Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:05:03.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Suboptimalities for sure: Arguments from evolutionary theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2019

Rob Withagen ,
John van der Kamp  and
Matthieu de Wit
Rob Withagen
Affiliation:
Center for Human Movement Sciences, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands. [email protected]://www.rug.nl/staff/r.g.withagen/
John van der Kamp
Affiliation:
Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email protected]://vu-nl.academia.edu/johnvanderkamp
Matthieu de Wit
Affiliation:
Department of Neuroscience, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA 18104. [email protected]://matthieumdewit.wordpress.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Rahnev & Denison (R&D) addressed the issue of (sub)optimalities in perception but only made a passing reference to evolutionary thinking. In our commentary, we concur with the authors’ claim that evolution does not work toward optimalities, but argue that an evolutionary perspective on perception questions the Bayesian approach that the authors adopted.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, M. L. (2014) After phrenology: Neural reuse and the interactive brain. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chemero, A. (2009) Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1859/1985) On the origin of species. Penguin.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982) The extended phenotype: The gene as the unit of selection. Freeman.Google Scholar
de Wit, M M., van der Kamp, J. & Withagen, R. (2015) Visual illusions and direct perception: Elaborating on Gibson's insights. New Ideas in Psychology 36:1–9.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. & Taylor, C. (2015) Retrieving realism. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Endler, J. A. (1986) Natural selection in the wild. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. (1966) The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. (1979/1986) The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Lewontin, R. (1978) The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist program. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 205:581–98.Google Scholar
Heft, H. (2007) The social constitution of perceiver–environment reciprocity. Ecological Psychology 19:85–105.Google Scholar
Jacobs, D. M. & Michaels, C. F. (2007) Direct learning. Ecological Psychology 19:321–49.Google Scholar
Lewontin, R. C. (1970) The units of selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1:1–18.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (2002) What evolution is. Phoenix.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (2004) What makes biology unique? Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, J. (1837–1840/1938) The elements of physiology. Murray.Google Scholar
Reed, E. S. (1982) The corporeal ideas hypothesis and the origin of scientific psychology. Review of Metaphysics 35:731–52.Google Scholar
Withagen, R. (2004) The pickup of nonspecifying variables does not entail indirect perception. Ecological Psychology 16:237–53.Google Scholar
Withagen, R. & Chemero, A. (2009) Naturalizing perception: Developing the Gibsonian approach to perception along evolutionary lines. Theory & Psychology 19:363–89.Google Scholar