CFP: Review of Philosophy and Psychology

Call for Papers

Special Issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology  

Guest Editors: Zoe Jenkin and Susanna Siegel  

Deadline for Submission: November 1, 2013    

Invited Authors:

Professor Gary Lupyan, Psychology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison  

Professor Reginald Adams, Psychology, Pennsylvania State University        

The Theme:  

A thirsty nomad, wandering across the Sahara, looks ahead and seems to see an oasis. It seems natural to explain this hallucination by appealing to her desire for water. If this is the case, our perceptual experiences are not always primarily input-driven. Psychological states such as beliefs, expectations, moods, desires, emotions, fears, as well as an individual’s conceptual repertoire, can influence the contents or character of perception.  

This special issue will examine how perception interacts with other psychological states, and implications of this interaction for epistemology and the contents of perception. The issue will have a paper-reply format, with invited commentaries on the selected articles. Contributions from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience are all welcome, so long as they address any of the following questions:    

Does cognitive penetration of perception occur? Which definitions of cognitive penetration are explanatorily the most useful? What are the best ways to distinguish it from perceptual learning? Which aspects of the sensory modalities are subject to cognitive influence? Is there cognitive penetration of both conscious perceptual experience and perceptual information processing? Is any form of modularism about perceptual processing correct?  

If cognitive penetration does occur, what are the limits of its influence, and what kind of information can be perceptually learned? Can cognitive states affect all the sensory modalities? Can they affect the perception of both lower-level properties (such as shape and color) and higher-level properties (such as causation and natural kinds)? What kinds of psychological states can affect perceptual states? How pervasive is cognitive penetration? If it happens sometimes, but not other times, what determines whether it occurs?  

If cognitive penetration does occur, how does it work? In what ways can beliefs, desires, motivations, fears, suspicions, or emotions influence perception? Do these states directly interfere with perceptual processing, or do they affect perceptual experience through a mediating state, such as a mental image, or through attention? Can the influence of prior knowledge on perception be successfully modeled using a Bayesian approach? Can Bayesian frameworks shed any light on the architecture of perception itself, apart from providing a model of it?        

How to submit  

Prospective authors should register at: www.editorialmanager.com/ropp to obtain a login and select Cognitive Penetration of Perception as the article type. Manuscripts should be approximately 6,000 words and conform to the author guidelines available on the journal's website.    

About the journal:  

The Review of Philosophy and Psychology (ISSN: 1878-5158; eISSN: 1878-5166) is a peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly by Springer, which focuses on philosophical and foundational issues in cognitive science. The journal’s aim is to provide a forum for discussion on topics of mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists and to foster interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioral and social sciences. The journal publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical relevance. It includes thematic issues featuring invited contributions from leading authors together with articles answering a call for papers.    

Contact:

For any queries, please email the guest editors:  

[email protected] and [email protected]