. Conclusion: there is some reason to think

that the phenomenology of perception is not
grounded in its representational content.
10. The same argument applies to views that
hold that there is a kind of phenomenolo-
gical representational content that emanates
from the phenomenology of perception
(Bayne 2014; Chalmers 2004; Horgan &
Tienson 2002). If there were such a thing, it
would have to be precise enough to properly
reflect phenomenology but imprecise enough
to handle the veridicality considerations
raised here. And the argument presented here
suggests that cant happen.

The premise that I think needs the most justi-

fication is 4. Do we really have enough of a grip
on what it is for percepts to be determinately
Figure 3: This is one of four graphs from (Hess & different in phenomenology to justify the idea
Field 1993) showing the comparison between the sens- that the foveal percepts do not have almost
itivity to contrast as compared with the sensitivity to completely overlapping phenomenal characters?
location. The Y-axis represents foveal sensitivity di- Given the problem with 4, I should remind
vided by peripheral sensitivity so a value of more than the reader that I started with an argument that
1 represents greater foveal sensitivity. The solid dots did not appeal to phenomenal precision. North
represent contrast sensitivity whereas the open circles and East look the same in peripheral vision and
represent location sensitivity. The top graph shows determinately different in foveal vision. How
sensitivity up to 30 degrees from the line of sight for a could this be explained in terms of representa-
very coarse grid of 1.3 cycles per degree. The bottom tional content without appealing to a difference
two graphs show sensitivity for finer grids but at much in representational precision between fovea and
lower eccentricities. (Coarse grids are visible in the periphery? This argument has the usual prob-
periphery but fine grids would look like a uniform lem of a burden of proof argument but it has
gray surface in the periphery.) Foveal discrimination the advantage of avoiding the obscurity of phe-
thresholds are given an aribitrary value of 1. (This is nomenal precision.
referred to in the article as the values being normal- Another more introspective route to the
ized.) What this figure and the other 3 figures show same conclusion derives from the point men-
is that contrast sensitivity for grids that are coarse tioned at the beginning that it is natural to feel
enough to see is the same in the periphery as in the that the phenomenology of seeing the contrast
fovea but location sensitivity is much worse in the between lines and spaces foveally differs in pre-
periphery. Reprinted with permission of Vision Re- cision from seeing the same lines peripherally.
search. The foveal percept seems more crisp than the
peripheral percept. If this intuitive judgment is
8. So representationism requires that the foveal correct, there is a discrepancy between the pre-
representational precision be narrower than cision of phenomenology and the precision of
the peripheral representational precision. representational content.
However the experimental facts suggest I think this argument gives the reader a
maybe not.6 pretty good idea of the dialectic of the paper
though the paper is more concerned with the is-
6 This argument can be stated in direct realist terms but it would re-
quire an analog of the veridical/illusory distinction in direct realist
sue of change in precision due to differences in
terms. See Block (2010) and footnote 14. attention than with peripherality.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 12 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Worth Boone has argued against my point phenomenology of two-point perception. That
of view using two-point thresholds of tactile dis- method is doubly illicit, first because it is un-
crimination (2013).7 As I will explain, I think clear that two point discrimination is a measure
some of the issues he raises actually support my of anything tactile. Second, the two point judg-
conclusion. ments may simply reflect the representational
Boone noted that there are large differ- contents rather than or in addition to the phe-
ences in representational determinacy (precision nomenology, contaminating the verdict on the
in my terminology) between tactile acuity as very point at issue. If you ask someone how de-
measured by two-point thresholds at various terminate their phenomenology of a two point
points on the body but thatcontrary to what stimulus is, they may simply be reporting how
I have said the precision of the phenomeno- sure they are they are perceiving two points
logy matches the precision of the representa- rather than one. The latter is suggested by con-
tional content. siderations of representational transparency
First, what are two-point thresholds? or diaphanousness of experience (Stoljar
Subjective two-point thresholds are based on 2004)8. As Thomas Metzinger puts it, we look
one or two sharp points (e.g., pencil points) be- through the experience to its object (2003, p.
ing placed at constant separations at various 173). If so, the phenomenology of judging one
body parts, with subjects reporting whether it vs two may be contaminating the judgment of
feels like there are two points or one point. Ob- the precision of the percept.
jective two-point thresholds are measured by So I will ask again: Do the differences in
stimulating the skin with either one or two phenomenological precision between fingertip
sharp points and observing to what extent the and palm and between fingertip and foream
subjects are able to discriminate between these perception differ by factors of 5 and 20? The
stimuli. Objective thresholds are based on question is not well formed: we cannot ask
whether there actually are two rather than one about either phenomenological or representa-
point whereas subjective thresholds are based tional precision without specifying what is being
simply on the judgments themselves, independ- represented.
ently of their accuracy. The subjective method To get a better question, let us focus on
shows extremely high variability within a single the perception of location. Representational loc-
subject on the same body part for a variety of ational imprecision does vary with location on
reasons. The objective method has a number of the body. The explanation of the variation is
paradoxical features that I wont go into but if that the number and spatial distribution of
you are interested you can read a short article sensory receptors that feed into a single sensory
dramatically titled The Two-Point Threshold: neuron (i.e., the receptive field of the sensory
Not a Measure of Tactile Spatial Resolution neuron) varies widely over the body.9 Is there a
(Craig & Johnson 2000). matching change in the phenomenal precision
However, a recent review (Tong et al. with regard to location? If there were a massive
2013) suggests better measures of tactile acuity decrease in representational precision of location
that confirm Boones point that tactile acuity from fingertip to forearm without a correspond-
varies enormously from one part of the skin to ing decrease in phenomenal precision, we would
another. A glance at a graph in the Tong, et. al. have a violation of grounding (of a different
paper reveals that acuity on the tip of the fin- kind from those already discussed). I suggest
ger is about 5 times that of the palm and about you put a single pencil point on your finger tip
20 times the acuity on the forearm. 8 G. E. Moore (1903) famously said ... the moment we try to fix
We can ask: is the phenomenology of these our attention upon consciousness and to see what, distinctly, it
is, it seems to vanish: it seems as if we had before us a mere
perceptions as imprecise as the representational emptiness. When we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all
content? Boone says yes but he is judging the we can see is the blue; the other element is as if it were diaphan -
ous ...
7 I used Figure 2 in a talk at Pittsburgh where Boone was in the audi- 9 For an amusing account of the facts surrounding these issues see
ence on November 2, 2012. Ramachandran & Hirstein (1998).

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 13 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

and then on your palm and forearm. (Or if you logy of perception and its representational con-
have a helper, do them simultaneously.) If there tent. The reason I went through the argument
is a five-fold or twenty-fold difference in phe- based on inhomogeneities first is that the issues
nomenological precision of location it should be are straightforward compared with the corres-
appreciable with any stimulus. My own intro- ponding issues concerning attention. Attention
spective judgment is that there is little or no is a complicated phenomenon about which there
difference in precision of representation despite is a great deal of disagreement, so the rest of
the five-fold difference between the fingertip the paper has many twists and turns. The argu-
and palm and 20-fold difference between the fin- ment form as presented so far will not resume
gertip and forearm. I am pretty sure that the until section 8.
percepts are not determinately different. No
doubt people differ both in these experiences 4 Attention affects appearance
and in their introspective access to them. And
with all difficult phenomenal judgments, con- William James (1890, p. 404) famously said at-
tamination by theory is no doubt a major tention is the taking possession by the mind,
source of variability. in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem
If my judgment is right, we have a case of several simultaneously possible objects or trains
a difference in representational precision of thought. Focalization, concentration, of con-
without a corresponding difference in phenom- sciousness are of its essence. It implies with-
enal precision. In the visual case just men- drawal from some things in order to deal effect-
tioned, we have evidence for a difference in phe- ively with others. Except for the exclusion of
nomenal precision without a corresponding dif- unconscious attention, most scientists would ac-
ference in representational precision. Taken to- cept something like that characterization today.
gether, the cases suggest a considerable discon- Spatial attention is attention directed to a por-
nect between perceptual phenomenology and tion of environmental space and is distinct from
perceptual representation. attention to an individual (e.g., a thing, a sur-
The conclusion of this section is that there face or a property instance) or to a property.
is some reason to think that there is no repres- The mechanisms of attention are fairly
entational content of perception that either well understood. Spatial attention boosts neural
grounds or is grounded by the phenomenology activation in circuits that process information
of perceptionwhat it is like to perceive. from the spatial area that is attended, inhibit-
The reader may wonder how there could ing activation in circuits that process informa-
be such a disconnect between the phenomeno- tion from adjacent areas. Feature-based atten-
logy of perception and its representational con- tion boosts neural activation for attended fea-
tent. I mentioned the fact that grip accuracy is tures, inhibiting neural activation for other fea-
about the same in the far periphery (70 o off the tures. Object based attention does the analog-
line of sight) as it is close to the line of sight ous task for objects. Feature-based attention re-
(5o) despite the fact that conscious vision is ex- fines selectivity for the attended feature whereas
tremely weak in the far periphery. Conscious spatial attention refines selectivity for the atten-
vision is a distinct system from the system that ded area of space (Carrasco 2011; Ling et al.
underlies the fine details of perceptually guided 2014).
action. Though I am not alleging that the sys- The main body of this paper is concerned
tem underlying conscious perception is distinct with the effect of the modulation of spatial at-
from the system underlying perceptual repres- tention on phenomenology and representational
entation, the upshot of this paper is that they content. Except when mentioned explicitly, I am
are partially distinct. talking about spatial attention rather than at-
In what follows, I will be arguing that tention to a property instance or an object. My
facts about attention motivate a similar argu- argument is based on experiments that indicate
ment for a discrepancy between the phenomeno- that attention affects appearance. To begin, at-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 14 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

tention affects perceptual acuity, one measure of e.g., a sudden motion or disappearance of an
which is whether one can detect whether there object. A similar effect has been shown when
is a gap or what side it is on in a Landolt the subject is told, for example, to attend to the
square. (For examples of Landolt sqaures, see right when a central bar points in that direc-
Figure 4.) tion. This is a matter of endogenous atten-
tion. Exogenous spatial attention is sometimes
referred to as transient or bottom-up atten-
tion, whereas endogenous spatial attention is
sustained or top-down. Exogenous attention
is involuntary whereas endogenous attention is
voluntary. Exogenous spatial attention peaks by
120 ms after the cue, whereas endogenous spa-
tial attention requires at least 300 ms to peak
and has no known upper temporal limit.
Figure 4: Landolt squares, i.e., squares with gaps. The
subjects task in the experiment diagrammed in Figure 4
was to report (via key presses) whether the gap is on the
left or on the right. The squares were presented at various
locations while the subject was fixating in the middle of
the screen. Redrawn from Yeshurun & Carrasco (1999).

Yaffa Yeshurun & Marisa Carrasco (1999)

asked subjects to press different keys depending
on whether a Landolt square had a gap on the
left or the right. The Landolt square could be
presented at any of 16 different locations of 3
different eccentricities. In half of the trials, the
square was preceded by a green bar presented
briefly at the location in which the square
would appear. Then after a pause, a Landolt
square appeared in the same location as the
line, and then a noise mask was presented to
prevent an ongoing iconic representation of the
stimulus. The subject was supposed to press a
key indicating which side the gap was on. See Figure 5: Yeshurun & Carrasco (1999) asked subjects
Figure 5 for the sequence of presentations. (An to fixate (point their eyes) at a dot at the center of a
icon would introduce an unwanted source of screen. Then a cue appeared for 54 ms, then an inter-
variability since iconic memory varies from stimulus interval, then a Landolt Square, then a
person to person. A later experiment (Carrasco mask. (See the text for the purpose of the mask.) Note
et al. 2002) obtained similar results without a that it takes 250 ms for eye movement to a new loca -
mask.) The result is that subjects were more ac- tion, so in this and the other experiments described
curate and also faster when the cue indicated here the brief presentations of stimuli preclude eye
the location of the square than when there was movements to the cued items. I am grateful to Marisa
no cue. Similar results were shown for other Carrasco for giving me this figure.
acuity tests, e.g., distinguishing a dotted line
from a solid line. Using a similar paradigm and comparing
This experiment involves exogenous at- the effects of exogenous and endogenous atten-
tention in which the subjects attention is auto- tion (Montagna et al. 2009), researchers showed
matically attracted by a highly visible change, that endogenous attention decreased the min-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 15 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

