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The cognitive impenetrability of thecontent of early vision is a necessaryand sufficient condition for purelynonconceptual contentAthanassios RaftopoulosVersion of record first published: 16 Jan 2013.

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Philosophical Psychology2012, 1–20, iFirst

The cognitive impenetrability of thecontent of early vision is a necessaryand sufficient condition for purelynonconceptual content

Athanassios Raftopoulos

I elaborate on Pylyshyn’s definition of the cognitive impenetrability (CI) of early vision,

and draw on the role of concepts in perceptual processing, which links the problem of theCI or cognitive penetrability (CP) of early vision with the problem of the nonconceptual

content (NCC) of perception. I explain, first, the sense in which the content of earlyvision is CI and I argue that if some content is CI, it is conceptually encapsulated, that is,it is NCC. Then, I examine the definitions of NCC and argue that they lead to the view

that the NCC of perception is retrieved in a stage of visual processing that is CI. Thus, theCI of a state and content is a sufficient and necessary condition for the state and its

content to be purely NCC, the CI�NCC thesis. Since early vision is CI, the purely NCCof perception is formed in early vision. I defend the CI�NCC thesis by arguing against

objections raised against both the sufficient and the necessary part of the thesis.

Keywords: Cognitive Impenetrability; Early Vision; Nonconceptual Content

1. Introduction

In this paper, I elaborate on the notion of the cognitive impenetrability (CI) and

cognitive penetrability (CP) of early vision, and I draw on the role of concepts

in perceptual processing to link the problem of the CI or CP of early vision with the

problem of the nonconceptual content (NCC) of perception.1 I explain the sense

in which the content of early vision is CI and I argue that if some content is CI, it is

conceptually encapsulated, that is, NCC. This content cannot involve any concepts

and is, as I call it, purely NCC, in contradistinction to the contents of the states of

late vision that can contain both conceptual content and NCC. The aforementioned

Correspondence to: Athanassios Raftopoulos, Department of Psychology, University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 20537,

CY 1678, Nicosia, Cyprus. Email: raftop@ucy.ac.cy

Athanassios Raftopoulos is a Professor of Epistemology and Cognitive Science in the Department of Psychology

at the University of Cyprus.

ISSN 0951-5089 (print)/ISSN 1465-394X (online)/12/000001-20 � 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2012.729486

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conditional holds on the assumption, for which I argue, that concepts cannot figure

inherently in early vision. Then, I discuss NCC and argue that the nature of NCC leadsto the view that it is retrieved in a stage of visual processing that is CI. Thus, if some

content is purely NCC, it is CI. It follows that the CI of a state and content is a sufficient(given the abovementioned assumption) and a necessary condition for the state and its

content to be purely NCC—the CI�NCC thesis. The brunt of my argument is that ifone could establish on independent scientific grounds that early vision is CI, which I

have done elsewhere (among many others), and if one could mount an argument, as Iattempt to do here, that CI entails and is entailed by conceptual encapsulation, thenCI�NCC. Since only early vision is CI, the purely NCC of perception is early vision

content. Finally, I examine and reject some objections against my thesis.In section 2, I discuss the notion of CI. After I have said a few things about early

vision, I offer a definition of CI and CP, and defend the view that the indirect role ofattention in early visual processing entails that early vision is CI against a view that

holds that the indirect role should count as a case of CP (the intuitive view of CP),because it entails that a causal explanation of why one has some NCC involves the

concepts that drive attention. Finally, I relate definitions of NCC with the notion ofCI and argue for the CI�NCC thesis.

If CI is a necessary condition for a state having (purely)2 NCC, all NCC is CI. This is

disputed by evidence suggesting that concepts causally influence the way ambiguousfigures are experienced, which, on the intuitive reading of CI, entails that the

experience is CP, while the content of the experience is purely NCC. In section 3, Iaddress this objection.

If CI is sufficient for NCC, all CI contents are NCC. In section 4, I argue for thisthesis. I also explain why early vision cannot inherently include concepts, a thesis

that is required for the sufficiency claim to hold. To dispute the sufficiency claim, oneshould show that it is possible for some content to be conceptual and yet the content

and the relevant state be CI.3 Then, I examine a specific form of the aforementionedobjection, to wit, that one can have CI contents that are conceptual because thenotion of CP is a causal notion that picks out the causal role of concepts, whereas

individuating a state as a perceptual experience with phenomenal content p requiresthat one individuate the state by its functional role in making available a structured

perceptual belief that p, and this requires concepts.In this paper, I assume, first, that perception has NCC, which is not

propositionally structured in that it does not have the structure of discursivejudgments and is neo-Fregean content. I reject Russellian contents not only because

of the problems they face with cases of inverted spectra etc., but also because if thecontent of perception is a Russellian proposition involving the object of perceptionand its properties, any content is nonconceptual. Moreover, there is no point in

discussing cognitive penetration of a content in this case since there are nointentional contents involved, and it makes sense to talk about CP of contents only

if one holds that mental states have representational contents.Let me dwell on my characterization of perceptual content as neo-Fregean content.

Fregean content involves modes of presentation (mops) in thought and, thus, by

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definition is conceptual content. In this sense, NCC cannot be Fregean content.

However, NCC involves the ways an object looks to a viewer and, in order to avoid

the conceptual nature of mops, some authors call the way the objects of intentional

states are presented in these states ‘‘manners of perception’’ (Peacocke, 2004) or

‘‘aspectual shape’’ (Crane, 2001, pp. 18–19). Peacocke (2004) thinks that manners

of perception constitute a genuine level of content that is situated between two

familiar levels, namely, the things of which they are manners and the perceptual-

demonstrative thought constituents (Fregean mops). Peacocke argues that if one

could ignore the standard Fregean-based interpretation of mops as mops in thought,

one could be very well use the term ‘‘mode of presentation’’ for manners of

presentation.

