What is the Bandwidth of Perceptual Experience?
Although our subjective impression is of a richly detailed visual world, numerous empirical results suggest that the amount of visual information observers can perceive and remember at any given moment is limited. How can our subjective impressions be reconciled with these objective observations? Here, we answer this question by arguing that, although we see more than the handful of objects, claimed by prominent models of visual attention and working memory, we still see far less than we think we do. Taken together, we argue that these considerations resolve the apparent conflict between our subjective impressions and empirical data on visual capacity, while also illuminating the nature of the representations underlying perceptual experience.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. Electronic address: michaelthecohen@gmail.com.
Michael A
MA
Cohen
Center for Cognitive Studies, Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.
Daniel C
DC
Dennett
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Nancy
N
Kanwisher
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013850:Thinking; D014796:Visual Perception