title: How to test Molyneux's question empirically.
abstract: In a recent i-Perception article, Schwenkler (2012) criticizes a 2011 experiment by R. Held and colleagues purporting to answer Molyneux's question. Schwenkler proposes two ways to re-run the original experiment, either by allowing subjects to move around the stimuli, or by simplifying the stimuli to planar objects rather than three-dimensional ones. In Schwenkler (2013), he expands on and defends the former. I argue that this way of re-running the experiment is flawed, since it relies on a questionable assumption that newly sighted subjects will be able to appreciate depth cues. I then argue that the second way of re-running the experiment is successful both in avoiding the flaw of original Held experiment, and in avoiding the problem with the first way of re-running the experiment.
authors.affiliation: Network for Sensory Research, University of Toronto, 170 St. George Street Toronto, ON M5R 2M8, Canada; e-mail: kevin.connolly@utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Connolly
keywords: Molyneux's question; multimodal perception; perception; shape; touch; vision