Are perspectival shapes seen or imagined?

an experimental approach

John Schwenkler

Assaf Weksler

pp. 855-877

in: Objectivity, space, and mind, Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 18 (5), 2019.

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel experimental approach that would help to determine whether perspectival shapes, such as the elliptical profile of a tilted plate or coin, are part of perceptual experience. If they are part of perceptual experience, then it should be possible to identify these shapes simply by attending appropriately to them. Otherwise, in order to identify perspectival shapes they must first be constructed in the visual imagination. We propose that these accounts of perspectival identification can be tested by measuring the interference between visual and verbal working memory load, respectively, and the identification of perspectival shapes in the appearance of a 3D object.