Have you ever suspected that people tend to see what they expect to see? If you have, then you might want to check out my new book Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind. The book explores an emerging view of the perceiving brain as a prediction machine. Brains like that are not cognitive couch-potatoes, passively awaiting the next waves of sensory stimulation. Instead, they are pro-active prediction engines constantly trying to guess at, or anticipate, the shape of the incoming sensory signal.
Such systems use their own predictions to shape and sculpt the way they process the incoming sensory information – resulting, in extreme cases, in seeming to see what you predict will be there even when it is not. Of course, in most cases a more delicate balance is struck, and the predictions are used to separate signal from noise, and to fill in missing information. All this recalls the lovely dictum that perception is controlled hallucination. Another major attraction of the story is indeed that it reveals perception, understanding, and imagination as deeply intertwined – as elements of a single ‘cognitive package deal’ in which the brain tries to guess the incoming sensory barrage as it arrives. Surfing Uncertainty takes this story and puts it into full contact with work in ‘embodied cognition’ – the idea that minds like ours make maximal use of the opportunities provided by bodily form, action, and environmental situation. To learn more, check out my series of postings this week on the ‘brains blog’
RELATED LINKS
Andy Clark: Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind