Perceptual Objects

Notes on “Embodied Semantics” regarding the paper:

Santarcangelo, Vincenzo. “Auditory objects as higher-order objects.” Rivista di estetica 66 (2017): 8-21. https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.2948

Binding Problem

Firstly, there is the segregation problem: a practical computational problem of how brains segregate elements in complex patterns of sensory input so that they are allocated to discrete “objects”. In other words, when looking at a blue square and a yellow circle, what neural mechanisms ensure that the square is perceived as blue and the circle as yellow, and not vice versa? The segregation problem is sometimes called BP1.

Secondly, there is the combination problem: the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience.[1] The combination problem is sometimes called BP2.

Auditory Objects

Experiential Boundaries: Allocentric temporal beginning and end Experience: Ordered sequence (possibly parallel and simultaneous) Features: Acoustic spectral textures Allocentric Situatedness: Relative timing intervals Egocentric Location: Egocentric location of sound source determined by echolocation (requires polytonal sound) Subjective: importance of sounds and timing are subjective to the experience of the subject

Visual Objects

Experiential Boundaries: Cluster of feature/location pairs in allocentric space Experience: Unordered sequence of feature/location pairs (possibly parallel and simulataneous) Features: Visual field features Allocentric Situatedness: Locations (from saccades) Egocentric Location: Egocentric location of object determined depth perception and vestibular orientation Subjective: importance of visual features and relative locations are subjective to visual experience of the subject

Tactile Objects

Experiential Boundaries: Cluster of feature/location pairs in allocentric space Experience: Unordered sequence of feature/location pairs (possibly parallel and simultaneous) Features: Tactile textures Allocentric Situatedness: Locations (from body proprioception) Egocentric Location: Egocentric location of object determined by proprioception Subjective: importance of tactile features and relative locations are subjective to tactile experience of the subject

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Email to Author

I recently read your paper entitled “Auditory objects as higher-order objects”.    I’m a computer scientist by trade and I find myself reading papers from a wide variety of disciplines to see what people have to say about subjects such as this.  I know philosophy has been thinking about these things for a long time and only until recently have they become of practical interest for applications.

I found myself thinking very hard on the subject of temporal sequence classification, of which, auditory objects are a special case.   I have been using algorithms that closely mimic the way the human brain perceives objects.

One thing I should note is that the processing of auditory objects in the time-domain and visual or tactile objects in the spatial domain use the exact same underlying brain architecture.    For instance, visual objects are not static and require a sequence of observations until the perceptual object becomes realized in the mind.   This sequencing is then re-used when doing temporal observations to create auditory objects.

The only difference between spatial and temporal objects is that the former is composed of feature/location pairs and the latter is composed of feature/time pairs.    Both cases are in allocentric frames of reference for the physical source being observed. Cognitive Reference Frames

Also, just like in spatial objects which can transformed by scale, rotation, and other distortions,  temporal objects can be transformed by their tempo, pitch, and often an elasticity of the relative time intervals and still preserve the underlying identified object.

I found your decomposition of the auditory object into sound source, sound, and auditory object useful.  But it can be generalized for any perceptual object as “physical source”, “sensor phenomenon”, “perceptual object”.   Perhaps you are also missing the “sensor/processing” in this list since this filters and biases how the object can be perceived.     For instance, the world is seen differently in infrared than it is seen in visible light.  Animals and people can hear varying ranges of frequencies and have sensitivities to different types of sounds.   Further, the eyes and visual cortex of animals are often specialized for their ecological niches and they will fail to perceive a lot of things that are not relevant to them.

I’m not very experienced in the field of philosophy and am not quite sure what your goals are in this research.    However, I found it useful to get a different perspective on this area of research for my own purposes.   Please let me know if you are interested in continuing the discussion.