imum size of a gap that could be detected by difference whereas what the experiment is really
about 35% compared to a gap on the opposite about is the perceived size. The purpose of the
side from the cue. That is, subjects could detect dot was to attract the subjects exogenous (in-
much smaller gaps when they attended to the voluntary) attention to one side or the other on
area in which they appeared. some trials. What was being tested is whether
attention to, e.g., the left, would cause the per-
ceiver to treat the left gap as bigger. The result
was that it does. Subjects did not discriminate
between an attended .20o degree gap and an un-
attended .23o gap. (The gap sizes are measured
in degrees of visual angle. If a distance between
the eyes and the screen is specified, the degree
coding can be changed into inches.)10 Note that
subjects were not asked to judge relative sizes of
gaps. In particular they were not asked to judge
whether an attended .20o degree gap and an un-
attended .23o gap look the same. Rather, the
subjects were asked to make discriminations
based on apparent gap size. The result is that
they are indiscriminable. And this fact about
these experiments has led to disputes about
Figure 6: Experiment from Gobell & Carrasco (2005). what they really show, as I will explain.
Procedure described in text. Reproduced with permission The experiment diagrammed in Figure 5
from Psychological Science. shows attention increases acuity. This one shows
that attention makes gaps look bigger. One of
The conclusion is that attention affects the main mechanisms by which attention im-
acuity. This is not part of the evidential basis proves acuity is that attention shifts and shrinks
for the argument to come. However there is an- receptive fields (Anton-Erxleben & Carrasco
other effect that is directly relevant to my argu- 2013). The shifting of receptive fields is prob-
ment: attention also causes the gap to be per- ably involved in both the increase in acuity and
ceived as larger. This was shown by a later type the larger appearance. Attention to an area of
of experiment from Carrascos lab. space causes neurons that were not aiming at
The subjects were asked to fixate on the that area of space to shift towards it. The effect
dot that appeared for half a second (upper left is more neurons covering that area of space.
in Figure 6). Then the subjects saw a dot on More neurons covering that area increases the
the left or a dot on the right or only at the fixa- acuity of perception of it. And this mechanism
tion point in the center of the screen. Then the is responsible for the increase in apparent size
subjects saw two Landolt squares each of which as explained by Katharina Anton-Erxleben et
could have a gap either on the top or the bot- al. (2007). Their explanation depends on the
tom (even though the figure shows the gap on labeled-line hypothesis that neurons in the
the same side). The subject was then asked to 10 This effect could be regarded as larger than the result from the Ye-
report whether the bigger of the two gaps is on shurun and Carrasco paper reported in 5. In that paper, 75% accur-
the top or the bottom. If the gap on the left acy was achieved by a .20 o cued gap as compared with a .22 o uncued
gap. That difference may be because the 75% accuracy is arbitrary.
was bigger, the subject was supposed to report Or if the difference is real, we could point to the fact that in the Go -
the answer using the left pair of keys; mutatis bell and Carrasco study, the comparison is between an attended
square and a square from which attention has been withdrawn,
mutandis if the right gap is bigger. The subject whereas in the Yeshurun and Carrasco study the comparison is
was toldcorrectlythat the dot did not pre- between a case in which something is cued and a case in which noth-
ing is cued. Note that there is no need for a mask in this experiment
dict anything about the size of the gaps. The since variations in iconic memory between subjects would be expec-
subjects instructions focus on the top/bottom ted to affect equally both the square on the left and on the right.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 16 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

early visual system are hard wired to code for a directed subjects to attend to gratings for 16
certain area of space. So when the receptive seconds. They found a benefit of attention at
fields of neurons shift towards a target the brain first in allowing subjects to distinguish tilts,
treats the size of the target as larger. since attention increases acuity, but then as ad-
aptation increased, discrimination of the adap-
5 Is the attentional effect perceptual? ted tilt was impaired. This kind of adaptation is
ubiquitous in perception but does not appear to
There has been a controversy in the perception occur in cognition or decision (Block 2014b). In
literature about whether the kind of effect I case anyone thought that the attentional effect
have been describing is at least in part genu- was entirely an effect on decision or cognition,
inely perceptual as opposed to an effect on the this experiment suggests otherwise.
decision process involved in generating a report But even apart from the adaptation res-
(Schneider & Komlos 2008; Valsecchi et al. ults, there is strong evidence going back at least
2010). to the 1990s from single cell recording in mon-
There probably are effects of attention on keys and in brain imaging for the conclusion
aspects of decision, including on conceptualiza- that attention increases activity in the neural
tion of a stimulus (Botta et al. 2014). However, circuits responsible for the perception of con-
I think the case is overwhelming that the atten- trast in a manner roughly consonant with an in-
tional effect is at least in part genuinely percep- crease in the perception of contrast. Much of
tual. One reason involves perceptual adapta- this evidence is summarized in sections 4.6 and
tion a phenomenon known to Aristotle in the 4.7 of a review article (Carrasco 2011). My
form of the waterfall illusion. As Aristotle hedge roughly stems from debates about the
noted, ...when persons turn away from looking exact effect of attention. There are two kinds of
at objects in motion, e.g., rivers, and especially multiplicative effects. In contrast gain the
those which flow very rapidly, things really at effect is just as if the contrast of the stimulus
rest are seen as moving (1955). Looking at has been multiplied by a constant factor. In re-
something moving in a direction raises the sponse gain the response is multiplied by a
threshold for seeing motion in that direction, bi- constant factor. The balance of these effects de-
asing the percept towards motion in the oppos- pends on the difference between the size of the
ite direction. target and the size of the attentional field
Perceptual adaptation is involved in the (Herrmann et al. 2010). (These ideas are very
tilt aftereffect. If one looks at a left-tilting clearly explained in Chapter 2 of Wu 2014.) A
patch, the neural circuits for the left direction further kind of amplification effect is additive
raise their thresholds. This is sometimes de- rather than multiplicative: the baseline or
scribed (evocatively but inaccuratelysee floor level of activation in the circuit is in-
Anton-Erxleben et al. 2013) as neural fatigue. creased. There is some evidence (Cutrone et al.
Then when one looks at a vertical patch, it ini- in press) for increased input baseline as a major
tially looks tilted to the right. (See Figure 6 of part of the attentional effect.
Block 2010). The reason is that the neural cir- Further, there is plenty of evidence for the
cuits for rightward tilt dominate the percept be- conclusion that attention modulates specific
cause of the fatigue of the leftward tilt neur- cortical circuits depending on what feature is
ons. Ling & Carrasco (2006) showed that at- attended. A recent experiment (Emmanouil &
tending to the adaptor increased the size and Magen 2014; Schoenfeld et al. 2014) compared
duration of a variant of the tilt-aftereffect as if brain activation when subjects attended to a
the contrast of the adaptor had itself been surface on the basis of its motion and when
raised. Attending to a 70% contrast grating subjects attended to a surface on the basis of its
ramped up the tilt after-effect as if the contrast color. Many of the stimuli involved both color
had been raised from 11 to 14% (different mag- and motion but which feature was task relevant
nitudes in different subjects). Ling and Carrasco was varied. The result was that motion sensitive
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 17 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

areas of visual cortex were activated first when periments described above for 80 ms or less.
motion was task relevant and color sensitive Many subjects will say that they are never
areas of visual cortex were activated when color 100% sure of anything. And this can lead to the
was task relevant. In Carrascos experiments, charge that what is really going on is akin to
subjects attention is drawn to the specific fea- blindsight in which the perception, though
tures that the experiment concerns. In the ex- genuine, is unconscious (Turatto et al. 2007).
periment diagrammed in Figure 6, subjects are Why are the presentations so brief? Brief
directed to report the location of the bigger presentations preclude eye movements, they pre-
gap, thereby directing attention to gap size. In clude significant perceptual adaptation (the
the analogous experiment connected with Fig- neural fatigue that causes afterimages), and
ure 7, subjects are asked to report the tilt of the they preclude certain kinds of strategic respond-
patch that is higher in contrast, thereby direct- ing on the part of subjects. Further, it is known
ing attention to contrast. In experiments con- that the effects of exogenous attention peak at
cerned with color saturation, subjects are shown around 120 ms after the cue, so to maximize the
stimuli that vary in saturation and asked to re- effects of exogenous attention, brief presenta-
port the tilt of the patch that is higher in satur- tions are required.
ation. Similarly for many other featuresspeed, Massimo Turatto (2007) showed, using a
spatial frequency, flicker rate, motion coherence, procedure much like Carrascos with judgments
shape, brightness, etc. These instructions can be of perceived speed, that an unattended moving
expected to direct attention to the indicated patch was treated as equal in speed to an atten-
features with amplification in the circuits that ded moving patch that was slower by about
register those features. 10%. However when they asked subjects for
Schneider (2011) seems to think that when subjective judgments of moving stimuli in peri-
subjects are asked to report on the side of the pheral vision that really did differ in speed by
larger gap and the gap on the attended side is . 10% (without any attentional manipulation),
20o while the gap on the unattended side is .23 o, subjects said they saw no difference. Turatto
the subject finds that there is no difference in took this as showing that the just noticeable
apparent gap size so the subject just chooses difference between the items being distin-
the more salient side. I will discuss salience in guished is above the size of the attentional ef-
the next section, but there is one thing about fect so the effect of attention on speed is not
this charge that raises a distinct issue: that sub- conscious. A 10% difference in speed is well
jects register the increase in apparent size only above the differences that people can see con-
unconsciously. I now turn to that issue. sciously when they are presented for longer
periods, but Turatto argues that for these short
6 Is the attentional effect unconscious presentations the just noticeable difference is
like blindsight? largerthat is, it takes a larger difference to be
consciously perceived.
The experiments I have described are forced There is a difficulty with his experimental
choice experiments in which the subjects must procedure though. There are well known prob-
choose between two alternatives. In any percep- lems in asking subjects for same/different judg-
tion experiment the issue can be raised of ments. Whether the subjects say same or dif-
whether the perception is conscious or uncon- ferent depends not only on their percepts, but
scious, but the issue is often especially trouble- also on their decision processes, including how
some in forced choice experiments with brief big an apparent difference has to be before they
stimuli in which subjects make a conscious regard it as reflecting reality. These issues are
choice but in which the stimuli are sufficiently nicely analyzed in (Anton-Erxleben et al. 2010,
evanescent that subjects do not get a really 2011). When Anton-Erxleben et al. corrected
good look at them (Phillips 2011). In addition, for these deficiencies in another same/different
the stimuli are presented very briefly, in the ex- experiment, they found effect sizes that are in
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 18 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 7: A version of one of the stimuli used in (Carrasco et al. (2004). Fixate at the dot in the center and move your
attention to the left patch without moving your eyes. If you can manage that covert attention, the patches should
look to have about equal contrast. If you attend to where you are pointing your eyes (the center) you should be able to
visually appreciate that the right patch has higher contrast. I am grateful to Marisa Carrasco for supplying this figure.

the vicinity of other paradigms from the Car- contrast after their attention was attracted to
rasco lab. The effect size is slightly smaller but one side or the other by a dot as in Gobell &
as they note, that is probably due to inferior Carrasco (2005). The result was that when the
sensitivity of the same/different paradigm. 22% patch was attended it was treated by
(Similar points apply to Kerzel et al. 2010.) One subjects as the same in contrast as the less at-
of the conclusions I would draw is that the no- tended 28% patch. 11 In order to make the
tion of a just noticeable difference in its usual judgment, subjects were shown examples of
applications is defective because noticeability is higher and lower contrast. (Contrast is a
not a perceptual property but rather the result measure of the difference between light and
of an interaction between perception and cogni- dark portions of a stimulus.)
tion. I will not go into these issues further here. As I mentioned, similar experiments have
However, even if Turattos methodology is shown that attention increases apparent color
flawed, the issue raised is a good one. How do saturation, apparent size of a moving pattern,
we know that the effects in Carrascos atten- apparent speed, apparent flicker rate, appar-
tional experiments are in fact conscious? ent spatial frequency (more about what that
The stimulus in Figure 7 was one of the is below), apparent motion coherence and ap-
stimuli used by Carrasco and her colleagues parent time of occurrencethe attended event
(Carrasco et al. 2004) in the first experiment seems to appear about 40 ms before the unat-
that demonstrated that attention affects per- tended event. As I mentioned, the subjects
ception by changing the qualities of percep- have to take in what parameter the experi-
tion, in this case increasing apparent contrast. menter is talking aboutsaturation, spatial
The method used was the same as described frequency, gap size, contrast, etc. and then de-
earlier in connection with Figure 6in fact cide which stimulus is greater with respect to
this experiment was the model for the experi-
ment of Figure 6. Subjects were asked to re- 11 As mentioned earlier, this methodology tells us that the two were in-
discriminable and it is a further step to conclude that they actually
port the tilt of the patch that was higher in look the same.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 19 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 8: The sequence of events in (Chica et al. 2010) starting from the upper left. ITI = intertrial interval, ISI = in-
terstimulus interval, in this case the period between the offset of the cue and the onset of the stimulus. Reprinted by
permission of NeuroImage.