To distinguish NCC and its mops from the standard conceptual Fregean mops,

I use the term ‘neo-Fregean’. There is another reason for the prefix ‘neo’. There is an

ongoing debate as to whether Fregean mops are object involving or not and it is

assumed that the standard reading of Frege’s has it that mops are not object

involving. I side with those who think that they are (Raftopoulos, 2009). Some

philosophers use the term ‘neo-Fregean’ to distinguish their reading of Frege’s from

the standard reading (McKay & Nelson, 2005; Recanati, 1993).I assume, second, that early vision is not affected directly by cognitively driven

attention. Finally, I assume that early vision despite its being a pre-attentional stage

of visual processing includes content at the phenomenal level, in addition to its

subpersonal information processing content. One can have some sort of awareness,

phenomenal awareness, of perceptual contents that are formed pre-attentionally.

Although the problem is hotly debated both in psychology and philosophy, the

arguments in favor of the view I espouse outweigh the opposing view.

The CI�NCC thesis is a relatively novel addition in the literature of NCC.

It entails some important corollaries on which I shall not elaborate. For example,

NCC can exist if and only if some stage of perception is CI and is content formed in

a stage that is not affected directly by cognitively driven attention. My thesis also

entails that nonconceptual states can only have NCC, which undermines the

distinction between the state and the content view of NCC. I hope this is enough

to show that the relation between CI and NCC is worth exploring.

2. Cognitive Impenetrability of Perception and NCC

I start this section with a short description of the two stages of visual processing,

namely, early and late vision.

2.1. Early Vision and Phenomenal Awareness

Early vision is the term used by Pylyshyn (1999) for the pre-attentional stage of

vision. It includes a feed forward sweep (FFS) in which signals are transmitted

bottom-up and which lasts, in visual areas, for about 100 ms, and a stage at which

lateral and recurrent connections allow recurrent processing. This sort of recurrent

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processing, which starts at about 80–100 ms, is restricted within visual areas and

does not involve signals from higher cognitive centers. Lamme (2003) calls it local

recurrent processing (LRP). LRP culminates at about 120–120 ms. After that, signals

from higher executive centers including mnemonic circuits intervene and modulate

perceptual processing (global recurrent processing or GRP).

The unconscious FFS extracts information that could lead to categorization,

determines the classical receptive field of neurons and their basic tuning properties,

and results in some initial feature detection. With LRP, further binding and

segregation occur. FFS and LRP generate complex representations of objects that

are restricted to information about spatiotemporal properties, surface properties,

color, texture, orientation, and motion, in addition to the representations of objects

as bounded, solid entities that persist in space and time. At that stage, phenomenal

awareness arises (Block, 2007a; Lamme, 2003; Raftopoulos, 2009).4

Starting at 150–200 ms, recurrent interactions with areas outside the visual stream

make storage in visual working memory possible and give rise to GRP. Thus, early

vision is followed by late vision, which is the stage that is modulated by attention.

Pylyshyn’s views can be extended to cognitive effects mediated by affective

mechanisms (Raftopoulos, 2012). This allows the emergence of cognitive access

awareness by rendering the content of the perceptual states of this stage available to

cognition. The factor that determines the transition from phenomenal awareness

to cognitive access awareness is cognitively driven attention (Block, 2007b; Burge,

2007; Lamme, 2003; Raftopoulos, 2009).

2.2. Cognitive Impenetrability

A perceptual process is a series of transformations of states of the perceptual system

into other states with specific properties characterized by transformation parameters.

Each state depends on its preceding state from which it stemmed through the

function of the transformation parameters. In the brain, where a state is a pattern of

activation values of neuronal assemblies, the transformation of states is effected

through changes in this pattern of activation. If the transmission and transformation

of signals within the perceptual system are not directly affected (I will explain what

‘directly’ means) by signals produced in higher cognitive areas that enter the

perceptual system in a top-down manner, perceptual processing is CI and the states

that are produced during such a stage are CI. Similarly, if perceptual contents and

their transformations are not directly influenced by cognitive contents, the perceptual

contents are CI or conceptually encapsulated. Let me note at this juncture that

Fregean contents, whether it be propositions or other intentional entities, are abstract

entities that cannot causally influence, or be influenced by, states, processing, or other

contents. To explain the sense of ‘influence’ that I have used requires that one address

the problem of mental causality, which I cannot do. However, it is intuitive to say

that since mental contents are carried by mental vehicles/states, any influence among

contents must, at least, supervene on causal influences among states. In this sense,

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one could talk of mental contents ‘‘influencing’’ other contents as a shortcut for

saying that mental entities/states with some content cause other states with content.Pylyshyn (see especially his 1999) was among the first to discuss CI and argue that

early vision is CI while late vision is CP. According to Pylyshyn (1999), the thesisthat early vision is CI says that cognition only affects perception by determining

where, to what, and the degree to which attention is focused. It does not in any moredirect way alter the contents of perceptions so that they be influenced by the content

of beliefs, and so on. By not affecting directly the contents of early vision, cognitiondoes not determine what a person perceives.

According to Pylyshyn’s definition of CI, the cognitive influences that are found

in perception are confined to those that can be realized by modulations fromfocal attention prior to the operation of early vision, and selection/decision

operations, applied after early vision (Pylyshyn, 1999, p. 341). Accordingly,‘‘I carefully distinguished this sort of effect from a cognitive effect, in which

beliefs, goals, and expectations determine the content of the percept (what thingslook like)’’ (Pylyshyn, 1999, p. 405). I have called the cognitive influences that

operate either pre- or post-perceptually, whether it be attentional effects or otherwise(for example, emotive effects), indirect causal influences on perceptual processing(Raftopoulos, 2009). They are distinguished from direct causal influences that affect

perceptual processing itself. On the assumption that CP obtains only when conceptsenter early vision contents (more about that in section 4), which occurs when

cognitive states causally affect early vision, cognitive contents influence early visioncontents only in the case of direct causal influences. If such influences exist, the

contents of early vision are CP. The indirect causal effects on perceptual processing,in contradistinction, do not threaten the CI of early vision, because concepts do not

enter early vision but instead affect it indirectly by determining where and what tofocus on. Indeed, I have shown elsewhere (Raftopoulos, 2009) that, first, spatial

attention effects either occur before the onset of the stimulus (and thus their role is torig-up5 the FFS) or are stimulus-driven and not cognitively-driven and do not signifythe CP of early vision; and second, that object/feature-based effects occur either

before stimulus onset (and thus their role is to rig-up the FFS) or after thetermination of early vision and so they, too, do not signify the CP of early vision.

