TY - JOUR

T1 - Distinguishing imagining from perceiving

T2 - reality monitoring and the ‘Perky effect’

AU - Todd, Cain

PY - 2024/7/25

Y1 - 2024/7/25

N2 - This paper examines the problem of how we distinguish, phenomenologically, sensory imagination from perception. I suggest that philosophical discussions of this issue have been hampered by a surprising failure to carefully distinguish what is involved in our awareness of being in a state of imagining, from our awareness of the imagistic content. Rectifying this allows us, first, to gain a clearer insight into the problem at issue, and it also allows for a new interpretation of the so-called ‘Perky effect’, whereby subjects supposedly confuse imagining for perceiving. Second, it allows us to give a more nuanced account of reality monitoring and of the metacognitive mechanisms underpinning the phenomenal features we rely upon to distinguish state from content.

AB - This paper examines the problem of how we distinguish, phenomenologically, sensory imagination from perception. I suggest that philosophical discussions of this issue have been hampered by a surprising failure to carefully distinguish what is involved in our awareness of being in a state of imagining, from our awareness of the imagistic content. Rectifying this allows us, first, to gain a clearer insight into the problem at issue, and it also allows for a new interpretation of the so-called ‘Perky effect’, whereby subjects supposedly confuse imagining for perceiving. Second, it allows us to give a more nuanced account of reality monitoring and of the metacognitive mechanisms underpinning the phenomenal features we rely upon to distinguish state from content.

U2 - 10.1007/s11097-024-10009-8

DO - 10.1007/s11097-024-10009-8

M3 - Journal article

JO - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

JF - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

SN - 1568-7759

ER -