that parameter before they can answer the tar- like to see the effect, whereas in the experi-
get question about orientation or side that ments described you have very little time. Still,
something is on. This is more complex than what counts for the argument I am making is
any certified unconscious perception task that the effect itself, not its timing. A further differ-
I know of. Further there is positive evidence, ence between just seeing the effect for yourself
summarized in Stanislas Dehaenes recent and the experiments described is that they util-
book on consciousness (2014) that [m]ulti- ize different types of attention, endogenous for
step calculations will always require a con- your personal demonstration and exogenous in
scious effort (p. 95). the experiments described. Endogenous and
What further can be said about whether exogenous attention have been shown to pro-
the effect is conscious? I would be remiss if I duce roughly comparable effects in Carrascos
did not mention that when you look at a good experiments, though in some paradigms some
reproduction of the Carrasco stimuli (Figure 7) exogenous attention is required for endogenous
you can just see the effect for yourself. (Dont attention to be efficacious (Botta et al. 2014).
stare for more than a second or two though I think many people are convinced of the
since adaptation will set in.) It can take a bit of effect because they can just experience for
practice to learn to do covert attention, i.e., themselves. Not everyone can though as with al-
to move your attention without moving your most any visual phenomenon. Of course we all
eyes though. (In my 2010 paper I included a fig- know the dangers of relying too heavily on in-
ure, Figure 2 on p. 32, one of whose purposes trospective judgments since they are easily ma-
was to give the reader practice in covert atten- nipulated. There is a line of experimentation
tion.) Of course you have as much time as you that addresses part of the issue.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 20 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Ana Chica and her colleagues (Chica et al. also collected brain imaging data that suggested
2011; Chica et al. 2010) have done a series of unsurprisingly that the valid cues attracted at-
experiments that directly address visibility. tention to the cued side, and more interestingly,
The Chica et al. experiment (the 2010 ver- that when the subjects saw the patch despite
sion) presents subjects with tilted patches that invalid cuing (i.e., the cue was on the opposite
are designed to be on the threshold of conscious side), the cue had often failed to attract atten-
perception and subjects were explicitly asked tion.
whether they saw the target (after making an This experiment suggests that attention
orientation judgment). Subjects were strongly can affect whether a target is consciously visible
encouraged to be conservative in saying they or not. The subjects were not probed, however,
saw the target. They were supposed to avoid on the issue of whether they actually made
false alarms, i.e., saying there was a target their judgments on the basis of the consciously
when there was no target, and they saw peri- visible tilt. However, when subjects reported not
odic messages indicating how well they had seeing the target, they were at chance on report-
been doing in avoiding false alarms. In 25% of ing the tilt. And when subjects reported seeing
the trials there was no target. the tilt, they were substantially above chance.
First subjects saw a fixation point inside This is not the profile one sees in blindsight or
the middle of 3 boxes (pictured on the upper in unconscious priming where subjects report
left side of Figure 8), then there was a brief cue not seeing the stimulus at all; but more signific-
consisting of a square around one of the boxes. antly the tight relationship between consciously
Then the targeta patch oriented either to the seeing the stimulus and being able to judge the
right or the leftcould appear for 16 ms (even tilt does suggest that they were reporting the
briefer than in Carrascos experiments). Next, tilt on the basis of the conscious perception.
subjects had to indicate by pressing keys Chicas experiments are relevant to the
within 2 secondswhich way the patch was ori- consciousness of Carrascos stimuli in another
ented. They had to choose one of the keys way. Chicas stimuli were presented very
whether they saw something or not, i.e., this briefly: 16 ms in the experiment just de-
was a forced choice experiment. Then they in- scribed. Carrascos stimuli were presented for
dicated whether they saw the target or not. The longer, up to 100 ms in some experiments. In
experimenters adopted a proceduretailored to addition, Chicas contrasts were very low, as
each subjects perceptual abilitiesto make befits stimuli that were supposed to be at the
sure the target was at the threshold of visibility threshold of visibility. The experiment de-
for that subject. They started each subject scribed above does not report contrasts but in
with a patch of sufficiently high contrast to see other papers with somewhat more complex ex-
the stimulus. Every 16 trials they lowered the periments along the same lines (Botta et al.
contrast until the subject was not detecting at 2014; Chica et al. 2013), the contrasts re-
least 25% of the patches (by the Did you see quired for 50% detection were about 3%; high
the stimulus test). If the percentage of detection seems to require up to 10% contrast.
avowedly seen patches went below 60%, they in- In Carrascos experiments, much higher con-
creased the contrast. trasts are almost always used. I conclude that
The main result was that the proportion the reasons against the blindsight analogy
of avowedly seen patches was much higher for in Chicas experiments apply even more
validly cued targets, i.e., when the cue was on strongly to Carrascos methodology.
the box that had the patch than when the cue Given the high rates of conscious vision of
was invalid, i.e., on the box on the opposite side 16 ms stimulus presentation even at lower con-
or neutral (when the cue was on the middle box trasts than most of those used in Carrascos ex-
where no target ever appeared). In addition, the periments, I will ignore the issue of brevity of
reaction time for the cued patches was much stimulus presentations in the discussion to fol-
shorter than for uncued patches. Chica et al. low.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 21 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Keith Schneider (2011, 2006; Schneider & iments involved a procedure like that in Figure
Komlos 2008) has argued that Carrascos results 6. In the saturation version, subjects were asked
are based on salience rather than perceptual to report the tilt of the more colorful stimu-
variables such as perceived contrast, gap size, lus, where the stimuli differed in color satura-
flicker rate, spatial frequency, etc. (Recently, tion. In the hue version, subjects were asked to
Schneider and Jake Beck have written a draft of report the tilt of the more bluish stimulus,
a paper on this topic. Rather than ascribe any where stimuli differed along a blue/purple con-
specific view to a paper in draft, I will discuss tinuum. The result: there is an attentional effect
the issue of saliencestimulated by their re- on saturation but not hue. A cognitive decision
marksbut from my own point of view.) I be- bias should equally affect both saturation and
lieve that the Carrasco lab is correct in their ex- hue. If the subjects are not aware of any differ-
perimental and methodological disagreement ence in hue between the attended and unatten-
with Schneider (Anton-Erxleben et al. 2010, ded sides, it would seem that the salience per-
2011), however it would be digressive for me to spective would say they would choose the atten-
discuss the issues involved in any detail here. I ded side. But they dont. Another possibility is
believe though that it is possible to get some in- that the bias is perceptual in some way, say a
sight without going into those issues. matter of perceptual prediction (Hohwy 2013).
A crude version of a salience objection In either case, the conclusion is that the effect
treats salience as a response bias in the sense is substantially perceptual and cannot be due
of a behavioral disposition to respond (in the simply to any kind of a cognitive decision bias
basic Carrasco paradigm illustrated in Figure 7) toward choosing attended stimuli.
by choosing the attended item. The idea is that Whatever understanding of salience the
when faced with a choice between gaps, the salience objection appeals to, salience must be
subject is disposed to choose not the gap that or be associated with a perceptual property, i.e.,
looks larger but rather the attended gap. This a property that is genuinely represented in vis-
account is ruled out by a control in many of the ion. Some say (Prinz 2012) that the perceptual
Carrasco experiments of asking the subject to properties that are involved in vision are limited
report the properties of the smaller gap or the to a small set whose basic low level representa-
patch that is lower in contrast. The attended tions are products of sensory transduction:
side is still boosted in apparent contrast or gap shape, spatial relations (including position and
size though the effect can be slightly smaller in size), geometrical motion, texture, brightness,
magnitude so there is a small effect of response contrast and color. In other words, according to
bias together with a main effect on perception. this lean theory of perceptual properties,
Carrasco also showed that choosing the lower though we speak loosely of seeing something as
contrast patch or smaller gap did not take any a face or as a case of causation, in reality see-
extra time, ruling out a version of the behavi- ing-as is limited to a small list of properties
oral disposition objection that adds on an in- that are the output of peripheral sense organs.
version of response. Others (Block 2014b; Siegel 2010) argue for a
A more sophisticated salience objection al- more expansive list of genuinely perceptual
leges a decision bias in the sense of a post- properties.
perceptual feature of the cognitive process in- How do we know which properties are per-
volved in making a decision of how to respond. ceptual? We know that contrast, size, speed,
All such accounts that I know of are ruled out spatial frequency (roughly stripe density), etc.
by the fact, mentioned above, that the effect is are perceptual properties because they particip-
substantially perceptual in nature. In addition, ate in perceptual phenomena, for example in
Carrasco showed that the effect works for some perceptual adaptation and perceptual popout. I
properties but not others (Fuller & Carrasco mentioned the waterfall illusion in which staring
2006). As I have mentioned a number of times, at a moving stimulus makes a stationary item
it works for saturation but not hue. Both exper- seem to move in the opposite direction. And Im
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 22 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

sure every reader is familiar with color afterim- an explanation that is a genuine alternative to
ages. Adaptation is a ubiquitous perceptual Carrascos, they have to show that salience is
phenomenon that can be used to show that size, the kind of perceptual property that is re-
speed, stripiness, etc. are perceptual properties. gistered in the visual system and that can com-
Note that I am not trying to define the notion bine in an additive fashion with contrast to af-
of a perceptual property in terms of percep- fect adaptation as in the tilt after-effect. I know
tion. The point rather is that perception is a of absolutely no evidence for such a thing.
natural kind and the perceptual nature of a rep- Many sources of evidence contribute to
resentation is revealed in participating in phe- our knowledge of the fact that attention in-
nomena in that kind (Block 2014b). By these creases apparent contrast. John Reynolds et al.
tests, for example, there is evidence that certain have shown that attention boosts responses in
face and facial emotion-related properties are individual neurons in monkeys (2000). They de-
perceptual. Viewers seeing an array of objects veloped a model of the mechanisms of this and
including one face can pick out the face very more complex effects involving multiple stimuli
quickly on the basis of parallel search, just as (Reynolds & Chelazzi 2004). Many brain-ima-
they can pick out a red object in a sea of green ging studies have shown similar effects. See sec-
objects. Similarly there are many adaptation ef- tions 4.6 and 4.7 of Carrasco (2011) where
fects for faces and facial expressions. much of this work is summarized. At the beha-
Is salience a perceptual property in this vioral level, attention increases sensitivity
sense? Attention is important to both cognition roughly as if contrast were increased and simil-
and perception, but attention can be percep- arly, attention can mimic the effects of in-
tual. In order to explain the effect of attention creased contrast on making a stimulus visible
on increasing the duration and magnitude of (as in the Chica experiment mentioned earlier).
the tilt after-effect (and the improvement fol- And as mentioned earlier, attention increases
lowed by impairment in discrimination) as de- adaptational effects as if contrast were in-
scribed earlier, the visual system would have to creased. Every result involving salience that I
track or register attention or where or what one have seen is just a redescription of effects of the
is attending to in addition to being affected by sort mentioned.
attention. As I will explain in the next section, Here is a way of seeing the emptiness of
there is an open question of whether the visual appeals to salience: As mentioned earlier, at the
system does much by way of tracking attention. neural level, there are two main types of re-
In discussions of salience there is often a sponse functions by which attention increases
conflation between salience as a perceptual the firing rate of neurons, multiplicative and ad-
property and the genuine perceptual properties ditive. I mentioned a recent paper that com-
that are involved in attracting attention, like pares simulations of neural responses of these
high contrast or speed or sudden changes in po- sorts to behavioral data in order to ascertain
sition. We commonly speak of a saliency map in which of the types of amplication are mainly
the sense of the map of locations in the visible being used by the visual system. Though the
environmental layout in terms of whether they multiplicative models work pretty well, one ad-
are likely to attract attention. The perceptual ditive model works very well. Thus we have
properties here do not involve salience itself but strong evidence for the functional relation
rather differences with nearby locations in vis- between attention and the increase in contrast
ible feature dimensions (Itti & Koch 2000), for responses in in the visual system. For simplicity,
example in visible motion or appearance or dis- let us focus on the multiplicative mechanisms:
appearance. People also speak of a saliency map In multiplicative gain, the response of the
in the brain, meaning the increased activations neuron is multiplied by a constant factor. For
that correspond to attended areas. If salience is example, a neuron that responds to orientation
supposed to be something other than attention will give a large response to its preferred orient-
itself, that is If Beck and Schneider are giving ation and a smaller response to other orienta-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 23 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

tions to the extent that they are distant from ilar manner to conscious perception (Chica et
the preferred orientation. (For example, a al. 2011; Kentridge et al. 2008; Norman et al.
neuron that likes vertical lines will give a large 2013). Further, it has recently been discovered
response to vertical lines.) Since multiplying a using optogenetic methods that top-down activ-
larger number by a constant produces a larger ation of visual area V1 is about the same in
effect, multiplicative gain is most effective for awake and anesthetized mice (Zhang et al.
the preferred orientation. A second multiplicat- 2014). This top-down activation involved feed-
ive response function is response gain in which back from a brain area in the mouse that cor-
the sensitivity of the neuron is multiplied by a responds to a locus of voluntary attention in
constant factor. The effect is one of ratcheting humans. If salience is a perceptual property, it
up the response to stimuli of every orientation. should be operative in unconscious perception.
The widely accepted normalization model of at- So the salience issue is an issue about percep-
tention (Reynolds & Heeger 2009) explains the tion, not about just conscious perception.
balance of these two mechanisms (and of addit- The upshot is that it is not at all clear
ive gain) in terms of factors such as the relative how a salience objection would work, so the
size of the target and the attentional field. The burden is on those who advocate it to explain
attentional function of a given neuron can show it. I raised the issue of whether we are aware of
more multiplicative gain or more response gain where we are attending in connection with
or more additive gain depending on these whether we are aware of salience, so I now turn
factors. Here is my point. We can answer the briefly to that question.
question of what the difference between these
response functions is with respect to increasing 7 Are we aware of where we are and are
apparent contrast. For example, multiplicative not attending?
gain increases the apparent contrast more for
the preferred orientation and response gain in- There are a number of ways of approaching this
creases apparent contrast more for unpreferred issue, none of them very satisfying. We are cer-
orientations. What is the answer to the corres- tainly aware of some aspects of voluntary atten-
ponding question for salience? Does multiplicat- tionwhen we pay attention to one thing
ive gain increase salience more for preferred or rather than another (endogenous attention).
unpreferred orientations? Is it the same as for But much of attention is involuntary (exogen-
contrast? If so, then maybe salience is being ous). Any perceptibly sudden movement, ap-
used as a synonym for contrast. A different an- pearance or disappearance or sound will be
swer would be: multiplicative gain and response likely to attract exogenous attention. Subjects
gain are equally mechanisms of salience. In this in perceptual experiments can try to ignore sud-
latter case it looks as if salience is just being den movements and sounds but they attract
used to mean attention. To repeat the general exogenous attention nonetheless. Exogenous at-
point: Those who advocate a salience explan- tention ramps up more quickly (120 ms vs 300
ation of the phenomena have to show that there ms) and dies off more quickly. Eye movements
is a property that is (1) perceptual, (2) not con- can also be voluntary or involuntary. Awareness
trast and (3) acts in the ways indicated above. of where the eyes are pointing is a rough index
Sometimes the issue is put in terms of of awareness of attention. There is some evid-
phenomenal salience (Wu 2014). I think this ence that people are not very aware of the time
way of talking just muddies the waters. Percep- and direction of their saccades, the quick bal-
tual properties can operate in both conscious listic eye movements that occur when we are
and unconscious perception. (At least: it would visually exploring our environment. Heiner Deu-
be an amazing discovery that there is a percep- bel et al. showed that subjects seem to have no
tual property that only appears at the conscious explicit knowledge about theireye position
level.) Attentionat least exogenous attention and often dont notice the occurrence of even
operates in unconscious perception in a sim- large saccadic eye movements (1999, p. 68).
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 24 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

