# The structure of egocentric space  ## Metadata - Author: [[by Adrian Alsmith]] - Full Title: The structure of egocentric space - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The text discusses how auditory and haptic experiences, like visual experiences, can be egocentrically structured, contributing to a unified picture of the world. Different accounts, such as switch accounts and sensory accounts, are explored to understand how perspectival unity is achieved across various sensory modalities. An agentive account is proposed to show how egocentric structures in perception can be unified in relation to a single agent, highlighting the importance of bodily action in integrating sensory information. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/169687513 - Source File: The structure of egocentric space by Adrian Alsmith.pdf ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > There is only one ego- centric space, because there is only one behavioural space’ (Evans, 1982, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx9144gvkfta00q5cav89y1s)) > Thus, Dominic Gregory writes: ‘On the face of it [ . . . ] it is bizarre to think that auditory and visual directions derive from apparent action-involving relationships between sights, sounds, and our conscious selves’ (Gregory, 2013, p. 38). For another, they might not see exactly the relevance of this idea to the matter of building up ‘a unitary picture of the world’ from the various egocentrically structured presentations of that world available to the perceiver. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx915yr2tngqx47ajsh2w0wk)) > what is key to our discussion here is not how many dimensions sensory fields possess, but the ways in which they are characteristically bounded on those dimensions. Indeed, it is a familiar idea that the bound- aries of the visual field are a consequence of eye position, head morphology, the position and structure of the eyes, etc. In this way, the eyes constitute a perspective determining a limita- tion structure of a kind, the *human* visual field, one that is rather different from that of, for example, a hammerhead shark. For the same reason, the human visual field is different from the human auditory field in that the former is bounded on the vertical and horizontal planes in ways that the latter is not.6 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx91g7k4pn1kdbyfqemkdex0)) > I will assume that being egocentrically structured is minimally sufficient for any content to be perspectival ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx91jgag49a2mat6zpjw4ek5)) > It is in haptic perception that we can most easily discern tactual experience as egocentric- ally structured.10 Take a simple case, such as feeling an object in one hand that extends be- yond one’s grip. The feel of the object would be structured relative to a perspective embedded within the hand. Parts of the object would be perceived from the hand, in the sense that the perspective of the egocentric frame of reference would be centred within the hand (e.g. within the palm, according to one’s grip). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx982gepap7g74bjg31qjypv)) > It will be useful to have a device for expressing the problem in its various guises simultan- eously. For that purpose, I offer the case of *Split*, a subject whose total perceptual experience is of a virtual world. This virtual world is a conjunction of perfect visual, auditory, and tactual worlds, each of which is a facsimile of a world genuinely perceptible through these sensory modalities. *Split’s* perceptual experience is structured by perspectives embedded within and anchored to three humanoid virtual bodies. There is no topological connection between the virtual parts of each of *Split’s* bodies. And each is independently mobile. *Audio*, from which she hears the audible properties of an auditory world, is thus a distinct body from *Visuo*, from which she sees the visible properties of a visual world, and *Tactuo* is a third body, from which she feels the tangible properties of a tactual world. > Assume further that *Split’s* auditory experience is entirely structured by the shape and position of *Audio’s* head, within which *Split’s* interaural and interocular perspectives are em- bedded. *Split’s* visual experience is causally connected to a different body—*Visuo*—and has a similarly complex relation to that body. For it is structured both by the shape and position of *Visuo’s* head, within which *Split’s* visual perspective is embedded, but also *Visuo’s* torso, to which the left-right axis of her visual experience is anchored, as in Peacocke’s Buckingham Palace example above. *Split’s* tactual experience presents potentially the most complexity, with potentially as many anchoring and embedding relations as there are parts of *Tactuo’s* body engaged in haptically perceiving the tangible properties of the world. But as noted above, we can simplify the situation somewhat by considering only the part of *Split’s* tactual experience structured according to a perspective embedded within the hand. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx6m9f20846kpssgrvc846s8)) - Note: Here's a simplified version for your second grader: Imagine a character named Split who experiences a virtual world made up of perfect visual, auditory, and touch worlds. Split's experiences are like playing in a make-believe world where she has three bodies: one for hearing sounds, one for seeing things, and one for feeling textures. Each body works separately, so the body for hearing is different from the one for seeing or touching. For example, when Split hears something, it's because of how her "Audio" body's head is positioned. When she sees things, it's because of her "Visuo" body, and when she touches things, it's through her "Tactuo" body. Split's adventures in her virtual world are all connected to these different bodies, making her experiences unique and exciting. > Despite the problem at hand being distinct from questions concerning unity relations be- tween the senses, one might take inspiration from a certain approach to the latter in giving an account of the former. It is commonly assumed that a subject’s perceptual experience at a time can be multisensory, in that it may consist in multiple modality-specific experi- ences (or modality-specific contents). But while it is true that perceptual processing is highly multisensory, as Spence & Bayne (2014) note, it is difficult to shake the sceptical view that ‘all such cross-modal interactions take place “below” (or perhaps “prior to”) the level of aware- ness’ (p. 107). Moreover, it is possible that *switches* between modality experiences might occur at a temporal scale beneath our capacity for introspective discrimination—all of which makes it hard to find dispositive evidence that perceptual experience is multisensory in the relevant respect, and to rule out the alternative unisensory view that ‘a subject’s awareness of ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx6mgfjca88nre2djqzayb6j)) > the world involves frequent and rapid alternations (or switches) between different modal- ities (ibid., p. 102). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx6mgmqbxztttq70h9tmxxhs)) > Sensory accounts establish spatial relations by means of overlap in sensory fields, transformation accounts by means of coordinate transformation, and ultimate accounts by means of an ul- timate frame of reference serving as a universal for such transformations. I have argued that each of these kinds of accounts is insufficient to resolve the problem at hand, but there is a sense in which each picks out one of the many means by which egocentric structures can be related. Indeed, *pace* the denial of synchronic perspectival unity, there may also be a lesson to be learned from switching accounts. For whether or not we do experience the world from multiple perspectives at a time, it is certainly plausible that, even as a general rule, our atten- tional focus may be such that a single egocentric structure may be more prominent than the others. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx9bft4sm1jwsat1vm3nck5b)) > e ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hx9k3s1dfyvna34zdmtef82x))