Let us now consider two more definitions of CI in the literature. Macpherson(2012) writes that perception is CI if it is not possible for any two perceivers to have

experiences with distinct content or character when one holds fixed the visual scene,the perceptual conditions, the spatial attention of the perceiver, and the conditions

of the sensory organs. Macpherson acknowledges that the effects of spatial attentiondo not constitute cases of CP. One notes that this definition leaves out the role ofboth post-perceptual effects of object/feature-based attention and the pre-perceptual

effects of attending to a feature or object before the onset of the stimulus that rigs upthe FFS in the perceptual system but do not constitute top-down influences. Neither

sort of effect entails the CP of early vision.Stokes (2012) offers another definition of CP. A perceptual experience E is CP if

and only if (1) E is causally dependent on some cognitive state C, and (2) the causal

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link between E and C is internal and mental. This definition ensures that cases of

some overt or covert (as in shifts of covert attention) action antecedent to theexperience do not count as cognitive penetration. The causal clause in (1) establishes

that the causal relation is a relation of dependence and not just an explanatoryrelation; if C did not occur, E would not occur. The qualification ‘mental’ in (2) is

meant to rule out some indirect effects of cognition on perception that one wouldnot wish to count as instances of cognitive penetration, such as when fixing attention

to some point in the visual field. Cognitive-driven spatial attention fixes someexternal area in the visual field, and this determines what one sees there. However,this relation between cognition and perception is not internal/mental and is not a

case of CP.Stokes is trying to express the notion of ‘‘indirect effects on perception’’ and

exclude cases in which cognition indirectly affects perception from counting asgenuine cases of CP. Moreover, as we shall see in the next section, Stokes’ condition

that the cognitive state C cognitively penetrates perceptual state E if there be a casualrelation between them, as opposed to a mere explanatory relation, is pivotal in

addressing an objection against the necessary part of the CI�NCC thesis. However,Stokes does not include in his definition an explicit clause that ensures that theviewer or viewers attend to the same location or feature/object so that in determining

whether CP occurs, attention should be fixed. This is necessary because the effectsof object/feature based attention and of spatial attention are indirect effects and,

as such, do not constitute cases of CP.One can synthesize and improve these views of CP and define the CP of visual

perception as the nomological possibility that cognitive or affective states can affectvisual processing in a way that changes the visual contents that are, or would be,

experienced by a viewer, while the viewer has in her visual field, and attends to,the same location or stimulus, or is prepared to attend to the same stimulus when it

appears, under the same external viewing conditions. The reference to attentionto locations or features/objects purports to include both sorts of attention. It alsoensures that cases of indirect effects on perceptual processing do not count as cases

of genuine CP. The mention of preparedness to attend purports to capture cases inwhich the viewer expects a certain object or feature to appear either at a certain

cued location or somewhere in her visual field. These cases constitute a rigging-up ofthe FFS and do not entail top-down effects on visual processing in early vision.

Before I proceed, let me address one objection to the attempt to exclude indirecteffects of cognition on perception from counting as genuine cases of CP. One could

argue that the role of attention in early vision, even if indirect or in its capacityto rig-up perceptual processing, entails that early vision is CP. In other words,why shouldn’t one allow attention’s having this indirect role to count as cognitive

penetration? This question is related to the intuitive notion of cognitive penetrationmentioned in the introduction since this reading is based on the view that such

indirect effects do count as instances of cognitive penetration. Owing to the indirectrole of attention, concepts do enter into causal explanations of the phenomenal

content of perception, and this is a genuine case of cognitive penetration of the

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content of early vision (since the phenomenal content is NCC and, as I claim, the

content formed in early vision).

There are two reasons why indirect effects should not count as instances of CP.

Since anyone agrees that there are indirect attentional effects on early vision, if one

would take this to be a genuine case of CP, then we would all agree that early vision is

CP, and that would be the end of the discussion. Second, I have argued elsewhere

(Raftopoulos, 2009) that if there are direct attentional effects on early vision, this

entails (or, allows the possibility for) the theory-ladenness of perception, which

vindicates both semantic and epistemological constructivism. If, however, the

attentional effects on early vision are only indirect, the theory-ladenness of

perception does not follow and this undermines constructivism. Since discussions

of CP of perception are related to the theory-ladenness of perception and CP is

thought to pave the road for constructivism, the indirect attentional effects on early

vision, by not doing that, would be better construed as not being cases of CP. In

other words, my point is that direct attentional effects entail constructivism, while

indirect attentional effects do not. Therefore, indirect attentional effects function,

epistemologically speaking, differently from direct attentional effects and the two

should be distinguished. If CP is taken to entail constructivism, as it has been since its

very conception by Hanson (1958) and Kuhn (1962), then indirect attentional effects

should not count as cases of CP.

2.3. Nonconceptual Content

Bermudez (1995, 2007), Crane (1992), Heck (2007), and Tye (1995, p. 139; 2000,

p. 62; 2006) hold that a mental content is NCC if a person need not possess any of the

concepts that enter into the specification of the correctness or accuracy conditions

for that content in order to be in a state with that content.6 This entails that the

subject is not required to be able to entertain thoughts about these general features.

I call this the standard definition of NCC.Martin (1992, p. 759) argues that the content of perception is independent of the

conceptual repertory of the observer. How things appear must not be constrained by

what concepts the observer has and NCC is restricted only by one’s sensitivity to the

world (Martin, 1992, p. 763). NCC should be the content of experiential states that

is sensitive only to world-states with which it is related, and should be unaffected

by the conceptual states of the observer. In other words, NCC must be determined

directly (that is, without conceptual interferences) through causal links to the world

(this is the demand that NCC should be restricted only to one’s sensitivity to the

world), independent of any cognitive states whatsoever (because it is these states that

cause conceptual interference).

