The Experimental Phenomenology of Perception. A Collective Reflection on the Present and Future of this Approach

Abstract

The paper presents the result of a collective reflection inspired by the individual suggestions of 30 researchers working in different research areas. They are all familiar with the Experimental Phenomenology of Perception, and are aware of the importance that this approach might represent nowadays in their specific research field. The picture that emerges from this ‘mosaic’ stimulates us to consider the potential future developments of this approach if we accept that we need to push its borders beyond the traditional aims of the study of perception (as masterfully developed by the historic Italian Maestri of this approach). If we take this broader view, the Experimental Phenomenology of Perception can extend its perimeters from an analysis of strictly perceptual aspects to an analysis of cognitive and metacognitive aspects (such as aesthetic evaluations, the perception of risk, the experience of certainty/uncertainty in a reasoning process, the perception of proximity to/distance from the solution to a problem and meaning-making in language). The cognitive and metacognitive aspects referred to are grounded in and modelled on the perceiver’s experience of a given situation.

Keywords

• experimental phenomenology of perception
• perceived structure of phenomena
• from perception to representation
• grounded cognition
• embodied cognition