However, this is not conclusive evidence that whether the items are the same or different, the
they dont know where they are attending since effect of attention is slightly smaller. And that
they may confuse movement of attention with may suggest that there is substantive daylight
movements of the eyes. And the visual system between not looking different and looking the
could track attention even if subjects are not same. (Of course this difference matters very
aware of where they are attending. much in some contexts, for example, as men-
Perhaps more illumination can be achieved tioned earlier, the context of the phenomenal
from work on the landscape of attention Sorites issue; Morrison 2013.) As I mentioned
(Datta & DeYoe 2009). Brain imaging shows a earlier; Anton-Erxleben et al. and her colleagues
complex rapidly shifting map of spatial atten- argue persuasively that the smaller effect is due
tion in the visual system. Spatial attention can to the same/different paradigm being a less
be focused at one location even though there sensitive measure (2011). In what follows I will
is almost as much attention at a number of assume that the attended .20o gap looks the
other locations and some attention throughout same in respect of size as the unattended .23 o
half the visual field. The attentional field often gap.
has a Mexican hat shape with amplification I put the unattended in quotes because I
at the center surrounded by a ring of inhibition mean no commitment to the improbable claim
and then an increase outside that ring. Cer- that there is no attention on the .23 o gap. There
tainly no one is aware of all that dynamic detail is no agreement on whether there can be con-
though I have been unable to find any specific scious perception or even unconscious percep-
study addressing the issue. I think it is safe to tion with zero spatial attention or whether zero
say that in normal perception there is no phe- spatial attention is even possible.12 Indetermin-
nomenology that specifies much of the detail of acy in our concept of attention may even make
where one is and is not attendingnor how this an unanswerable question. Still, I will ad-
much one is attending. So any attempt to ex- opt the abbreviatory convention of referring to
plain Carrascos results that appeals to our stimuli that are not focally attended as unat-
awareness of where we are attending takes on tended.
the burden of showing that we do have suffi- Since the apparent size of the gap differs
ciently fine-grained awareness of where we are depending on where one is attending, the ques-
attending. tion arises as to which of these various percepts
of the gap gets its size right (or most nearly
8 Veridicality and representationism right) and which gets its size wrong (or most
nearly wrong). Veridicality is a matter of get-
In Carrascos experiments, an attended .20o gap ting things right and veridicality in perception
is not discriminated from an unattended .23o is a matter of the world being as it appears to
gap. I think the best conclusion is that atten- be. There would be no good reason to decide
tion changes perceived size and contrast. (Recall that the veridical percept of the gap is one in
that I am talking about spatial attention rather which one is attending to a spot one inch away
than attention to a property instance or an ob- from it; why pick one inch rather than one cen-
ject.) Do the gaps just fail to look different or timeter? (Recall that the attentional landscape
do they look the same? of amplification and inhibition varies from place
In Carrascos main paradigm, subjects are to place and from moment to moment.) The
forced to choose which stimulus is bigger (or most obvious candidate for a non-arbitrary an-
faster or higher in contrast). In the case of an swer to the question is: the veridical percept of
attended .20o gap as compared with an unat- the gap (if there is any veridical percept) is the
tended .23o gap, subjects are as likely to choose one in which one is attending to the gap itself.
one option as the other. In this sense these op-
tions are not discriminable. However, I men- 12 Spatial attention does not require feature-based attention or atten-
tion to an object. See Wayne Wus book on some of these issues
tioned that when subjects are asked instead (2014).

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 25 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

I think of veridicality as all or none, but poses at the cost of illusion. I can imagine con-
for the sake of accommodating different opin- siderations that might incline one towards ad-
ions I can countenance degrees of veridicality. opting one or the other of these positionsthat
One innocuous use of such a phrase is that if attention falsifies or that attention veridical-
one represents a .19o gap as .20o, the percept is izesbut the adoption would be for purposes
more veridical than if one represents it as .21 o. of one or another kind of utility, not as a prin-
Also we could say that other things equal, a cipled reason to think that the highest degree of
percept that attributes a higher probability of veridicality is really to be found in that case.
being .21o to a .21o gap is more veridical. The challenge is to find a principled
But once it is stated that the most reason for regarding seeing a thing or place with
veridical percept of the gap is one in which one a certain degree of attention to be more
is attending to the gap, one wonders why one veridical than seeing it with a different degree
should believe this hypothesis rather than the of attention. Sufficiently decreasing attention to
opposite hypothesis that attention distorts by something can move the perception below the
magnifying, illusorily, for the purpose of getting threshold of visibility. But not seeing something
information and that the attended item is seen that is too small to see or to faint to see need
illusorily. Is the perception of the gap with less not be a matter of illusion.
attention really illusory in the sense of a dis- Chris Hill (in conversation) and Sebastian
crepancy between stimulus and perception? Watzl (forthcoming) have argued that there is
In an article on Carrascos discovery, an optimal level of attention and perception
Stefan Treue (2004, p. 436) says this: with all other values engender illusion. Watzls
version of this view appeals to the idea that the
In summary, this study provides convin- function of attention is to make perceptual rep-
cing support for an attentional enhance- resentations usableas opposed to the function
ment of stimulus appearance. It completes of perception of veridically representing the
a triangle of converging evidence from world. These functions will conflict in normal
electrophysiology, functional brain imaging circumstances. The optimal level of attention
and now psychophysical findings, which for fulfilling the function of perceptionveridic-
argues that attention not only enhances alitywill be achieved in an idealized scenario
the processing of attended sensory inform- of no attention, or one of equal attention to
ation but manipulates its very appearance. everything. This is an interesting point of view,
attention turns out to be another tool at but is contradicted by the point made earlier
the visual systems disposal to provide an that veridicality conditions require a history of
organism with an optimized representation veridical representation.
of the sensory input that emphasizes relev- Epistemicists about vagueness think that
ant details, even at the expense of a faith- there can be an unknowable fact of the matter
ful representation of the sensory input. (it- as to a sharp border between bald and not
alics added)13 bald, a number of hairs that a bald man can
have even though adding a single hair will
I quote Treue not because I agree with him but make the man not bald. But if there can be a
in order to get a statement of that view on the fact about a border even though there could
table. There is no sufficient reason to accept the be no principled reason to regard any particu-
view that an attended perception of a gap al- lar border as the real one, why cant there be
lows us to see it as it really is rather than the a fact about what degree of attention en-
view that attention in perception is like a mag- genders veridicality that no one could have a
nifying glass, distorting for informational pur- principled reason to accept? Epistemicists
should not regard the cases as analogous since
13 Carrasco (Carrasco et al. 2008, p. 1162) has been interpreted as agreeing
with Treue by Stazicker (2011a) and Watzl (forthcoming). Carrasco tells
they think there is a principled reason to hold
me she did not mean to endorse the Treue view. there is a fact about a border and a principled
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 26 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

explanation for our ignorance (Sorenson attended one or the unattended one. But is
2013). there a well formed question here? Is it endo-
It may be objected that there is good genous attention that counts? Or exogenous at-
reason to accept Treues point of view since tention? We are talking about spatial attention
after all, attention to the .20o gap makes it look, but what if feature-based or object based atten-
illusorily, to be the same size as the tion goes counter to spatial attention? That is,
unattended .23o gap. But why not blame the il- one can be attending to a place but also to a
lusion on the percept of the unattended gap property that is instantiated in another place.
rather than the attended gap? One can blame And is it the absolute or relative value of spa-
the mismatch, but that does not help in decid- tial attention that matters? That is, is it some
ing whether attention to an individual item en- absolute attentional value or is it the most at-
genders veridicality or illusion. I think the issues tended place that is seen veridically? Talking on
are clearer when one avoids the comparative a fake cell phone drains away spatial attention,
perception and just asks, say of the situation in causing the subjects to miss seeing objects in
Figure 5, whether perception of the gap can be the centers of their visual fields (Scholl et al.
veridical when it is cued and one is attending to 2003). (Scholl et al. used a fake cell phone to
it or when it is not cued and one is attending avoid the unnecessary source of variability of
elsewhere. There is no adequate justification for features of the responses from the other end of
one answer over the other. Some may wish to the line.) If it is absolute value that counts then
abandon the notion of veridicality as applied to when talking on a fake cell phone (and presum-
perception but that would be to abandon the ably a real one too), all vision would be illusory.
notion of representational content as applied to That is a conclusion that we would have to have
perception and so to abandon representation- some very good reason to accept.14
ism. The representational content of a percep- One caution: I am speaking oversimply in
tion isconstitutively the veridicality condi- a number of respects in asking whether atten-
tions. There is a strong a priori case for percep- tion engenders veridicality or illusion. I men-
tual representation (Siegel 2010). And in any tioned the issue of whether veridicality is
case the science of perception makes essential graded. And there is an independent issue of
use of veridicality (Burge 2010). relativity to what property one is talking
In the discussion of the analogous issue about. In the experiment pictured in Figure 5,
with regard to inhomogeneities in the visual
14 It may be thought that the issue of which percept is veridical is
field, I noted that the sort of differences in per- avoided by forms of direct realism that hold that there are no
ception caused by spatial inhomogeneities are perceptual illusions. For example, Bill Brewer holds that in the
paralleled by differences due to temporal in- Mller-Lyer illusion (so called) in which lines of the same
length look to be of different lengths, what one is seeing is a re -
homogeneitiesthat is variation from percept semblance between the situation in front of ones eyes and what
to percept due to random factors. Any two per- he calls a paradigm of different lengths. The idea is that that is
what equal lines look like when surrounded by oppositefacing
cepts of the same items at the same point in the arrowheads. And the way equal lines look in that circumstance
visual field with the same degree of attention is like pairs of unequal lines one has seen. On this form of dir -
ect realism, the illusion to the extent that one can speak of
are likely to differ in apparent contrast (and such a thing is in the mistaken inference that the lines in front
other properties) due to these random factors. of ones eyes are of different lengths. They resemble pairs of
It is hard to see a rationale for treating spatial lines of unequal lines but one should not conclude that they are
unequal.
inhomogeneities differently from temporal in- However, Brewer requires differentiating between cases in which
homogeneities and it is hard to see a rationale one sees a property instantiated before ones eyes that is not a
resemblance to something unseen and the cases in which one
for treating either of them differently from the sees a resemblance. In effect, the cases in which one sees a re -
inhomogeneities due to distribution of attention. semblance to something unseen is a pseudo-illusion category
that he has to recognize. So the question arises of whether this
Claiming that all engender illusion would make pseudo-illusion arises in the case of attention or in the case of
most perception illusory. the lack of it. That is, is one seeing a resemblance to a non-ex-
We are considering the question of istent thing when one attends or when one does not attend?
And this is an unanswerable question for the reasons explored
whether the veridical percept of the gap is the in this section.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 27 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

the attended percept is certainly more likely to 9 Indeterminate contents and the
be veridical in respect of which side of the phenomenal precision principle
square the gap is on. And in the experiment
pictured in Figure 6, the comparative percept As I mentioned, an attended .20 o gap looks the
that is, the percept of the comparative size same size as an unattended .23 o gap. Of course
between the right and the left is distorted by the comparative perceptthe gaps looking the
attention to one side and improved by atten- sameis illusory. But what about the percepts
tion to the fixation point. So veridicality is cer- of each gap, considered separately? Is the per-
tainly affected by attentionthough in differ- cept of the attended .20o gap illusory? Is the
ent ways for different properties. The question percept of the unattended .23o gap illusory? I
I am asking about gap size is whether a single argued that we would need a better reason than
gap is perceived moreor on the contrary, less we have to suppose that one but not the other
veridically if it is attended. More generally, is illusory. And I claimed that we should not
there are certain propertiesI have mentioned suppose that both are illusory. The option I
size, contrast, color saturation and othersfor have argued for is that both are (or rather can
which attention to an individual item changes be in normal circumstances) veridical. As I
appearance of that property. Which is more mentioned, the simplest perceptual representa-
veridical, the pre-change or post-change ap- tions contain two elements, a singular element
pearance? that represents an individual item and a percep-
One might think that there is a simple tual attributive in Burges terminology that
way to get at the issue of whether attention attributes a property to that individual item
magnifies, illusorily, for the purposes of getting (2010). In the gap-size case, the perceptual at-
information, or whether attention makes things tributive attributes sizes to gaps. A veridical
look more as they really are. You could just ask percept attributes a size to a gap only if the
people how contrasty a patch is or how big a gap has that size. In order for the attributed
gap is and then consider whether those answers property to apply to both gaps, that property
correspond better to reality when perception is will have to be intervalic, i.e., a somewhat im-
attentive or inattentive. But the human ability precise propertyfor example, the property of
to make such absolute judgments for at least being within the range of .20 o to .23o (inclusive
some relevant dimensions is remarkably poor, of endpoints). Since both gaps are in that
certainly orders of magnitude worse than our range, both percepts are veridical (in respect of
ability to discriminate stimuli (Chirimuuta & gap size).
Tolhurst 2005a). In particular, the uncertainty Perhaps a probabilistic treatment of these
of absolute identification (absolute in the sense ranges of values is in order? But how can one
of the ability to say what the contrast is in per- justify one probability distribution rather than
centage terms) is far larger than the effects of another without making assumptions about
attention. Even if there were some sort of stat- whether the attended gap is seen more veridic-
istical advantage or disadvantage to conditions ally than the unattended gap? For example, to
of attention in estimating contrast or gap size say that the unattended percept of the .nn o gap
one would have to ask whether the advantage represents the gap as most likely to be .nn o,
could be ascribed to better perception or to whereas the attended percept represents the
better inference from a percept that did not dif- same gap as most likely to have some other
fer in veridicality. value is to regard the unattended percept as
I will assume in what follows that atten- more veridical than the attended percept. A
ded and unattended perception can both be probabilistic treatment would perhaps pass the
veridical. Considerations of the same sort sufficient reason test though if the same probab-
mentioned here also apply to the veridicality ility were attributed to both ends of the range.
of perception in both the upper and lower It will be useful to move back to the ex-
visual field. ample of contrast. The data portrayed in Figure
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 28 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

