Cognitive penetrability in early visual perception: Empirical evidence in humans Penetrabilidad cognitiva en la percepción visual temprana: Evidencia empírica en humanos

Abstract

Based on a theoretical background on the modular conceptions of the mind of Fodor (2001) and Pinker (2005), the objective of this text is to qualitatively analyze the strength of the experimental evidence from a sample of experimental articles published between 2002 and 2017 that support the thesis of cognitive penetrability in early visual perception. The study is justified by the implications that the results of these investigations may have for the different conceptions about mental architecture in perceptual functions, intra and intermodular information processing and isomorphism between mental and brain architecture. The methodology used to carry out this study involved establishment of the thesis and the inclusion criteria of the articles to be reviewed, final selection of the most representative articles on the selected subareas, analysis of the methodological quality and the results of the these, identification of specific contributions of each study to the proposed thesis and interpretation and synthesis of the findings. Of 26 articles reviewed on the subject, 7 are reported and analyzed, which are considered representative of 4 subareas: penetrability of expectations, color perception, facial features and object recognition. It is concluded that there is broad and solid convergent evidence (perceptual and neurophysiological) in favor of penetrative phenomena in early vision, which would indirectly support Pinker's hypothesis of permeability of mental modules. Recommendations are made on aspects to be investigated and variables to control in experiments on this topic.