Why Visual Experience is Likely to Resist Being Enacted


By Pierre Jacob.


ABSTRACT: Alva Noë’s version of the enactive conception in Action in Perception is an important contribution to the study of visual perception. First, I argue, however, that it is unclear (at best) whether, as the enactivists claim, work on change blindness supports the denial of the existence of detailed visual representations. Second, I elaborate on what Noë calls the ‘puzzle of perceptual presence’. Thirdly, I question the enactivist account of perceptual constancy. Finally, I draw attention to the tensions between enactivism and two trends in cognitive neuroscience: the two-visual systems model of human vision and the theory of internal forward models of action.