7 comes from the bottom right of Figure 9. Fig- the percepts seen in the periphery with only one
ure 9 contains four comparisons, each of which attended. This is a version of what I called the
is keyed to one of the four little squares between phenomenal precision principle in section 2. If
the patches. If one fixates on one of the squares, two things look the same (veridically) when
the patch to the left of the square attended is seen in peripheral vision with at least one unat-
the same in apparent contrast as the patch on tended, but the same two things look determin-
the right unattended. The 22% patch can be ately differentalso veridically when seen fo-
unattendedin which case it has the same ap- veally and attentively, then the phenomenal
parent contrast as the 16% patch when it is at- precision of the attended and foveal percepts
tended, or the 22% patch can be attended in must be narrower than at least one of the prior
which case it has the same apparent contrast as percepts. And we can guess that it is the unat-
the 28% patch when it is unattended. So differ- tended prior percept that has to be less precise.
ent veridical percepts of the 22% patch could Recall that perceptual representations that
represent it as the same as patches that are 6% are imprecise in that they attribute ranges can
more or 6% less in contrast. still be fine-grained. Suppose for example that a
Consider the contrast phenomenology of percept attributes a broad range of sizes to a
an attended percept of the 22% patch. That gap of .10o-.50o. That is a different representa-
phenomenology is the same as the phenomeno- tional content from .11o-.51o, and that is differ-
logy of a 28% patch unattended. Assuming that ent from .12o-.52o. So our ability to see small
there is not normally a phenomenology that differences can be based on absolute representa-
specifies what one is and is not attending to, a tion even if perception is imprecise. But if the
matter discussed above in section 7the phe- representational contents of the foveal percepts
nomenology of a 22% patch attended does not almost totally overlap, as with .11o-.51o .12o-.52o,
carry the information of whether it is the phe- how could those representational contents
nomenology of a percept of a 22% patch or of a ground the determinately different phenomeno-
28% patch. So in order for both percepts with logies?
that phenomenology to be veridical, the repres- Consider an analog for inattentive peri-
entational content would have to be at a min- pheral perception of color in which there is a
imum 22%-28% (inclusive of 22% and 28%). red patch on one side and a blue patch on the
However, there is a determinate difference other and the subject fixates in the middle.
in phenomenology between percepts of the 22% Supposeand as far as I know this is science
patch and the 28% patch when serially fixated fictionthat there is some distribution of atten-
and attended as you can verify by looking at tion such that the two patches seen briefly and
Figure 9. (There are larger differences of this inattentively in the periphery can look the same
sort to be described later and as I mentioned in and look red-blue and have the representational
section 3, inhomogeneities in the visual field content red-blue. I dont mean reddish blue. I
produce larger differences of this sort.) I believe mean indeterminate as between central red and
that this determinate difference is appreciable if central blue or in between. They could be red,
one moves ones attention while fixating the they could be blue, or they could be in between.
little square but the difference is even more ob- Since attentive foveated percepts of red and
vious if one moves fixation as well as attention. blue in normal conditions are determinately dif-
The 22% and 28% patches look determin- ferent from one another (and from other colors)
ately different if one is attending to and foveat- in phenomenology, the representational contents
ing (looking right at) each in turn. So if repres- of red and blue seen foveated, attentively (and
entationism is true, there can be veridical rep- leisurely), would have to be more precise than
resentational contents of 22%-28% only if the the supposed contents seen peripherally, inat-
phenomenal precision of the percepts of the tentively (and briefly). Otherwise there would
patches seen attended and foveated is narrower be increasing precision in phenomenology
than the phenomenal precision of at least one of without increasing precision in representational
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 29 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

content and representationism cannot allow than other musically literate people in pitch dis-
that. crimination (Levitin 2005, 2008). Given the dis-
In short, representationism requires that parity between identification and discrimination
inattentive peripheral perception be less precise one might wonder whether our ability to make
representationally than attentive and foveal per- fine grained perceptual discriminations misleads
ception. us as to the precision of our perceptual repres-
Now here is the striking fact: there is evid- entations. It certainly seems to us that each of
ence that peripheral inattentive perception of those thousands of pitches has a distinct phe-
many properties is not less representationally nomenology but maybe that judgment feeds
precise than foveal attentive perception. This more off of the phenomenology of discrimina-
conclusion conflicts with the application of the tion of differences than off of the phenomeno-
phenomenal precision principle to the cases at logy of individual pitches.
hand. I have already discussed the peripheral vs I have argued that the phenomenology of
foveal aspect of this point and I will go over perception does not allow for a large degree of
some of the evidence for the attentional com- imprecision.15 I appealed to the just noticeable
ponent in section 11 below. difference of contrast of 2%. I said:
I will explain the argument just sketched
in more detail. But first I must discuss a piece The representationist may retort that the
of the puzzle, the notion of a just noticeable dif- point is not that the contents are fuzzy or
ference. represented indeterminately but that they
are abstract relative to other contents, as
determinables are to determinates, for ex-
ample as red is to scarlet. But this line of
thought runs into the following difficulty:
the variation of 6% due to attention is way
above the just noticeable difference
threshold, which for stimuli at these levels
is approximately 2%. (Or so I am told. In
any case, just looking at the stimuli in
Figure 4 [Figure 9 here] shows that the
difference is easily detectable. And you
may recall that in the discussion of the tilt
Figure 9: If one maintains fixation on one of the 4 little aftereffect, there was evidence that at
squares while varying attention to the patches on either higher levels of contrast, the increase due
side of the square, the patch to the left of the square seen to attention was as much as 14%.) The
with attention has the same appearance as the patch to point is that there is no single look that
the right without attention. I am grateful to Marisa Car- something has if it is 22% plus or minus
rasco for this figure. 6% in contrast. By analogy, consider the
supposition that something looks as fol-
10 Just noticeable differences lows: rectangular or triangular or circular.
That disjunctive predicate does not de-
A ubiquitous feature of perception is that per- scribe one way that something can look
ceptual discrimination is more fine-grained than at least not in normal perceptual circum-
perceptual identification. Even those with abso- stances (Block 2010, p. 52).
lute pitch can identify perhaps 100 pitches (de-
pending on exactly how absolute pitch is Jeremy Goodman (2013) has criticized my reas-
defined), but can discriminate many thousands oning. He says:
of pitches from one another (Raffman 1995). 15 In Block (2010). Actually, I spoke of indeterminacy andmis-
Those who have absolute pitch are no better takenlyof vagueness of perception.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 30 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Ned Block, when considering the hypo- It is intuitive to think that the way the
thesis that perceptual appearances are ab- visual system detects differences between one
stract relative to other contents, as de- thing and another is by registering the proper-
terminables are to determinates, for ex- ties of each thing separately and comparing
ample as red is to scarlet, objects that those registrations. But this is not always the
the variation of 6% due to attention is case: Differences are often detected via different
way above the just noticeable difference processes than the processes that register the
threshold, which for stimuli at these levels entities or properties that differ. Beats are pro-
is approximately 2% (p. 35). duced by interference between two sound waves,
allowing one to detect differences between
Goodman goes on to speak of Blocks objec- sounds that would otherwise be inaudible.
tion that our discrimination thresholds place an As the examples just given illustrate, dis-
upper bound on the unspecificity of perceptual crimination may be possible without any differ-
appearances (2013, p. 35). Although it may ence in the phenomenology of the individual
have sounded that way, I did not intend to percepts. Two pitches can be indiscriminable
claim that discrimination places an upper even if one knows they differ because of beats.
bound on either representational or phenomenal However, there is no reason to think that spe-
imprecision. But I think that a certain kind of cialized discrimination mechanisms are at work
discrimination is relevant to both imprecisions in the experiments described. Specialized dis-
as I will explain. crimination mechanisms can be expected to de-
An ability to discriminate between two ob- pend on the specific features of the perceptual
servable magnitudes does not prove that ones situations and so not robust to changes in the
percepts of the magnitudes actually differ (in situation of the perception. For example, if you
either representational content or phenomeno- change your angle of view you might see the full
logy). One example that I have used to illus- vertical length of the trees but not their differ-
trate this point (Block 2007, p. 540) is the phe- ential protrusion above the canopy. Border con-
nomenon of beats (alternating soft and loud trast effects are fragilemove the color samples
sounds) caused by interference between guitar just a bit apart and the effect vanishes. (This is
strings of very slightly different pitches even nicely illustrated in the Wikipedia entry for
when the two pitches are phenomenally the Mach Bands.) However, the attentional effects
same on their own. (The frequency of beats in I have been talking about apply to color, speed,
response to two pure pitches is the difference in size of a moving object, spatial frequency
frequencies.) Another is the color border effects (stripe density), time of occurrence, flicker rate,
that allow one to see that two colors are differ- motion coherence (the extent to which many
ent even when the colors themselves would not moving items are going in the same direction),
be distinguishable if separated slightly. Even for as well as to contrast and gap size. What is the
achromatic objects, slight differences are ampli- chance that there is some specialized discrimin-
fied by a well known border phenomenon that is ation method at work for all these magnitudes?
responsible for the famous Mach Bands illu- Most impressively, these effects can be exhibited
sion. Goodman uses the example of two trees in visual short term memorythat is, they
that look to have slightly different heights be- dont even require simultaneous perception.
cause of how far they stick up above the tree This was shown by Martin Rolfs & Marisa Car-
canopy. His point is that vision might represent rasco using a different experimental paradigm
overlapping but slightly different intervalic val- than the ones so far discussed (2012; Rolfs et al.
ues, but one could also use the example to illus- 2013). I wont describe it except to say that the
trate heights that dont look at all different patches are compared in respect of contrast by
when seen separately while nonetheless allowing comparing a patch seen earlier with a currently
one to see a difference when seen next to one seen patch, and with similar results to those
another. already described. As I mentioned in section 3,
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 31 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

a similar experiment shows that a perceived peripheral unattended perception. But what
patch at one location in the visual field can be this evidence does not tell us is how precise
compared with a remembered patch at a differ- they both are, i.e., whether both are relatively
ent location with results that show the inhomo- precise or relatively imprecise.
geneities in the visual field (Montaser-Kouhsari I mentioned a study by Mazviita
& Carrasco 2009). The likelihood that there is Chirimuuta & David Tolhurst (2005a) that is
some method of comparison that does not de- relevant to the issue of how precise absolute
pend on the individual percepts themselves but representations of contrast are in foveal atten-
survives all these variations does seem slight. ded perception. Chirimuuta and Tolhurst have a
So the kind of discrimination that is not behavioral result that shows that performance
based on specialized mechanisms of detecting in classifying contrasts falls off sharply after 4
differences independently of registering absolute contrasts. They have a neural model of contrast
value can be used to make a better case. identification that suggests that the brain is
But even if we can make very fine grained capable of representing only 4-5 contrasts and
discriminations and even if the percepts in- that this limit is compatible with very fine-
volved in the discriminations are distinct, it grained discriminations. Chirimuutas view is
does not follow that the percepts are not highly that the response probabilities in the visual sys-
impreciseas mentioned earlier. Suppose for ex- tem for contrasts are very broad, with the tails
ample, that perceptions of contrast are so im- of every distribution covering much of the span
precise as to cover nearly all the range of con- of possible contrasts. (That is, there is a non-
trasts. Consider a representation of contrast of zero probability across almost the whole range
4%-98%. Still, 4.1%-98.1% would be another of contrasts.) Contrasts can only be identified
equally imprecise content that is nonetheless when the response is near the peak of the prob-
distinct from the first one. And so more gener- ability distribution but two responses can be
ally discriminability has little in the way of im- compared when responses are in the tails so
mediate consequences for imprecision. long as the tails do not overlap much.
The notion of a just noticeable difference Ill start with the behavioral result. She
is not very useful for my purposes. Discrimina- presented subjects with a number of patches of
tion can be finer than absolute registration as in up to 8 grades of contrast that were labeled 1
the case of beats. And strong ability to discrim- through 8 in each sequence of trials. Subjects
inate is compatible with a high degree of impre- looked at the contrasts and labels for as long as
cision. Further, the notion of a just noticeable they liked and could have a refresher any time
difference combining as it does, perception with in the midst of the experiment if they liked.
cognition, allows the possibility of a difference They had to hold the pairs of digits and con-
in conscious percepts that is not cognitively ac- trasts in working memory and assign numbers
cessible. to contrast stimuli. Then, patches were presen-
ted for half a second and subjects had to try to
11 Absolute representation give the digit label. Performance was good up
to 4 items and fell off drastically for larger sets.
The phenomenal precision principle tells us that Performance on 4 contrasts was near per-
if the phenomenology of perception is grounded fect. Then when new contrasts outside the ori-
in its representational content, then peripheral ginal range were added, performance fell off,
unattended perception must be more imprecise even for the original 4 contrasts. This is a pat-
than foveal attended perception. This result ap- tern often seen in working memory experiments.
plies to contrast, size, spatial frequency and For example, wild monkeys participated in an
some other properties but not location. How- experiment in which an experimenter sets up
ever, experimental results to be described in the two buckets and ostentatiously places, one at a
next section suggest that contrast perception is time, a number of pieces of apple in each
as precise in foveal attended perception as in bucket. For example, there might be 4 in one
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 32 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

