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What Do Object Files Pick Out?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

E. J. Green
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Abstract

Many authors have posited an “object file” system, which underlies perceptual selection and tracking of objects. Several have proposed that this system internalizes principles specifying what counts as an object and relies on them during tracking. Here I consider a popular view on which the object file system is tuned to entities that satisfy principles of three-dimensionality, cohesion, and boundedness. I argue that the evidence gathered in support of this view is consistent with a more permissive view on which object files select and track according to well-known perceptual organization criteria. Further evidence supplies positive support for the permissive view.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 177 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†.

I am grateful to Frankie Egan, Jacob Feldman, Chris Hill, Brian McLaughlin, Jake Quilty-Dunn, and Susanna Schellenberg for helpful discussion and comments. Comments from two Philosophy of Science reviewers led to significant improvements. Thanks also to audiences at the 2015 European Society for Philosophy and Psychology; University of Nevada, Reno; University of California, Irvine; MIT, and Northwestern University.

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