According to Burge (1977), being acquainted in perception with an object means

that one is in direct (no conceptual intermediaries) contact with the object itself and

retrieves information regarding that very object from the object itself and not

through a description. Perception puts us in a de re relationship with the object

(as opposed to a descriptivist relationship) (Burge, 1977, p. 346). Thus, the content of

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a mental state is nonconceptual if its reference is determined independently of any

descriptive, conceptual content that the mental state might have under a canonical

description. Similarly, Burge (2010, pp. 61–63) argues that perceptual states are

individuated by, and depend constitutively on, relations between aspects of the

environment and the individual, including both representational relations and causal

relations that are not in themselves representational. The representational perceptual

content is nonconceptual or non-propositional content (Burge, 2010, pp. 538–539).

2.4. The CI�NCC Thesis

Burge’s and Martin’s discussions of NCC emphasize the extraction of information

from the environment through direct causal links without conceptual involvement as

a necessary condition for NCC. This requires a perceptual stage that extracts

information from the world in conceptually unmediated ways. A perceptual stage

that extracts information in conceptually unmediated ways is a stage of visual

processing that is CI. This intuitively leads to the view that NCC is the content of

perceptual states that are CI. In other words, if some content is nonconceptual, it is

CI (the necessity claim).The definition of the CI of early vision stipulates that early vision is not directly

affected by cognitive states and, thus, its contents are conceptually encapsulated

through top-down effects. Concepts can figure in early vision content either by being

there from the beginning or by penetrating early vision content in a top-down

manner. Burge and Martin reject the first possibility (because otherwise there could

not be perceptual content insensitive to one’s concepts), and I will also argue against

it in section 4. The second possibility is excluded by my assumption that early vision

is CI. All these together mean that one can be in an early vision state with some

content without possessing or applying the concepts that should be used to describe

the relevant content. It follows, in view of the standard definition of NCC, that this

content is NCC. Thus, if some content is CI, it is NCC (the sufficiency claim).It follows that the existence of CI processes that extract information directly from

the environment is both a necessary and sufficient condition for NCC. Thus, content

P of a perceptual state S of X is such that the processes by virtue of which X is in S

and has an experience as of P cannot, in principle, be affected directly by cognitive

processes, if and only if P and S are nonconceptual; this is the CI�NCC thesis.

Before I proceed, let me note that, given the distinction between the state view and

the content view, one could object that all I have done in discussing the sufficiency

part of my thesis is to establish that a CI state is nonconceptual, and not that its

content is NCC. I would like to say a few more things about the distinction between

the content and the state view. It has been recently argued that there are two ways one

could understand the conceptualism versus nonconceptualism debate (Heck, 2007;

Speaks, 2005). One way is to take the discussion to concern perceptual states, and

the other is to take it to concern contents. Heck (2007) calls these the ‘‘state view’’

and the ‘‘content view’’ respectively. A mental state is nonconceptual iff someone

who is in that state need not possess any of the concepts that characterize its content.

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The content view directly concerns the contents of the states. A content is conceptual

iff it is conceptually structured, which means that it is either composed of concepts,

or that it involves representations that allow the perceiver to display certain abilities,

such as the ability to re-identify the objects or properties that fall under the concepts

on different occasions, or the ability to satisfy the generality constraint.

I will not further address this issue here for two reasons. First, most accounts of

NCC are better understood as referring to both contents and states. According to Tye

(1995, 2006), NCC is poised, for instance, because it is content at the right level of

processing to allow it to be fed into cognitive processing. At the same time, Tye

affirms that ‘‘perceptual sensations feed into the conceptual system, without

themselves being part of that system. They are nondoxastic or nonconceptual states’’

(1995, p. 104). It is clear that for Tye, NCC is carried by nonconceptual states, which

have NCC. Tye moves from talk of NCC to talk of nonconceptual states without

thinking that he might be talking of two different issues. The reason is that the

perceptual states at the personal level are individuated in terms of their phenomenal

character, and since, given Tye’s representationalism, the nature of the experience is

determined by its content, the only way that a concept could influence the

phenomenal character of experience and make a difference is to exert its influence via

the content of experience. Thus, it is doubtful whether Tye would make any sense of

the idea of a state being conceptually influenced but its content being otherwise.

Second, I agree with Heck (2007) and Bermudez (2007) that it does not make much

of a sense to talk about states without reference to the kind of content they have. As

Heck (2007) argues, the structure of contents must be reflected in the structure of

their vehicles/states. Thus, only nonconceptual states can have NCC.

3. Is CI a Necessary Condition for NCC? The Role of Concepts

in Disambiguating Ambiguous Figures

I argued in the preceding section that if some content is CI, then it is necessarily

NCC; that is, all NCC’s are CI. I will now examine an objection against this view.

Before I do that, however, let me briefly address another worry that may arise from

that thesis.7 According to the standard definition of NCC, a person’s state S with

content p has NCC iff the person need not possess or apply the concepts used to

characterize p. Now, if the CI of S entails that the relevant information processing

leading to S was not directly effected by any concepts via cognition, the CP so

understood is not ruled out by NCC as defined above. What the definition of NCC

rules out is that the processing leading to S is not affected by the concepts that

characterize p, given that p is NCC, but this leaves it open that the processing can be

directly affected by other concepts. As a conceptual matter, NCC seems compatible

with CP and, thus, the thesis that all NCC is CI is false.

This objection is based on a conception of NCC that restricts the scope of the

concepts that are ruled out by the nonconceptual character of the content only to

those that are used to characterize the content in a canonical description, and allows

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other concepts. Let me first state that this objection is ruled out by my introductory

remark that I will discuss purely NCC, that is, contents that involve no concepts.Nevertheless, it is true that the standard definition allows this reading, which is

another problem with this definition in addition to the one I mentioned aboveconcerning the term ‘possesses’. However, even though the reading of NCC that

underlies this objection respects the letter of the definition, it violates the spirit of thedefinition, that is, the essence of what it is for a content to be NCC. Let me give

an example. One of the reasons that led philosophers to posit the existence ofperceptual content that is NCC was the need to allow the possibility that non-humananimals, and even neonates and very young infants who do not possess concepts,

do perceive the world and have perceptual experience of it. (Recall that forconceptualists, all these beings do not really perceive but just process subpersonal

information.) Now, were one to adopt the reading of NCC according to which theonly concepts that are ruled out are those that are used in canonical descriptions

of the content, allowing other concepts in, the argument for these beings wouldbe undercut, thus removing one of the prime reasons for adopting NCC in the

first place.Here is another reason this construal of NCC violates the essence of NCC.

