Donald Oxtoby
Affiliation: University of Turin
Category: Philosophy
Keywords: recognition, judgment, memory, recall, familiarity, Russell
Date: Wednesday 3rd of September
Time: 14:30
Location: Room 161 (161)
View the full session: Perceptual Contents
When we see a close friend or family member’s face, we normally seem to recognize it without any conscious effort or judgment. It may therefore be surprising that, in cognitive psychology, recognition is traditionally defined in terms of judgment, decision-making, and conscious recall (G. Mandler, 1980, p. 252). This raises a philosophical question: does recognition always require judgment?
Recently, some philosophers have argued that recognition does not always require judgment, and this seems to be supported anecdotally by our experience of recognizing a close friend’s face without any conscious effort. On the contrary, this paper argues that recognition always requires judgment. I propose a broadly Russellian view of recognition and explain how this view is supported by empirical findings in psychology. I then respond to three recent objections.
According to Russell, what distinguishes recognition from mere feelings of familiarity is that recognition requires a belief or judgment that what we perceive has been previously experienced (Russell, 2005/1921, pp. 139-143). The feeling of familiarity, on the other hand, does not itself require any belief or judgment. This accords with dual-process theories of recognition in psychology, which define recognition as a judgment that can be supported by either feelings of familiarity or consciously recalled information (or both) (Mandler, 2008).
Recognition should also be distinguished from mere conditioned response. To do this, I draw upon infant studies. For example, when an infant exhibits a differential response to seeing its mother’s face, this behavior can be explained without supposing that infants have the ability to recognize their mother’s face. Previous exposure to their mother’s face may be stored and accessed unconsciously, triggering feelings of familiarity and differential behavior, like smiling at their mother’s face. This behavior can be explained as a conditioned response arising from implicit, unconscious memory (J. M. Mandler, 2006, p. 229). But recognition is explained by distinct neural mechanisms from implicit memory. Recognition involves interaction with the hippocampus and cortex that implicit memory does not. Neural mechanisms associated with recognition support the claim that recognition is subject to conscious remembering and judgment in a way that conditioned response is not.
There are three recent objections to the view that recognition requires judgment. The first claims that we typically recognize a stimulus merely in virtue of the operation of certain subpersonal mechanisms independently of any judgment (Dokic, 2010, p. 45). On this view, recognition is typically constituted by the merging of incoming perceptual information with matching information stored in long-term memory. For example, when incoming visual information about my friend Mary is merged with information about Mary stored in my long-term memory, I recognize Mary. Since this process is automatic, unconscious, and sub-personal, this view holds that recognition does not require judgment.
I argue this view fails to distinguish recall from recognition in two respects. Firstly, it fails to distinguish between cases of recognition and mere conditioned response. This is because incoming information from perception can trigger a conditioned response simply via subpersonal mechanisms associated with implicit memory. Secondly, even if perception triggers subpersonal mechanisms associated with explicit memory (like the hippocampus and cortex), this is not by itself sufficient for recognition. Recognition further requires that we take the recalled information to be a satisfactory match with the perceived individual. This is where judgment is required to bridge the gap between recall and recognition.
The second objection is that, when we see a familiar individual, we often have an immediate affective response that reflects how we feel about that individual – prior to making any judgment (Dokic, 2010, p. 40-41). For example, upon seeing a close friend, we often experience a warm, positive feeling prior to any judgment about who we see or whether we have seen them before. Since our affective response typically reflects how we feel about the perceived individual, such cases seem to be an example of recognition without judgment.
In response, I distinguish between two different neural mechanisms behind our affective response to familiar individuals. Our immediate affective response is best understood in terms of implicit memory and classical conditioning, as distinct from explicit memory and recognition. Since this affective response is independent of recognition, this is not an example of recognition without judgment. In contrast, we can also have an affective response mediated by the hippocampus and cortex, like feeling positive about someone we see because we think they are a good, trustworthy person. While examples like the latter do involve recognition, evidence suggests they are also mediated by judgment (Kaiser & Wehrle, 2001).
The third objection is that, plausibly, some animals and infants of a certain age are capable of recognition but not judgment (Abid, 2020, p. 7). Therefore, judgment is not required for recognition. According to this objection, judgment-based views “overintellectualize” recognition.
There are two ways of responding that are consistent with judgment-based views of recognition. The first is to deny the premise that animals and infants are capable of recognition, and instead explain their behavior in terms of implicit memory and conditioned response. The second is to affirm that animals and infants are capable of recognition, and deny that they are incapable of judgment. I discuss a recent behavioral study on rhesus monkeys to canvas the possibility that some animals are capable of recognitional judgments (Guderian et al., 2011). I argue that some animals may be capable of a form of judgment that can support recognition, but further evidence is required. In other cases, and regarding very young infants, it is more plausible to explain the relevant behavior in terms of conditioned response rather than recognition. While judgment-based views emphasize the cognitive component of recognition, the above suggests that they need not overintellectualize recognition.
References
Abid, G. (2021). Recognition and the perception-cognition divide. Mind & Language, 37(5), 770-789. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12362
Dokic, J. (2010). Perceptual recognition and the feeling of presence. In B. Nanay (Ed.), Perceiving the world. OUP. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386196.003.0003 Guderian, S., Brigham, D., & Mishkin, M. (2011). Two processes support visual recognition memory in rhesus monkeys. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 108(48), 19425-19430. 10.1073/pnas.1117078108
Kaiser, S. & Wehrle, T. (2001). Facial expressions as indicators of appraisal processes. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotions: theory, methods, research. OUP.
Mandler, G. (2008). Familiarity breeds attempts: A critical review of dual-process theories of recognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(5), 390-399. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00087.x
Mandler, G. (1980). Recognizing: The judgment of previous occurrence. Psychological Review, 87(3), 252-271. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.87.3.252
Mandler, J. M. (2006). The foundations of mind. OUP. Russell, B. The analysis of mind. (2005) Routledge. (Original work published 1921).