bucket and 3 in the other. The result is that for gests a more complex picture in which there are
numbers of slices of 4 or less, monkeys reliably a variety of components of working memory
go to the bucket with more but with more than that may independently fit a more slot-like or a
4 items, performance falls off to chance (Barner more pool-like structure (Suchow et al. 2014).
et al. 2008; Hauser et al. 2000). Human infants Slot-like working memory depends on simple
show similar results with a limit closer to 3 stimuli that are hard to confuse with one an-
(Feigenson et al. 2002). other. Stimuli that have shown slot-like beha-
The number 4 figures in working memory vior include alphanumeric characters, hori-
experiments in which subjects are asked to re- zontal/vertical rectangles and colors that differ
member digits but are given another simultan- substantially from one another. (I am indebted
eous distraction task to prevent overt strategies to conversations with Weiji Ma on this topic.)
of chunking digits into units. Subjects can So I would suggest that Chirimuutas be-
typically remember about 4 digits. In a com- havioral result probably depends on the fact
pletely different paradigm, George Sperling that subjects had to hold a number of pairs of
showed subjects a grid of letters briefly (1960). digits and contrasts in mind in order to categor-
Subjects often said they could continue to see ize the next contrast. (You could try it yourself
all or almost all the items faintly after the for say 5 lengths.) They did well up to 4 such
patch disappeared. (This kind of image has pairs and then performance declined radically.
been called a visual icon.) When the grid had The article contains an anecdote that further
3 rows of 4 items, and subjects were asked to supports this idea:
recite as many letters as they could, they could
name 3-4 letters. However Sperling gave sub- DJT [one of the subjects and experi-
jects a cuing system: a high tone for the top menters] performed an experiment in
row, a medium tone for the middle row and a which 4 contrasts of grating were chosen
low tone for the bottom row. When cued, sub- that were close together whilst still allow-
jects could report 3-4 from any given row. ing near-perfect identification performance
In a different paradigm, honeybees were over 50 trials of each: 1, 8, 18 and 27 dB.
trained on a maze in which they had to choose [Note from NB: this is a different way of
to go either left or right at a T-junction to get a quantifying contrast than the percentages
reward. At the entrance of the maze there were used here.] In the 50 trials of each con-
dots on each side and the bees had to choose trast, 1 error of identification was made
the side with more dots to get the reward. The for each of the 8 and 18 dB gratings.
bees could learn to choose 4 rather than 3 but Then, two more contrasts were added to
not 5 rather than 4 (Gross et al. 2009). the stimulus set at the lower end (40 and
The working memory significance of 50 dB); contrast 40 dB should have been
roughly 4 items is so ubiquitous that it stimu- easily discriminable from 27 dB. In fact,
lated an article called The magical number 4 addition of contrasts 40 and 50 dB resul-
in short-term memory: A reconsideration of ted in an increase in the errors of identific-
mental storage capacity (Cowan 2001). Up un- ation of the original set of four contrasts
til 5-10 years ago, slot models of working over 50 trials of each (8dB 2 errors;
memory were popular. I think it would now be 18dB 9 errors; 27dB 6 errors).
agreed that roughly slot-like behavior emerges (Chirimuuta & Tolhurst 2005a, p. 2965)
from an underlying working memory system in
which there is a pool of resources that is distrib- There are two notable aspects of this anecdote:
uted over items differently depending on num- first, performance over 50 trials of each of 4
ber and complexity (Ma 2014). George Alvarez contrasts were near perfect despite the fact that
& Patrick Cavanagh (2004) suggested that there the gratings covered only part of the spectrum
might be a limit of around 5 items of ideally of contrasts. This suggests that the limit of 4
simple structure but Alvarezs recent work sug- does not have to do with representations of con-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 33 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

trast per se. The second aspect is that in this fect, 100% performance. For this reason, mu-
case as in so much of the work on working tual information is not very useful as a psycho-
memory, adding more possibilities to a set of 4 physical measure. And as Chirimuuta notes, its
decreases performance in the original set of 4. I utility is limited for another reason: it is a com-
conclude that the behavioral result probably pressive measure and so large increases in
has more to do with working memory than with neural activity can be expected to make small
any limit on perception. differences in information. The issue of 100%
Chirimuutas second result, the one that performance is especially troublesome since in
motivates the idea that visual representations of perceptual systems no performance can be per-
contrast are so indeterminate that only 4-5 fect. In particular the convention for a just no-
levels of identification are possible, is the mod- ticeable difference is distinguishability 75% of
eling result based partly on data from monkey the time. So it is difficult to know how to com-
V1 neurons. (V1 is the first cortical area that pare the absolute identification level of 2.35 bits
processes vision, the lowest level of the visual with a more visually sensible visual identifica-
system.) The striking fact about this result is tion level.
that it does not concern working memory at all Further, our experience seems to conflict
or indeed any kind of memory. It is only con- with the idea that we have distinct visual rep-
cerned with perceptual representation in V1. resentations of only 4-5 contrasts. A good repro-
The model of V1 neurons comes from another duction of Figure 8 seems to reveal 6 phe-
paper that is concerned with the dipper func- nomenologically different contrasts even though
tion, a notable curve shape in which one con- the figure covers only a third of the range of
trast stimulus is maskeddiminished by the contrasts. And the Carrasco results apply to
processing of another stimulus that follows right many different parameters, gap size, spatial fre-
after it (Chirimuuta & Tolhurst 2005b). The quency, etc. You might test it out if you happen
model predicts that V1 can represent 4 con- to be near a brick wall. Look at the height of
trasts perfectly with a sharp fall-off at 4, with a one brick, two bricks, three bricks and four
capacity to represent slightly more than 5 bricks. If you are close enough so that those
items. sizes look different from one another, ask your-
However, the model based on V1 neurons self whether there are other sizes that look dif-
gets some important facts wrong, for example it ferent from all four of those sizes. If
predicts poorer performance at high and low Chirimuutas result applies more widely, the an-
contrasts, whereas people actually do better at swer is no. It has to be said though that that
high and low contrasts. A version of the model sense of distinctness could be due to discrimin-
with some postulated features that are not atory abilities.
based on anything neural can get that right. Whatever the facts are about how precise
However, this curve fitting approach deprives foveal attentive perception is, the next section
the model of the neurophysiological support presents evidence that it is not more precise
that motivated the original model. Another than inattentive peripheral perception.
problem with the model is that what is pre-
dicted is mutual information shared between 12 Attention may not increase
contrast stimuli and V1 responses of 2.35 bits. representational precision
Mutual information is a measure of shared in-
formationin this case between stimuli and V1 I said that if 2 things look the same when seen
neurons. A mutual information value of 2 bits in peripheral vision with at least one unatten-
would allow 22 (=4) contrast identifications; a ded, but the same two things look determin-
mutual information value of 3 bits would allow ately different when seen foveally and attent-
23 (=8) identifications. This shared information, ively, then the phenomenal precision of the at-
as Chirimuuta notes (Chirimuuta & Tolhurst tended and foveal percepts must be greater
2005a, p. 2968), is essentially looking at per- than at least one of the prior percepts. (As I
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 34 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

mentioned, the assumption of veridicality is re- fovea, this had the effect of presenting the fig-
quired to justify the imprecise representational ures at varying degrees of resolution. They also
contents of the peripheral percepts.) varied resolution by manipulating where sub-
It is common for philosophers to claim jects were attending, using cues of the sort de-
that attention increases determinacy of per- scribed earlier. Putting together the contribu-
ception (Boone 2013; Nanay 2010; Stazicker tions to resolution from eccentricity and atten-
2011a, 2011b, 2013; but not Speaks 2010). The tion, they were able to show that there were dif-
relevant kind of determinacy as I have been say- ferent optimal degrees of resolution for different
ing is precision. But it will be useful to distin- figures.
guish precision from other forms of determinacy. One neural mechanism by which attention
Responses to attended stimuli are certainly less increases resolution is shrinking of the recept-
variable than responses to unattended stimuli. ive fields of neurons in the visual system. Re-
And attention increases acuity in the sense of call that a receptive field is the area of space
spatial resolution, e.g., the ability to distinguish that a neuron responds to. Resolution increases
one dot from two dots. I will argue that spatial when neurons respond to smaller areas. Another
attention may not increase precision even if it mechanism is the shifting of receptive fields
reduces variability and acuity, and that further, from adjacent areas that was mentioned earlier.
in a rationally designed system spatial attention As I mentioned, the sensitivity of high
would not be expected to increase precision. spatial frequency channels increasesprob-
ably as a result of these mechanisms. Recall
that spatial frequency in the case of a stripy
stimulus like the Gabor patches used in many
of the figures In this article (e.g., Figure 15) is a
measure of how dense the stripes are. Boosting
the sensitivity to high spatial frequencies makes
Figure 10: A textured figure used by Yeshurun & Car- resolution higher, thereby improving perception
rasco (1998). Using stimuli like this one, stimuli were of textured figures when the resolution is too
presented in which the square immediately to the right of low and impairing perception when resolution is
the plus sign could appear at different eccentricities. too high. The Yeshurun and Carrasco paper
When the resolution was low in peripheral areas, atten- concerns exogenous attention. Later work (Bar-
tion increased the subjects ability to detect the square. bot et al. 2012) shows that endogenous atten-
But when the resolution was highnearer to the fixation tion is more flexible, raising or lowering the
point--attention decreased the subjects ability to detect sensitivities of high spatial frequency channels
the square because the increased resolution obscured the so as to improve perception.
forest in favor of the trees. I mention the increase in resolution and
the sensitivity to high spatial frequencies in
Yeshurun & Carrasco (1998) showed that order to be sure that the reader is distinguish-
attention can increase resolution, making sub- ing these matters from an increase in preci-
jects (paradoxically) less likely to see the atten- sion.
ded stimulus. For textured figures like the Representational precision is a matter of
square to the right of the fixation plus sign in how wide a range of values is allowed by the
Figure 10, there is an optimal degree of resolu- representational content, what values are com-
tion. If resolution is too high, the subjects miss patible with the veridicality of the percept.
the forest for the trees, failing to see the larger (Phenomenal precision is a matter of crisp-
scale textured figures. Too low a resolution can ness of the appearance.) One dot and two dots
cause subjects to miss the trees as well. Ye- may look the same in peripheral vision even
shurun and Carrasco presented textured figures though we can clearly see the difference in fo-
at varying degrees of eccentricity. Since resolu- veal vision. That is a difference in acuity rather
tion is better for stimuli that are closer to the than a difference in precision. Increasing preci-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 35 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

sion for representation is sharpening the repres- target square, and if the second target square is
entational content. presented 200-400 ms after the first square, the
The relation between variability and preci- subject will be much less likely to consciously
sion is more complex. Imprecision is often see the second square. The mechanism has been
cashed out in terms of reliable correlation shown to depend on the first target absorbing
between a representation and the world (Sta- the subjects attention so that there is insuffi-
zicker 2013). In that sense, since attention de- cient attention to consciously see the second
creases variability it must increase precision. square. The second square is described as
However, there are different sorts of noise. As blinked, where the blinking deprives the
we will see in the first experiment to be de- square of attention. Asplund et al. (2014) used
scribed below, attention may decrease noise this technique with a paradigm in which the
across the whole spectrum without affecting target squares were colored and in which sub-
what might be thought of as intrinsic variation jects had to report the color of the second
in the signal and thus not increasing a kind of square by moving a mouse to click on a color
systematic precision. As I will explain, the ex- wheel that had 180 colors on it. The idea is that
periment to be described helps us to precisify the effect of attention on how intervalic the per-
what precision comes to. ceptual representation is could be assessed by
I will describe two experiments that will examining the effect of the presence or absence
help to make the notion of precision more pre- of attention on the precision of subjects identi-
cise or at least concrete and will suggest that fications of the color using the color wheel.
spatial attention does not narrow representa- The experimental procedure is dia-
tional precision. Before I do that, let me say grammed in Figure 11. The subject saw a fixa-
briefly why one should expect that spatial at- tion point (lowest square on the left). Then
tention will not make the attended properties there were 7-13 colored disks, then a target, T1,
any more precise. Increasing precision normally a square that was either black or white (RSVP
involves suppression of responses outside the ex- = rapid serial visual presentation), then some
pected range. It would not make sense for a sys- number of colored disks, then another square,
tem to be designed to suppress some values then 3 more disks. Then subjects reported the
without some indication of the irrelevancy of color of T2 using the color wheel. They got im-
those values. Spatial attention tunes for spatial mediate feedback in how far off they were on
area, suppressing responses to other spatial identifying the color (in degrees on the color
areas (Montagna et al. 2009). So spatial atten- wheel) for 500 ms, then they indicated whether
tion can be expected to increase precision for T1 was white or black. If the subject got T1
spacial location but not for contrast, size, spa- wrong, that trials report of T2 was disregarded.
tial frequency or speed.16 For feature-based at- This design allowed for comparison of precision
tention, the opposite is true. If one is looking of reporting the color of T2 between trials in
for the red thing, it makes sense to suppress which attention was maximally reduced (T2
sensitivity to other colors. Spatial attention presented 2 items after T1, described as lag
should tune for space only and feature-based at- 2) with trials in which the lag was so long or
tention should tune for the property attended so short that there was no attentional blink at
to. all. The key result is that although the lag time
The first experiment uses the attentional was strongly correlated with the average cor-
blink, a phenomenon in which there is a series rectness of the response (as always in the atten-
of stimuli and two targets amid distractors. In tional blink), the precision of the responses that
part of the experiment, the targets were squares were not random was not affected significantly.
and the distractors circles. The general finding The same experiment was done with faces using
is that if the subject consciously sees the first a slightly different form of the attentional blink.
16 This is oversimple since attention increases sensitivity to high spatial
T1 was one of two faces that subjects had to re-
frequencies (Barbot et al. 2012). cognize and the response wheel for T2 had a
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 36 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 11: Procedure from Asplund et al. (2014). Understanding of this diagram is aided by color reproduction.
Thanks to Chris Asplund for supplying this figure.

