Liane Ströbel

Liane Ströbel: Sensory-Motor Concepts and Perception

Sensory-Motor Concepts and Perception

The close connection between sensory-motor concepts and perception is the focus of the last part of this volume: Lionel Brunel, Denis Brouillet and Rémy Versace’s approach is based on the close link between memory and perception and analyzes the influence of an auditory memory component upon the sensory processing of a sound by demonstrating the strong linkage between the access to our memory and the reactivation of the relevant sensory components, as part of the function of the respective context or the task. Martin Butz and Daniel Zöllner argue that progressively com- plex concepts and compositional structures can be developed starting from very basic perceptual and motor control mechanisms. They propose that the innateness of con- cepts may not be directly genetically imprinted, but concepts and compositional concept structures may be indirectly predetermined to develop due to the ontogenetic path laid out in the genes of the organism, the morphological constraints given by the body of the organism, and the environmental reality with which the organism interacts. Alex Tillas investigates the relationship between natural language and thinking. He takes as his starting point the assumption that thinking is imagistic, to the extent that con- ceptual thoughts are built out of concepts which, in turn, are built out of perceptual representations; and that concepts – the building blocks of thoughts – are association- istic in their causal patterns. His claim is supported by independent empirical evidence obtained from work done with aphasic subjects.