Efference and the conscious experience of perception.

PRESENTS A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF PAST ATTEMPTS AT FORMULATING THEORIES IN WHICH EFFERENCE PLAYS A ROLE IN CONSCIOUS PERCEPTION. 4 EXPERIMENTS ARE PRESENTED TESTING IMPLICATIONS FROM THIS THEORY. CONDITIONS IN WHICH SS MUST LEARN A NEW AFFERENT-EFFERENT ASSOCIATION ARE COMPARED WITH SS WHOSE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE ARE VERY SIMILAR BUT WHO NEED NOT LEARN A NEW ASSOCIATION BETWEEN AFFERENT INPUT AND RELEVANT EFFERENT OUTPUT. SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE VISUAL PERCEPTION OF CURVATURE WAS OBTAINED IN THE CONDITIONS IN WHICH THE NEW ASSOCIATIONS HAD TO BE LEARNED. WHERE NO NEW ASSOCIATIONS HAD TO BE LEARNED, SIGNIFICANTLY LESS VISUAL CHANGE OCCURRED. THE RESULTS ARE CONSISTENT WITH THE THEORETICAL POSITION THAT THE EFFERENCE AND EFFERENT READINESS ACTIVATED BY VISUAL INPUT HELPS DETERMINE THE VISUAL PERCEPTION OF CONTOUR. (28 REF.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)