series of 150 face morphs based on 3 faces, with this experiment, the blinked color identifica-
49 intermediate faces interposed between them. tions are much more variable than the ones
The results were the same with faces as with that are not blinked. However, the authors
colors. The key result for both studies is that were able to show via modeling that the re-
the identification of T2 was either random sponse distribution was a superimposition of
(much more likely at the critical lag 2 for an two very different distributions. One distribu-
attentional blindness effect of 200-400 ms) or tion was uniform over the whole color wheel
just as precise at lag 2 as at lag 8. Note that with no clustering around one color, whereas
the experiment does not directly test the preci- the second distribution was tightly clustered
sion of any single percept. The assumption is around the correct color, just as tightly as
that the precision of representation of a blinked when the color stimulus was not blinked. They
color will be reflected in how tightly clustered reasoned that the first (random) distribution
the different responses are. Asplund et al. represented cases in which the subject simply
(2014) conclude (p. 6): Across both stimulus did not see the stimulus. However, when the
classes (colors and faces) and experimental subject did see the stimulus, the precision of
designs , we found that the reported precision the response was just as if it had not been
of a target item is not affected in the AB [atten- blinked. (They considered and rejected a vari-
tional blink], even though our paradigms had able precision model that predicted the data
the sensitivity to detect such effects. less well; van den Berg et al. 2012). So overall
But wait, you may ask: Didnt I say that variability of response is not a good guide to
attention decreases variability? And why is the precision of the representation. And this
there supposed to be a difference between (the shows an important flaw in crude correlational
inverse of) variability and precision? (Indeed, approaches to precision. The precision of a per-
the inverse of variance, one measure of vari- ceptual representation should not be taken to
ability, is a common notion of precision.) The be a matter of how well perceptual representa-
answer is that if you look at the raw data in tion correlates with stimuli since what is really
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 37 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 12: This is a modified form of a figure from Asplund et al. (2014). The figure compares response errors for lag
2the value with the maximum effect of the attentional blink with lag 8the value with the minimum attentional
blink. What the figure shows is that the precision of the responses in which the subject actually saw the stimulus was
the same. And the figure shows an increase in random responses for the blinked stimulus. Thanks to Chris Asplund for
supplying the figure which has been modified here.

relevant is the cases in which the subject actu- pick out focal green in a very precise manner,
ally sees the stimulus. but be non-veridical nonetheless. Conversely,
This point is illustrated in Figure 12 in the average of the responses might be the color
which the response error profile for lag 2 in seen (focal red) and thus the responses are on
which the attentional blink is most powerful is the average veridical even though the intervalic
compared with the response error profile for lag content is very wide.
8 in which the attentional blink is least power- An objector might say that the cases in
ful. The widths of the distributions are the which the blinked stimulus is reported in a
same. What differs is the number of random re- non-random manner might be cases in which
sponses as indicated by the higher tails of the it was not in fact deprived of attention by the
distributions. first percept. Imaging studies of the atten-
Note the difference between precision and tional blink do suggest a general deprivation
veridicality in this experiment. Precision is a of attention of the blinked stimulus (Sergent
matter of how tightly the responses cluster and et al. 2005) but I dont know of one that looks
veridicality is a matter of whether the responses specifically at this issue. There are always po-
cluster around the value of the item that was tential confounds and the general remedy is to
seen regardless of how tightly they cluster. If approach the same issue in more than one
the color seen was focal red, responses could way. In the case of this result, the same con-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 38 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

clusion has been reached by approaches that were especially interested in comparing two dif-
do not share vulnerabilities. ferent models for how attention boosts perform-
Another approach recorded from single ance in detecting the direction of motion, using
neurons in a monkey visual area (V4) that is stimuli that could move in different directions.
known to be sensitive to shape and form (David See Figure 14.
et al. 2008). Orientation tuning was not nar-
rowed by spatial attention, but it was narrowed
by attention to a specific orientationfeature-
based attention. A recent review (Ling et al.
2014) summarizes this approach as follows:

Although initial physiological reports sug-

gested that directing spatial attention to
an item sharpens the band-width of orient-
ation-selective cells in macaque visual area
V4, this was later shown not to necessar-
ily be the case. Follow-up studies using a
more sensitive measure for tuning band- Figure 13: Random-dot cinematograms in which dots exhibit
width found no effect of spatial attention local motion. In the low noise condition, most of the dots are
on the width of the orientation tuning moving in the same direction. As noise increases, the spread of
function... Rather, these studies instead directions increases and motion coherence decreases. From an
only found changes in the responsivity and experiment comparing spatial attention with feature-based at-
baseline firing rate of neurons coding for tention. With permission of Vision Research.
the spatially attended location. Thus, the
neurophysiological evidence appears to in- According to the gain model of (a), the re-
dicate that spatially attending to a loca- sponse to the stimulus is increased as if the
tion leaves a neurons feature tuning unaf- volumei.e., the signal strengthwere simply
fected. turned up equally for all movement-direction
detectors. (Orientations of motion are indicated
A psychophysical study came to the same con- by arrows along the x-axis. The signal strength
clusion, that spatial attention boosts activation was turned up in the sense that the signal
but not precision. strength prior to attention is multiplied by a
Ling et al. (2009) contrasted spatial and constant factor. For the values that are already
feature-based attention. The stimuli were ran- highi.e., at the peakthe multiplying a large
dom-dot cinematograms in which dots move in value by a constant factor has a bigger effect
one direction or another for short distances. In than at the tails of the distribution where mul-
the low noise condition shown on the left side of tiplying the constant factor times a zero yields
Figure 13, the dots show a high degree of coher- zero.) According to the sharpening model of
ence in that most of them move in the same dir- (b), the effect of attention is not to turn up the
ection. As noise increases, motion coherence de- response but rather to suppress the irrelevant
creases. Subjects had to make a series of judg- noise in the stimulus, narrowing the intervalic
ments of the orientation of overall motion of range of the response profile. These two models
these cinematograms. In the spatial attention make different predictions for threshold vs.
version, they could be cued as to the place the noise curves pictured in the bottom of Figure
stimulus would appear. In the feature-based at- 14. The gain model predicts an increase in dis-
tention version, they were cued to one of four criminability only when the external noise is
directions of motion and had to report the ob- low compared with internal noise. When ex-
served motion as a clockwise or counterclock- ternal noise is low, there is a benefit to turning
wise deviation from the cued motion. Ling et al. up the volume even though the volume in-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 39 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

creases both signal and external noisesince ally shown in the tuning model of Figure 14:
the effect of turning up the volume is to suppression of values outside the selected value
swamp the internal noise. (Internal noise is a directly reduces precision. This is what does not
blanket term for variation in the visual system, happen with spatial attention.
whatever makes visual responses vary even
when the external signal remains the same.) As
external signal and noise dominates the percept,
internal noise decreases in importance. This
kind of gain has a similar effect as decreasing
the internal noise. If internal noise were zero,
there would be no benefit at all in raising the
volume on both the signal and the noise. The
benefit of raising the volume however dwindles
away as external noise increases since the in-
crease in volume increases the effects of external
noise too. This is indicated by the lowered
threshold on the bottom left of (a) where the
advantage in lowering the threshold decreases as
external noise rises.
A different picture emerges from the
model of the bottom right (b) where the benefit
of tuning is greatest when external noise is
greatest. (Note that if there is no external noise, Figure 14: Two models of how attention boosts perform-
tuning is of no benefit.) Thus the benefit should ance. According to the gain model indicated in the top left
increase as noise increases as pictured in the (a), the boost derives from increasing the firing of all direc-
bottom right (b). These models were tested by tional feature detectors. The arrows along the x-axis indic-
a procedure somewhat like that in Figure 5, ex- ate receptors for motion in different directions. The dotted
cept using voluntary attention. A line indicated lines represent the change due to attention (as compared
where the subjects were supposed to attend and with the solid lines). The tuning model at the top right (b)
then a tone indicated that the stimulus was says performance is boosted by sharpening the response, de-
about to appear. Subjects could be cued to one creasing the range of the intervalic content, as indicated by
of 4 locations where their task was to report the the narrowed shape of the dotted line. See the text for an
direction of motion of a stimulus. Sometimes explanation of the bottom diagrams. From Ling et al.
there was a tone but no cue. The result was un- (2009). With permission of Vision Research.
equivocal: a pattern like that of the bottom left
of Figure 14, indicating an effect of gain but no But why does this result concern repres-
tuning. The data showed that spatial attention entational precision rather than phenomenal
yielded benefits strictly with low external noise, precision? I considered an analog of this ques-
and no benefits with high external noise (Ling tion concerning peripheral vision in section 2.
et al. 2009, p. 1201). They also used the same There I noted that the anatomical asymmetries
setup with feature-based attention in which the that are the probable basis of the inhomogeneit-
subjects were cued with an indicator of what ies discussed are bound to affect unconscious
the direction of the stimulus would be. In this perception in the same way as conscious percep-
version, there was both tuning and gain, show- tion. And a similar point applies here. The nar-
ing a hybrid of the patterns of a and b in Fig- rowing of receptive fields that is the main un-
ure 14. derlying mechanism of the attentional effects
Again, spatial attention does not appear concerns perception simpliciter rather than con-
to narrow representational precision, contrary to scious perception per se. As I mentioned earlier,
the representationist position. This is graphic- spatial attention operates in unconscious per-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 40 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

ception in a similar manner to conscious percep- item leaves behavioral feature tuning un-
tion (Chica et al. 2011; Kentridge et al. 2008; touched
Norman et al. 2013).
The dimensions used in both of the experi- I mentioned that increasing precision normally
ments described are metathetic as opposed to involves suppression of responses outside the ex-
prothetic (Stevens & Galanter 1957). Pro- pected range. There is no reason for spatial at-
thetic dimensions have a zero point and in- tention to increase the precision of anything else
trinsic directionality, whereas metathetic dimen- other than spatial area. In particular, why
sions have neither (Fuller & Carrasco 2006). would spatial attention suppress some directions
Color saturation is prothetic because there is a of motion and not others? However if attention
zero pointachromaticityand colors are more is directed towards motion in a certain direction
or less saturated. Hues are metathetic. At least (feature based attention) then increasing preci-
for primary hues such as red and green, neither sion does make sense. The point applies equally
has more of any hue. Carrascos work shows to prothetic as to metathetic dimensions. Why
that the attentional effects involved in increas- should spatial attention tune for some values
ing size, speed, flicker rate and the like work for but not others of contrast or gap size given that
prothetic dimensions like color saturation but tuning involves suppression of some range of
not metathetic dimensions like hue (Fuller & contrasts or gap sizes. So there is good reason
Carrasco 2006). And that fact leads to the ques- to expect these results to apply to prothetic di-
tion of whether the conclusion that attention mensions.
does not change precision depends on the mag- Let me return to the issue of peripheral
nitude tested being metathetic. perception as compared with foveal perception.
The studies on prothetic dimensions are I mentioned the experiment that shows that dis-
not as easy to interpret as the ones I just de- crimination of contrast in the periphery is as
scribed. One reason is that for metathetic di- good as in the fovea. But there is an additional
mensions, the psychological meaning of a differ- fact about peripheral vision, a phenomenon of
ence is roughly the same throughout the dimen- crowding in which things lose the quality of
sion. A 90o shift in direction has roughly the form...without losing crispness... (Lettvin
same significance independently of the starting 1976). We can ignore crowding for the purposes
direction. But for prothetic magnitudes that is discussed here so long as we confine ourselves to
dramatically not so. A one inch change in a perception of what the visual system treats as
length of .01 inch has a different psychological single objects. For more on this, see Block
significance than a one inch change in a length (2012, 2013).
of one mile. Baldassi & Verghese (2005) give To conclude, there is evidence that atten-
some evidence that spatial attention does not ded and foveal perception can be greater in phe-
change the intervalic range of detection of con- nomenological precision without being greater
trasta metathetic magnitudethough feature- in representational precision, contrary to repres-
based attention does narrow intervalic range. entationism. In direct realist terms, there is
The review I mentioned (Ling et al. 2014) evidence that attended and foveal perception
surveys many different studies on this issue, can be greater in phenomenological precision
concluding (references removed): without involving awareness of more precise en-
vironmental properties.
By and large, studies using psychophysical
techniques to assess selectivity have con- 13 Abstraction and indeterminacy
verged on results that square quite nicely
with the neurophysiological results: fea- The purpose of this section is to argue that
ture-based attention to an item selectively the 6% difference between the attended 22%
changes psychophysical tuning curves, and unattended 28% patches underestimates
while directing spatial attention to that the effect of attention. The reader who is will-
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 41 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

