Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T23:09:22.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Seeing for ourselves: Insights into the development of moral behaviour from models of visual perception and misperception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2018

Daniel Collerton
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Bensham Hospital, Gateshead, NE8 4YL, UK. [email protected]@ncl.ac.uk
Elaine Perry
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Bensham Hospital, Gateshead, NE8 4YL, UK. [email protected]@ncl.ac.uk

Abstract

Parallels from visual processing support Doris's cognitive architecture underlying moral agency. Unconscious visual processes change with conscious reflection. The sparse and partial representations of vision, its illusions, and hallucinations echo biases in moral reasoning and behaviour. Traditionally, unconscious moral processes are developed by teaching and reflection. Modern neuroscience could bypass reflection and directly influence unconscious processes, creating new dangers.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
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

Catholic Church (2000) Catechism of the Catholic Church popular revised edition. Continuum.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. B. & Salapatek, P., eds. ( 2013) Infant perception: From sensation to cognition: Basic visual processes, vols. 1 & 2. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Collerton, D., Perry, E. & McKeith, I. (2005) Why people see things that are not there: a novel perception and attention deficit model for recurrent complex visual hallucinations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):737–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crockett, M. J., Siegel, J. Z., Kurth-Nelson, Z., Ousdal, O. T., Story, G., Frieband, C., Grosse-Rueskamp, J. M., Dayan, P. & Dolan, R. J. (2015) Dissociable effects of serotonin and dopamine on the valuation of harm in moral decision making. Current Biology 25(14):1852–59.Google Scholar
Doris, J. M. (2015b). Talking to our selves: Reflection, ignorance, and agency. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fumagalli, M. & Priori, A. (2012) Functional and clinical neuroanatomy of morality. Brain 135(7):2006–21.Google Scholar
Funk, C. M. & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2009) The functional brain architecture of human morality. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 19(6):678–81.Google Scholar
Kanwisher, N. (2010) Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(25):11163–70.Google Scholar
Luetchford, M. (2001) Right and wrong in Buddhism [transcript]. Available at: http://www.dogensangha.org.uk/PDF/rightwrong.pdf.Google Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M. (2011) Hallucinations and sensory overrides. Annual Review of Anthropology 40:7185.Google Scholar
Mendez, M. F. (2009) The neurobiology of moral behavior: Review and neuropsychiatric implications. CNS Spectrums 14(11):608–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mocellin, R., Walterfang, M. & Velakoulis, D. (2006) Neuropsychiatry of complex visual hallucinations. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 40(9):742–51.Google Scholar
Rees, G. (2014) Hallucinatory aspects of normal vision. In: The neuroscience of visual hallucinations, ed. Collerton, D., Perry, E. & Mosimann, U. P., pp. 4757. Wiley.Google Scholar
Sellaro, R., Nitsche, M. A. & Colzato, L. S. (2016) The stimulated social brain: Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on social cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1369(1):218–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Siegel, J. Z. & Crockett, M. J. (2013) How serotonin shapes moral judgment and behavior. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1299(1):4251.Google Scholar
Simons, D. J. & Rensink, R. A. (2005) Change blindness: Past, present, and future. Trends in cognitive sciences 9(1):1620.Google Scholar
Thomson, C., Wilson, R., Collerton, D., Freeston, M. & Dudley, R. (2017) Cognitive behavioural therapy for visual hallucinations: An investigation using a single-case experimental design. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X17000174.Google Scholar
Waters, F., Collerton, D., Jardri, R., Pins, D., Dudley, R., Blom, J. D., Mosimann, U. P., Eperjesi, F., Ford, S. & Larøi, F. (2014) Visual hallucinations in the psychosis spectrum and comparative information from neurodegenerative disorders and eye disease. Schizophrenia Bulletin 40:(Suppl 4):S233–45.Google Scholar
Wilson, R., Collerton, D., Freeston, M., Christodoulides, T. & Dudley, R. (2015) Is seeing believing? The process of change during cognitive–behavioural therapy for distressing visual hallucinations. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 23:285–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed