tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post7823625623677515430..comments2024-03-09T09:06:35.288+00:00Comments on Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists: Runeson, the Ames Room and the Irrelevance of Equivalent ConfigurationsAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-80180440209531790932010-10-11T13:51:53.419+01:002010-10-11T13:51:53.419+01:00The shadow art examples are fascinating.
But, one...The shadow art examples are fascinating.<br /><br />But, one can get a sense of what folks like Richard Gregory where talking about in "massive ambiguity" if you think about people not perceiving a table with a hole in it covered by a book or whole objects instead of fronts of objects. This is something that Alva Noe tries to handle from a kind of Gibsonian perspective. (Runeson mentions the table case in his Ames room paper.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539727534751588479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-12868227361263379572010-10-08T15:09:24.823+01:002010-10-08T15:09:24.823+01:00Speaking of equivalent configurations: shadow art ...Speaking of equivalent configurations: <a href="http://www.random-good-stuff.com/2010/09/17/shadow-art-by-kumi-yamashita/" rel="nofollow">shadow art</a> is another example of how fragile and viewpoint-dependant these are, plus they reflect the idea of having to have been meticulously reverse-engineered.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-26036818182054628032010-10-08T14:20:27.949+01:002010-10-08T14:20:27.949+01:00You're right, at one level; but Runeson (and G...You're right, at one level; but Runeson (and Gibson) repeatedly make the argument that identifying what a perceiving organism has learned to use is an empirical question, because of the richness of options. The full research programme on any question requires analysis of the information available that might do the trick, and empirical testing to see which ones are actually used (for example see <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~palab/Resources/Publications/2000-2009/Wilson_Bingham2008.pdf" rel="nofollow">this paper by me & Geoff</a> which I aim to post about in the coordination series.<br /><br />So you're right, it is a bit of a generalisation at one level. But actually it's a statement of theoretical principle that is empirically testable; 'smartness' like this has numerous advantages over 'rote-ness' and when possible you'd expect to see it - figure out the smart, task specific solutions for each task and go look see. Framed this way, it's less over-generalisation and more testable hypothesis that will either work or not work.<br /><br />The amodal completion task is still on my mind, but I may not get to it right away while I think out loud some more about these issue to clarify my thinking.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-82838668543090795712010-10-08T12:27:57.552+01:002010-10-08T12:27:57.552+01:00Ok. But, this still does not address the issue of...Ok. But, this still does not address the issue of robustness of Runeson's solution. The "all of the equivalent configurations but one are so implausible that evolution ignores them" reply seems to be a pretty broad generalization from the apparent success in *one* case. And, indeed, that's the point of my drawing attention to the case of amodal completion in this post:<br />http://theboundsofcognition.blogspot.com/2010/09/runesons-disambiguation-of-ames-room.htmlAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539727534751588479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-41476052977605995392010-10-06T21:41:31.344+01:002010-10-06T21:41:31.344+01:00Excellent post. I don't really have anything t...Excellent post. I don't really have anything to add since I agree with everything you say. I'm looking forward to the rest of the posts in this series!Gary Williamshttp://philosophyandpsychology.comnoreply@blogger.com