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Published on: March 8, 2019
Skill, corporality and alerting capacity in an account of sensory consciousness
J Kevin O'Regan1, Erik Myin, Alva Noë
1Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, Institut de Psychologie, Centre Universitaire de Boulogne, 71, avenue Edouard Vaillant, 92774 Boulogne-Billancourt Cedex, France.
Abstract:
We suggest that within a skill-based, sensorimotor approach to sensory consciousness, two measurable properties of perceivers' interaction with the environment, "corporality" and "alerting capacity", explain why sensory stimulation is experienced as having a "sensory feel", unlike thoughts or memories. We propose that the notions of "corporality" and "alerting capacity" make possible the construction of a "phenomenality plot", which charts in a principled way the degree to which conscious phenomena are experienced as having a sensory quality.
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