Premium
Dislocation, Not Dissociation: The Neuroanatomical Argument Against Visual Experience Driving Motor Action
Author(s) -
Kozuch Benjamin
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12091
Subject(s) - consciousness , dissociation (chemistry) , psychology , argument (complex analysis) , action (physics) , cognitive science , cognitive psychology , epistemology , philosophy , neuroscience , chemistry , physics , biochemistry , quantum mechanics
Common sense suggests that visual consciousness is essential to skilled motor action, but Andy Clark—inspired by Milner and Goodale's dual visual systems theory—has appealed to a wide range of experimental dissociations to argue that such an assumption is false. Critics of Clark's argument (e.g. Wallhagen, Mole) contend that the content driving motor action is actually within subjects' experience, just not easily discovered. In this article, I argue that even if such content exists, it cannot be guiding motor action, since a review of current visual neuroscience indicates that the visual brain areas producing conscious representations are distinct from those driving motor action.