Perceptual binding problem Author: Elena Pasquinelli [INSTNICOD] Contributors: none Current version (on 2005-07-11) The fact that natural perception is usually multimodal (events of the world activate multiple sensory modalities) and the consequent development of multimodal interfaces raises the problem of how complex multimodal perceptual units are formed. The possibility is described of intersensory conflicts [Welch & Warren, 1981] and of illusory conjunctions where wrong associations of features are realized depending on the perceptual context [Treisman, 1996]. The problem arises then of how information about separate features of objects is combined, thus giving rise to correct or incorrect combinations. The problem has received the name of binding problem. As a matter of fact, the binding problem arises only when certain theoretical assumptions are made about perception. Specifically, the binding problem is an inevitable consequence of the assumption that perception is composed of different, parallel sub-systems for the detection of different properties (for example, the concept of distinct sensory modalities). In this case, independently sensed “properties” have no coherent relation to one another; coherence must be generated internally, that is, through processing. How this internal processing might operate is the crux of the binding problem. Within this framework, solutions for the binding problem have been identified by different authors in the existence of neural spatial and temporal mechanisms [Crick & Koch, 1990; Stein & Meredith, 1993] or of attentional mechanisms [Treisman, 1996]. However, under theoretical assumptions that do not consider sensory modalities as separate systems (as in the ecological approach to perception), properties do not need to be bound together following to their extraction, hence, there is no binding problem. The assumption is made that perception is based on sensitivity to the Global Array [Stoffregen & Bardy, 2001]. The necessity of internal mechanisms can also be undermined by the recourse to external connections between

action and perceptual consequences in different sensory modalities conceived as different types of sensorimotor contingencies [O'Regan & Noe, 2001].

References: Crick, F., Koch, C. (1990). Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness. Seminars in the neurosciences, 2, 263-275 O'Regan, K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 939-1011. Stein, B. E., Meredith, M. E. (1993). The merging of the senses. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. Stoffregen, T. A., & Bardy, B. G. (2001). On Specification and the Senses. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1). Treisman, A. 1996. The binding problem. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 6, 171-178. Welch, R. B., & Warren, D. H. (1981). Immediate perceptual response to intersensory discordance. Psychological bulletin, 88, 638-667.

Related items: Coherence (of perceptual experience) Perceptual conflict Perceptual modalities. Classification Cross-modal integration Cross-modality

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