It is commonly assumed by proponents of NCC that the claim that content p is

NCC means, among other things, that p is not conceptually structured, i.e., it isnon-propositional. Now if concepts others than those used in canonical descriptions

of p had affected it, they would have been part of p, even if they do not enter in acanonical description of p. Suppose, for example, that a viewer perceives a cat on

a mat, and the relevant processes cause the viewer to have the NCC p, without theconcepts concerning size, shape, color, and all the other concepts that would enter

in a canonical description of p playing any role in the process, thus justifying theconception of p as NCC. Suppose now that some concept, say, LOVABLE, has affected

the process and has made it into p because it is a concept that is not ruled out bythe standard definition of NCC that excludes only the concepts that enter in thecanonical description of p. In this case, the concept figures into p, making p partly

conceptual content, a hybrid amalgam of NCC and conceptual content (as thecontents of the states of late vision) against the assumption that NCC is not

propositionally structured.Suppose, further, that for some civilization, LOVABLE is part of the meaning of ‘cat’

and, thus, by being one of the accuracy conditions of the experience, enters into thecanonical description of the relevant NCC. Then, the standard definition excludes

LOVABLE from entering into p, and since there is no principled way to taxonomizeconcepts into those that can enter into canonical descriptions and those that cannot,one ends up with a situation in which one person’s content p is NCC and for another

person the same content is conceptual content, a situation that by commonconsensus is untenable (Raftopoulos, 2009; Tye, 2002, 2006). My point is that the

essence of some content p being NCC is not only that it does not involve thoseconcepts that are involved in a canonical description of it, but that it does not involve

any concepts whatsoever.8

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Let me turn to the main objection against my thesis. Tye thinks that the differences

in the phenomenal content of perception when seeing ambiguous figures, such as

the duck/rabbit figure, as duck-like or as rabbit-like may be caused by different

representational NCC being tokened even though these contents may be influenced

by the conceptual abilities of the viewer, which thus affect the phenomenal content of

experience:

Where a figure has an ambiguous decomposition into spatial parts, conceptscan influence which decomposition occurs. This is one way in which top-downprocessing can make a phenomenal difference. But once a particular decompo-sition is in place, the way in which an ambiguous figure phenomenally appearsis fixed. . . the concepts do not enter into the content of the sensory representationand they are not themselves phenomenally relevant. (Tye, 1995, p. 140)

The representational states being tokened have NCC because even though

I accept that conceiving of a visual scene or an ambiguous figure . . . may sometimesinfluence how we break it up cognitively into spatial parts, for example, and theshapes we then experience may not be the ones we would experience under adifferent conceptualization. Even so, the sensory experiences of shapes . . . do notrequire shape concepts. Seeing a cloud, for example, I will likely have an experienceof a shape for which I have no corresponding concept. (Tye, 2000, p. 61)

It is the nonconceptual character of the phenomenal content of the states produced

that allows Tye to talk of concepts not making a phenomenal difference (in Tye’s

PANIC theory [1995, 2000], phenomenal content is representational NCC). In view

of this, the thesis that concepts may influence the way an ambiguous figure is

phenomenally seen amounts to the claim that whether one sees in the phenomenal

sense a duck or a rabbit may have been caused by one’s conceptual abilities. However,

since the phenomenal content is NCC, the concepts are phenomenally irrelevant.

Differences in phenomenal content when seeing the duck/rabbit figure as duck-like

or rabbit-like are due to different NCC being tokened even though the states that

carry these contents may be caused by a spatial decomposition of the figure driven by

concepts. If concepts are not required to see the duck-like or rabbit-like figure, Tye’s

point is that concepts may affect the way one perceptually decomposes a visual scene

in a top-down manner, not that concepts are necessary for the perception of the

figures. Once a particular decomposition occurs, the way the figure phenomenally

appears is fixed and does not depend on any concepts. When the NCC is eventually

conceptualized, the phenomenal content is brought under some concept.

Tye’s views may be taken to support the thesis that one can be in a representational

state with NCC even though cognitive states may causally influence that state in a

top-down manner, that is, even though early vision is cognitively penetrated. Thus,

cognitive impenetrability is not a necessary condition for NCC:

One’s conceptual capacities often are involved in determining the content ofa perceptual representation, and yet that the content of that representation isnonconceptual . . . . The concepts in the subject’s possession influence the contentof a personal level representation. (Bermudez & Cahen, 2008, pp. 14–15)

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Since perceptual content may be NCC even though concepts are involved in

determining it and, thus, even though the content is CP, CI is not a necessarycondition for NCC. This interpretation is based on the intuitive notion of CP.

The phenomenal content is causally penetrated by the contents of cognitive statesif the causal explanation of how or why it is that the perceiver is in an experiential

state with this content, as opposed to some other content, has to take into accountnot only the perceiver’s position and the environmental conditions but also her

cognitive abilities.To examine this objection, let me briefly discuss the role of concepts in

disambiguating ambiguous figures. Here, I present an oversimplified account (see

Raftopoulos, 2011, for a detailed account). During perception, figures are pre-attentively individuated from the background and from other objects. Properties of

the object such as size, shape, color, orientation, and motion are retrieved bottom-upfrom the visual scene. The phenomenal content of a perceiver consists in

configurations of such properties. However, on certain occasions, as in the duck/rabbit figure, more than one figure-ground segmentation in an image are possible, in

which case the image is ambiguous. None of the properties retrieved bottom-up fromthe image by themselves allow the distinction between a rabbit-like and a duck-likefigure. Rather, it is the way the figure is decomposed and organized that determines

whether a duck or a rabbit is perceived.Studies with ambiguous figures suggest that the percept depends on where spatial

attention focuses on the image. Research regarding the role of spatial attention indetermining the percept suggests, although not conclusively, that the locus of spatial

attention is important in determining how one perceives such figures (Kawabata,1986; Peterson & Gibson, 1994; Toppino, 2003). In ambiguous figures, there are

some crucial points attention to which leads to different decompositions of the imageand, therefore, to different percepts. In the case of the diamond/square ambiguous

figure, for instance, attending to the corners of the figure or the middle of thesides allows the perception of two different kinds of symmetries, which determinewhether the figure is perceived as a square or as a diamond (Ferrante, Gerbino, &