ing to take that on faith can skip to the con- Recall that imprecise contents were intro-
clusion. duced in the first place via the following reason-
I argued that since the attended 22% and ing. An attended 22% patch looks the same as
unattended 28% patches look the same when an unattended 28% patch. But both percepts
seen in peripheral vision but look determinately with that same contrast phenomenology are
different from one another when seen foveally veridical. In order for percepts with that phe-
and attentively, we can conclude that the preci- nomenology of contrast to be grounded in the
sion of the phenomenal and therefore represent- representation of contrast, the imprecision of
ational content of the attended foveal percepts the representational content has to be at a min-
must be greater than that of the prior percepts imum 22%-28% (inclusive of 22% and 28%).
if representationism is true and all the men- Suppose the representationist had said No no,
tioned percepts are veridical. The reader may those phenomenologies are different since one is
not be convinced however that the 22% and leftish and one is rightish so there can be no le-
28% patches do look determinately different gitimate demand for a representational content
when seen foveally and attentively. Perhaps the in virtue of which they have the same phe-
sense that they look different is a matter of an nomenology. That argument would look silly
ability to discriminate rather than an appreci- and be silly because we have an appreciation of
ation of appearances that are determinately dif- how contrast looks independently of which side
ferent. it is on. We can easily abstract the percept of
The Carrasco lab experiments reported so contrast from a total percept of contrast on the
far use stimuli that are 4o from the fixation left or contrast on the right. The sense of ab-
point. But you might have noticed that when stract here is a question of appreciation of the
you fixated the bottom left square in Figure 9, phenomenology of contrast independently of
you could also see the 28% patch to the far perceived location: I speak of abstraction be-
right. And some of the Carrasco labs experi- cause location is abstracted away from.
ments have been done with 9o angle of separa- I suggest that the same reasoning applies
tion. to Figure 15 even though the difference in peri-
If one combines the two different angles of pherality is causally implicated in producing the
separation as in Figure 15 an attended 16% apparent contrast. The point is that we have an
patch looks the same in contrast as an unatten- appreciation of that contrasty look independ-
ded 28% patch, a larger difference than men- ently of degree of peripherality and can appreci-
tioned earlier for this absolute level of contrast. ate that the two patches look the same in con-
(The differences produced by attention increase trast when I am attending to the one on the
with absolute level.) Of course the logic of the left. The point is that a 16% patch can look the
case is the same as before. I introduce it be- same in contrast as a 28% patch with the right
cause I think it is easier to be sure that the distribution of attention and we need a repres-
patches in Figure 15 look determinately differ- entational account of what it is in virtue of
ent when foveated and attended. which these apparent contrasts are the same.
Of course there is a difference between the And with respect to that issue there is nothing
relations between the perceiver and the two illicit about comparing 4o with 9o.
patchesin the different angles of separation The issue of abstraction I just mentioned
from the fixation point. Does that ruin the case comes up often in discussions of problem cases
for my purposes? Note that there was a difference for representationism. Consider the phenom-
in the relations between the perceiver and the two enal difference in seeing the round rim of a
patches in the experiments of Figure 6 and Figure drinking glass and feeling it with ones hand.
7, namely one was on the left of fixation and the Both are percepts of one property, circularity,
other was on the right. Why would there be a dif- but the phenomenology is different. How can
ference in relevance between left/right and num- representationists cope with this case? Michael
ber of degrees of peripherality? Tye (1995, p. 157; 2000, p. 93-95) has noted
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 42 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Figure 15: If you fixate at the + sign and attend to the left patch, it should look approximately equal in contrast to
the right patch. My thanks to Jared Abrams for help in constructing this figure.

that the total percepts involve representation premise that the contrast percepts are determ-
of different properties. These collateral prop- inately different.
erties might be shininess for the visual percept
of the circularity and temperature for the tact- 14 Conclusion
ile experience. The difference between the per-
cepts can be blamed on the perceptions of I can now summarize the overall argument.
these different properties. That is, what we are First, the short version. The 22% patch and the
visually representing is circularity-&-shininess 28% patch look different when foveated and at-
and what one is tactually representing is circu- tended one after the other. However, fixating in
larity-&-coldness. Can one abstract the visual between them and attending to the 22% patch,
impression of circularity from the total visual they look the same. How can this be explained
percept? Can one abstract the tactile impres- representationally without supposing that the
sion of circularity from the total tactile per- precision of attentive foveal vision is narrower
cept? Tye says he cannot make sense of such than that of inattentive peripheral vision? As
abstraction. However, our ability to abstract before, this is a burden of proof argument that
shape from location on the right vs the left does not explicitly utilize the idea of phenom-
suggests the Principle of Spatial Abstraction: enal precision.
perceptual placing of a feature at a location And as before, here is the long version:
can be abstracted from the perception of the
location. I have a visual appreciation of the 1. The attended 22% patch and the unattended
color of an object even as it moves, changing 28% patch, being the same in contrast-phe-
location. To the extent that this principle is ac- nomenology are the same in contrast-repres-
cepted it licenses the use of Figure 15 in the entational contents.
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 43 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

2. Both are veridical. rather can be in normal circumstances)

3. The contrast attributed by vision to the two veridical. A similar point applies to the version
patches has a minimum span of 22%-28%. of the experiments involving contrast in which
4. Attended and foveal percepts of 22% and an attended 22% patch looks the same in con-
28% (seen sequentially) are determinately trast as an unattended 28% patch. If the two
different in phenomenology. patches look the same and if looking the same is
5. Phenomenal precision principle: the phenom- a matter of sameness in representational con-
enal precision of the percepts of the patches tent, and if the percepts are veridical, the size
seen attended and foveally is narrower than properties the patches are represented as having
the phenomenal precision of at least one of must be intervalic. And the intervalan index
the percepts seen in the periphery with only of precisionmust be wide enough to encom-
one attended. And it is plausible to suppose pass both patches. So the representational con-
it is the unattended percept that has the tent has to have a precision range of 6%. And
wider precision. further considerations I mentioned suggest a
6. So the phenomenal precision of the attended range of 12%. The phenomenal precision prin-
foveal percepts must be narrower than at ciple says if percepts of 22% and 28% are phe-
least one of the peripheral percepts (probably nomenally the same with one unattended in
the unattended one). peripheral vision but determinately different
7. Representationism requires that a difference when attended and foveal, then the attended
in phenomenal precision be grounded in a and foveal percepts must have a narrower phe-
commensurate difference in representational nomenal precision than at least one of the peri-
precision. pheral percepts. The 22% and 28% patches do
8. So representationism requires that the preci- look determinately different if foveated and at-
sion of the foveal attended percepts be nar- tended. So the attended and foveal percepts
rower than at least one of peripheral per- must have a narrower phenomenal precision
cepts. We have already seen that peripheral- than one of the peripheral percepts. The only
ity pre se probably does not decrease preci- way that this can happen on the representation-
sion so if precision is decreased, it probably is ist point of view is if one of the peripheral rep-
due to withdrawal of attention. But empirical resentational content is less precise than the fo-
results suggest that withdrawal of attention veal attended content. But experimental results
does not decrease precision. that I cited suggest that may not be true. It
9. Conclusion: there is some reason to think may not be true of foveal vs peripheral vision
that the phenomenology of perception is not independently of attention, and it may not be
grounded in its representational content. true for attention independently of foveal vs
peripheral perception.
Thus, for the perception of some properties, we In the section on inhomogeneities of the
have reason to believe that the representational visual field, I mentioned a route to the same
content of perception neither grounds nor is conclusion based on introspection. And I will
grounded by the phenomenology of perception. update that point to include attention. The
I argued that an attended .20o gap looks more introspective route is this: it is natural to
the same in respect of size as an unattended . feel that the phenomenology of seeing the con-
23o gap. The comparative perceptthe gaps trast between the lines and spaces on a piece of
looking the sameis illusory. But what about lined paper attentively and foveally differs in
the percepts of each gap, considered separately? precision from seeing the same lines inattent-
I argued that we would need a good reason to ively and peripherally. The foveal attentive per-
suppose that one but not the other is illusory cept seems more crisp than the inattentive
and that the view that that both are illusory peripheral percept. As we have seen, location is
would undermine the notion of representational indeed represented more precisely but the same
content altogether. I said that both are (or is not true for other properties such as hue or
Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.
In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 44 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

contrast. If this intuitive judgment is correct,

there is introspective evidence for a discrepancy
between the precision of phenomenology and
the precision of representational content.
As I mentioned at the outset, the phenom-
enal precision principle needs more clarification
and justification. It depends on notions of over-
lapping and of determinately different phe-
nomenologies that are not as clear as one would
like. My rationale is that if any advance in un-
derstanding of the phenomenology of perception
is possible, it will have to start with under-
developed ideas. I believe that there is enough
in these ideas to give some credence to the con-
clusion. A second issue is whether the percepts
that I say are determinately different in phe-
nomenology really are.
The reader will have noticed that for the
experimental results I have discussed it can of-
ten be difficult to figure out what aspects of the
results concerned visual phenomenology and
what aspects concern visual representation. As I
mentioned earlier we have a real science of per-
ception but very little science of the phenomen-
ology of perception. If we are ever to turn what
we know about perception into a scientific ap-
proach to the phenomenology of perception, we
have no alternative but to start with some
vague intuitive notions and proceed from there.
Although there are some loose ends, I
think I have said enough to suggest a discon-
nect between the representational content of
perception and what it is like to perceive.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Worth Boone, Tyler Burge,

Marisa Carrasco, Jeremy Goodman, Eric Man-
delbaum, John Morrison, Susanna Siegel, James
Stazicker, Thomas Metzinger, Jennifer Windt
and two anonymous reviewers for the Open
MIND Project for comments on an earlier draft.
And I am especially grateful to Jeremy Good-
man and James Stazicker for discussion of these
topics.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 45 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Glossary

Acuity Also known as spatial resolution-- is the ability to resolve elements of stimuli.
Common measures in the case of vision are the extent to which the subject can
distinguish one dot from two dots, detect a gap between two figures, determine
whether a rotating figure is rotating clockwise rather than counter-clockwise, as-
certain whether two line segments are co-linear, distinguish a dotted from a solid
line or detect which side of a Landolt Square a gap is on.
Attention William James (1890, p. 404) famously said attention is the taking possession
by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultan-
eously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of con-
sciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to
deal effectively with others. Except for the exclusion of unconscious attention,
most scientists would accept something like that characterization today. Spatial at-
tention is attention directed to portion of environmental space and is distinct from
attention to a thing or a property.
Content See representational content.
Contrast Contrast in an environmental layout is often defined as the average difference in
luminance between light and dark areas. (Luminance is the amount of light reflec-
ted.) More specifically, it is the luminance difference between the lightest and
darkest areas divided by the sum of those luminances. There are alternative ways
of defining the notion but the differences wont matter here.
Determinately different For items to look determinately different in contrast, their contrast phenomenolo-
gies cannot be almost completely overlapping. I noted that this notion makes sense
from a representationist perspective. I said that if one patch is represented as 10%-
30% in contrast and another patch as 10.5%-30.5% the representationist would
need a good reason to deny that the phenomenologies almost completely overlap.
Given that representationism is committed to phenomenal precision and phenom-
enal overlap, it is legitimate to assume them in an argument against representa-
tionism.
Diaphanousness G. E. Moore (1903) famously said ... the moment we try to fix our attention
upon consciousness and to see what, distinctly, it is, it seems to vanish: it seems as
if we had before us a mere emptiness. When we try to introspect the sensation of
blue, all we can see is the blue; the other element is as if it were diaphanous ...
Direct realism The view that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is grounded in
direct awareness of objects and properties in the world.
Endogenous attention Endogenous attention is voluntarywhat people often mean by paying atten-
tion.
Exogenous attention Exogenous spatial attention is attention that is attracted, automatically by a
highly visible change. It is sometimes referred to as transient attention, whereas
endogenous spatial attention is sustained. Exogenous spatial attention peaks by
120 ms after the cue, whereas endogenous spatial attention requires at least 300
ms to peak and has no known upper temporal limit.
Fixation To fixate a thing or area of space is to point your eyes at it.
Fovea The fovea is the high density center of the retina. Foveal vision is the only vision
that can be 20/20. If you hold your hand at arms length, your foveal perception
encompasses about double the width of your thumb.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 46 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

Gabor patches The fuzzy (actually sinusoidal) grids in Figure 1 and other figures.
Grounding phenomenology is grounded in representational content just in case it is in virtue
of the representational content of an experience that it has the phenomenology it
has.
Identity formulation of representa- What it is for an experience to have a certain phenomenal character is for it to
tionism have a certain representational content.
Landolt Square See Figure 2.
Phenomenal precision principle (one form) If two things look the same in peripheral vision but determinately dif-
ferent in foveal vision, then the phenomenal precision of foveal vision is narrower
than that of peripheral vision.
Phenomenal precision As with everything phenomenal, nothing like a definition is possible. The best you
can do is use words to point to a phenomenon that the reader has to experience
from the first person point of view. The experience of a color as red is less precise
than the experience of a color as crimson. According to representationism, phe-
nomenal precision is just the phenomenology of the precision of representational
content. We experience a percept with representational content of 10%-20% as
having more precision than we experience a percept with representational content
10%-30%. For a direct realist, phenomenal precision is just the precision of the
properties we are directly aware of. We can be directly aware of properties with
different precisions, for example, crimson, or alternatively red. Similarly we can be
directly aware of a 10%-20% contrast property and also a 10%-30% contrast prop-
erty and the difference constitutes a phenomenal precision difference.
Prothetic vs metathetic Prothetic dimensions have a zero point and intrinsic directionality, whereas meta-
thetic dimensions have neither.
Receptive field In vision, the receptive field of a neuron is the area of space that a neuron re-
sponds to. In tactile perception the receptive field of a neuron is often gauged
physiologicallythe field of sensory receptors that feed to that neuron.
Representational content Condition of veridicality. A simple percept consists of a representation of an envir-
onmental property and a singular element that picks out an individual item
(Burge 2010). The representational content is satisfied when the referent of the
singular element has the property represented by the property-representation.
Representational Precision The precision of a representation is a matter of the intervalic range. For example,
the precision of a representation of contrast of 10%-20% is narrower than a repres-
entation of 10%-30%. Precision in the sense used here is not a matter of indeterm-
inacy of interval borders.
Spatial frequency A measure of how closely spaced light and dark areas are. One could think of it
with regard to the Gabor patches as a matter of stripe density.
Supervenience formulation of rep- If phenomenology supervenes on representational content, there can be no differ-
resentationism ence in the phenomenology of perception without a difference in its representa-
tional content.
Veridicality The veridicality of the most basic percept representations is a matter of the item
referred to by the singular element having the property represented by the prop-
erty representation.

Block, N. (2015). The Puzzle of Perceptual Precision.

In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds). Open MIND: 5(T). Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group. doi: 10.15502/9783958570726 47 | 52
 www.open-mind.net

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