Rock, 1997).Spatial attention can be bottom-up image driven (exogenous attention) or

top-down conceptually driven (endogenous attention). In exogenous attention, thefeatures of the image ‘‘pop-up’’ and capture attention by making the crucial points

more salient, whereas in endogenous attention, concepts determines focus. In thecase of endogenous attention, the instructions to, or the expectations of, the perceiver

may explain the process by which concepts operate with bi-stable stimuli in tasks inwhich only one stimulus is present. Concepts facilitate one interpretation overanother. Work with bi-stable stimuli (Driver & Baylis, 1996; Peterson & Hochberg,

1983) sheds light on the mechanisms that underlie the way concepts bias objectsegmentation. The mechanism underlying the effect of concepts on ambiguous

figures involves the voluntary control of spatial attention, that is, where to focus inthe stimulus (Peterson & Gibson, 1994). The findings suggest that the cognitive states

of the viewer do not affect the organization of the stimulus. The way a bi-stable

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stimulus can be perceived depends on where attention is fixed, owing to the role of

the crucial fixation points.Now, one would be licensed to draw the conclusion that the phenomenal content

of the experience of an ambiguous figure is both NCC and CP content only if onethought that the role of concepts in disambiguating ambiguous figures entailed

that the perceptual states ensued are CP by cognitive influences. Against this, bothTye’s view that concepts determine only the spatial decomposition of the figure and

not what one sees, and the analysis of ambiguous figures presented above, suggestthat concepts influence, through spatial attention, the areas in the figure on whichone focuses. However, they constitute either a pre-perceptual process, in which case

they rig-up perceptual processing and do not affect early visual processing itself, orthey affect vision after early vision (as shown by the registration of N2 that indexes

cognitively driven attentional effects on extrastriate cortex and occurs at about 170–200 ms post-stimulus). In both cases, they do not entail its CP.

The way I construe CI contrasts with the intuitive notion of CI, according to whichwhen some conceptual content is invoked in a causal explanation of some

phenomenal content, the phenomenal content is CP. The CI as construed heretakes a different stand. What one chooses to attend to may be determined bycognitive factors, but this type of attentional modulation occurs before the operation

of early vision and does not directly causally affect early vision. That concepts areinvoked in a causal explanation of how one came to have a state with a certain

phenomenal content does not warrant the conclusion that the phenomenal content isCP. Tye is correct that although concepts may determine the decomposition of the

figure, they do not enter into it and are phenomenally irrelevant.Recently, Macpherson (2012) has argued that color perception is CP, and has

proposed a mechanism to explain the penetration that essentially involves thetop-down role of imagistic content activated by our knowledge of the colors of

objects. Strictly speaking, this claim does not threaten the thesis that all purely NCCis CI since Macpherson’s color-content, being an amalgam of both bottom-upcontent and top-down imagistic content, is partly conceptual content and, thus, is

not purely NCC. However, Macpherson’s claim seems to undermine one of mybasic assumptions, namely the view that personal-level early vision content is CI.

Macpherson’s argument would threaten my assumption if Macpherson had showedeither that the empirical results she adduces are explained in terms of altering the

experience of color and not in terms of perceptual color judgments, or, if onesupposes that she has indeed showed the former, that the top-down imagistic

effects influence early vision. Macpherson makes a weak case for the former claim(see Zeimbekis, forthcoming, for an argument that the relevant experiments could beexplained in terms of perceptual color judgments and not in terms of effects on color

experience), and she is certainly wrong with respect to the latter claim.The following consideration suffices to prove my point. In the experiment that

Macpherson discusses, if Macpherson is correct and imagistic content affects theperception of the color of the paper-cut heart, this presupposes that the participants

have recognized the paper-cut shape as a heart and have retrieved in working

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memory the characteristic color of hearts. Now, object recognition, as signaled by the

P3 ERP waveform, occurs at about 270–600 ms after stimulus onset. Even if one

assumes that the activation of the characteristic color of hearts and the top-down

spread of this information occurs instantaneously, it will take at least 270 ms for the

imagistic top-down effects to affect the visual cortex, and hence, the perception

of the color. However, early vision lasts up to 120 ms. Thus, the imagistic effects do

not affect early vision but late vision.

4. Is Cognitive Impenetrability a Sufficient Condition for NCC?

Concepts are to be found in early vision in one of two ways. First, they can be are

embedded in the perceptual system from the beginning or constructed within it as a

result of its operation. Second, they can enter the early vision system through

top-down cognitive influences. If one rejects the first possibility (as I will do next),

one is left with the second possibility. However, if early vision is not influenced

directly by cognition and is CI, concepts do not enter early vision in a top-down

manner. As a result, concepts do not exist in the contents of early vision, which

means that these contents are not conceptually structured; the content of early vision

is NCC. Note that one is in states with NCC, not because one does not possess the

relevant concepts, but because concepts cannot be brought to bear in early vision

regardless of whether concepts are possessed by the person who is in such states

or not.Against my view, one could claim, first, that early vision contents may be concept-

involving independently of whether they are CP or CI by inherently involving

concepts, and not by these concepts entering early vision through the causal effects

of cognitive states. This would mean, in turn, that early vision contents could be

conceptual even though they are CI. Specifically, one could argue that even though

early vision is CI, the content of these states could be conceptual if one assumed that

some concepts are embedded in the contents of early vision, not by reaching this

stage via top-down flow of information, but by being there either from the beginning

or as a result of the development of the circuits of early vision. This is Fodor’s (2007)

view, and also a possibility considered by Block (2007b, p. 346). Concepts can be

embedded in the visual system and perhaps can be used by it, and this results in

conceptual early vision contents. For Pylyshyn (2007, p. 52), such concepts may be

‘‘codes for proximal properties involved in perception, such as edges, gradients,

or the sorts of labels that appear in early computational vision,’’ or, in general, codes

for those properties that are involved in the operational constraints (Raftopoulos,

2009) hardwired in early vision, and whose role is to ensure that the various

underdetermination problems in vision are solved. Or, they may be sensory concepts

for colors, shapes, etc. (Block, 2007b; Fodor, 2007). However, these concepts do not

play the role that concepts are usually thought to play in cognition.First, the operational constraints into which Pylyshyn-like embedded concepts

enter are hardwired; as such, these ‘‘concepts’’ are not represented in the system

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either, which is why Pylyshyn calls them ‘‘codes’’ or ‘‘labels.’’ This means that they

are not like the ordinary concepts (recall that concepts are context independent,freely repeatable elements that figure constitutively in propositional contents), which

are representational elements. Second, and this point also concerns sensory concepts,they can be used only in the processes of early vision, and they are not available for

cognitive tasks because, among other things, they cannot combine logically and theydo participate in inferences. Perceptual contents, being iconic and non-discursive,

lack the formal structure that would allow them to enter into logical relations.The reason is that iconic representations have no canonical decomposition; that is,although they have interpretable parts, they have no constituent parts because they

are homogeneous. Discursive representations, on the other hand, have canonicaldecomposition because they consist of distinguishable parts (Fodor, 2007; Heck,

2007; Raftopoulos, 2009).Third, they do not allow re-identification across times and contexts of the

objects formed during early vision (Campbell, 2006; Kelly, 2001; Pylyshyn, 2007;Raftopoulos, 2009). Fourth, they do not satisfy Evans’ (1982) generality constraint

(Heck, 2007; Raftopoulos, 2009) Thus, if one uses ‘concept’ with its usualsignificance, contents in early vision do not include concepts. If one accepts myargument and espouses the view that early vision does not inherently contain

concepts, and is CI and encapsulated from cognitive effects that would transferconcepts into perception in a top-down manner, one has to conclude that early

vision contents are not conceptually structured and, thus, are NCC.A second objection to the sufficiency condition of my thesis is that the notion of

CP applied to concepts picks out the role of those concepts in influencing perception.However, whether some content is conceptual or nonconceptual is a matter of how

the content is individuated, and not a matter of any causal influences on itsformation. Individuating a perceptual experience with content p requires that one

consider its functional role in making available a perceptual belief that p, and thisrequires concepts. Perceptual experience possesses conceptual content (it may be thecontent that conceptualizes some NCC and makes the viewer aware of the way things

are) and this may occur without the concepts playing a causal role in determining thecontent. A state can be CI and yet have conceptual content.

When one sees a duck, we can think that this is how things appear to one in havingthe experience, but that need not entail that any concepts played a causal role.

Suppose that upon viewing the duck/rabbit figure, exogenous spatial attentioneventually determines that one sees a duck. That is, suppose that no concepts

influenced the NCC of the experience. Now, the objector claims, to be able to have anexperience with phenomenal content as of a duck, one must possess the conceptDUCK. What happens is simply that some NCC is formed first and then it is brought

under the concept DUCK and becomes the phenomenal content of the experience,without this concept having played a causal role in the formation of the perceptual

content that will be subsumed under the concept. The application of the concept isconstitutively required for having some phenomenal content, but the concept does

not affect the perceptual content itself. The conceptualization of the NCC to form

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phenomenal content is required so that the content acquires the requisite structure

that will enable it to support or evidence the relevant perceptual belief. Thus, the statehas conceptual content, and yet the NCC that serves as input to the conceptualization

process has not been CP; some concept is being superimposed on the NCC andproduces the phenomenal content.

In this account, the phenomenal content is not formed in early vision but in latevision, because in order for a NCC to become phenomenal content, some concept(s)

must be brought to bear, and concepts influence visual processing in late vision. Thisis compatible with the claim that phenomenal content is CI, because the NCC, whichwill become phenomenal content, is not causally influenced by some concepts.

In late vision, a concept(s) applies to the NCC and renders it conceptual andphenomenal. Therefore, when one claims that concepts are involved in the

phenomenal content of the experience, what is meant is that the concepts determinethe transition from the NCC to phenomenal content, and this is compatible with the

NCC being CI. Perhaps this is what Tye means, namely, that conceptually penetratedrepresentational subsystems (like late vision) contribute to determining the nature

of the phenomenal content. Thus, phenomenal content is conceptual content that ispartly formed during late vision, and this explains the role of concepts in influencingphenomenal content.

The objection presupposes the view that phenomenal content has to be conceptualcontent. What underlies this is the view that the NCC content of early vision cannot

be the content of experience since neither is it personal level content, nor does it havethe requisite structure to support perceptual beliefs. For things to be personal level

perceptual experiences, they need to be capable of playing a specific role in makingavailable certain kinds of structured thoughts. However, early vision does not consist

in personal level contents and cannot play such a role; only conceptual contents cando this, since only these have the necessary structure that could explain the formation

of perceptual beliefs. If NCC exists, it can only be the content of subpersonalinformation processing states. Even though there may be some CI content, it doesnot have the required structure to support perceptual judgments.

Answering the objection would exceed the limitations of this paper. Instead, I willmake two brief remarks. First, in response to the question whether NCC has enough

structure to support perceptual judgments, I have argued elsewhere (Raftopoulos,2009) that NCC has all the requisite structure to play that role. The NCC retrieved

from a scene represents viewer-centered surfaces of objects and parts of objectsstanding in various relations and having various observable properties. Even though

the content of perception does not have the structure of judgeable content, it stillrepresents a manifold of objects, properties, and events (Crane, 2009, p. 465).Johnston (2006, pp. 282–283) writes that the content of perception is not a

propositional content but a host of interconnected exemplifications of properties,relations, and kinds.

Second, the view that early vision content is subpersonal content and cannot be thephenomenal content of experience is based on an erroneous assumption. The content

of early vision comprises information retrieved from a visual scene concerning

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both personal level contents, such as viewer-centered shapes, color, motion, etc,

and subpersonal information processing content (Bermudez, 1995; Heck, 2007;

Raftopoulos, 2009; Tye, 2000). As I have said, LRP in early vision suffices for the

representation of personal level contents. If NCC has enough structure to support

perceptual beliefs, and if NCC arises at a stage of visual processing that affords visual

awareness, the objection looses its grip.Let me now take on the claim that phenomenal content is formed in late vision

and can be both conceptual and CI, since what happens is simply that a concept is

applied to the CI perceptual content of early vision. This line of thought assumes

that in late vision, when attention or working memories affect visual processing,

some concepts are applied to the perceptual content that is retrieved in early vision

rendering it the phenomenal content of the experience, while the perceptual content

itself remains unaltered. This assumption is wrong. When attention and working

memory intervene, they modulate the processing in the visual areas and, thus, alter

the perceptual content; the perceptual content in early vision is different from the

perceptual content in late vision (Raftopoulos, 2009). If the phenomenal content is

formed in late vision, it is not the perceptual content of early vision conceptualized.

It visually (re)presents the world differently from the content of early vision,

because attention and working memory affect the visual representations themselves.

Moreover, since cognitively driven attention and working memory involve concepts,

their effects on perceptual processing signify that the perceptual content that is

formed owing to their influence is CP content. Thus, if the phenomenal content is

formed in late vision, it is both conceptual and CP, which does not threaten the

CI�NCC thesis.

Finally, and in reference to Tye, if one holds that phenomenal content is partly

formed in late vision, and one also rejects the distinction between the state view and

the content view as Tye does, one would construe phenomenal content as conceptual

content. However, for Tye (2000), phenomenal content is NCC. Late vision contents

are by definition constituted by concepts and, therefore, the phenomenal content

cannot be formed during late vision. Concepts are not needed for some content to

become phenomenal content.

5. Concluding Discussion

If the CI�NCC thesis holds, the following definition of NCC follows: X is in a

representational perceptual state S with NCC P iff X has (or is being disposed to

have) a state with content that is (directly) causally connected, given the prevailing

illuminating conditions and the perceptual make up of the viewer, in a certain way to

instantiated P-hood independent of the cognitive states of X and their contents.9 This

definition consists of two parts: (i) X’s state S with content P is a nonconceptual state

iff it is caused by the instantiated P-hood without being directly causally affected by

X’s cognitive states; and (ii) the content P of X’s perceptual state S is NCC iff it is

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independent of the content of the cognitive states of X, that is, if the (conceptual)

contents of X’s cognitive states do not enter into P.I have explained why I think that the main thesis holds, and I have answered some

objections that are usually addressed against it. Of course, I do not claim that I have

offered a knock-out argument for the thesis. However, my arguments, supplementedwith the relevant scientific evidence that I have discussed elsewhere, make it possible

that this thesis is not only intuitive, but is also the safest bet for the time being.

If I am right, discussions regarding the conceptual or nonconceptual natureof perception and discussions pertaining to what kind of properties could be

represented nonconceptually can be supplemented with discussions concerning the

CI of early vision and the sorts of properties that can be extracted by it.

Notes

[1] According to the standard definition of NCC, a mental content of person S is nonconceptualif S need not possess any of the concepts that enter into the specification of its accuracyconditions. Lacking concepts, NCC is not propositionally structured. A mental contentis conceptual if it consists of concepts, where a concept is a constant, context independent,and freely repeatable element that figures constitutively in propositional contents.

[2] Except when the context makes it clear that I discuss states that can have both NCC andconceptual content, ‘NCC’ refers to the content of states that can have only NCC.

[3] The existence of a CI state with conceptual content contradicts the sufficient condition evenif one assumes that the CI state has both conceptual content and NCC. That there could be astate that has partly conceptual content while being CI refutes the sufficiency claim.

[4] Phenomenal awareness is identical to Dretske’s (2002) ‘‘thing-awareness,’’ which isperceptual awareness of some object or event and is awareness one has of NCC, and isdistinguished from ‘‘fact awareness,’’ which is awareness that something is the case andis awareness of conceptual content, since for Dretske (2002, p. 421) the awareness of factstakes the form of beliefs. One can have object awareness without believing or realizing thatone sees an object. One has fact awareness when one introspects one’s perceptual contentand is aware of the fact that one has such content.

[5] Rigging-Up refers to the enhancement of the baseline activity of neurons that are tuned to alocation or features that are cued before the onset of any stimuli. Rigging up the FFS isdifferent from top-down cognitive effects and is not a case of CP of early vision(Raftopoulos, 2009).

[6] I will keep talking of NCC in terms of concept possession. However, this is not correct.As I have argued elsewhere (Raftopoulos, 2009), what matters for NCC is not that thesubject not possess the salient concepts but that she does not apply them. This allows thesubject having some NCC even if she possesses the relevant concepts just because the statethe subject is in is produced by processes that are not influenced by concepts even thoughthe subject possesses them.

[7] I wish to thank an anonymous referee for raising this objection.[8] This objection is at the heart of the controversy regarding the distinction between the state

and the content view of NCC. The state view, as we have seen, states that a mental content isNCC if a person need not possess any of the concepts that enter into the specification of thecorrectness or accuracy conditions for that content. Since, according to the distinction,a state can be nonconceptual but its content conceptual, it is possible that the contentinvolve some concepts, not the concepts that characterize the accuracy conditions of thecontent because the subject does not posess them, but some other irrelevant concepts, as in

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the objection I am discussing. The discussion above provides another reason why the state/content distinction is (or should be) unacceptable to nonconceptualists.

[9] The illuminating conditions and the perceptual make-up render misrepresentation possible.Also, for well-known externalist reasons about contents, the content of perception alsoconstitutively depends on facts concerning the interaction of the members of the species of Xwith the environment in evolutionary history, facts in the history of X, and facts concerningthe physical/computational make-up of X’s perceptual system.

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