Capacities

Abstract

This chapter argues that typical human subjects possess distinctive multisensory perceptual capacities. Empirical evidence and theoretical considerations support the claim that perceivers are differentially sensitive to novel intermodal features, such as identity, simultaneity, motion, causality, and flavor, that could not be perceived using one sense at a time nor using several senses working merely in parallel. In light of their role in grounding cognition and guiding action, such capacities belong to perception, rather than extraperceptual cognition, for the purposes of empirical and rational psychological explanation. Therefore, multisensory perceptual capacities can serve in psychological explanations that deal with subjects and their capacities, in contrast with just subpersonal processes and mechanisms. Multisensory perception targets new features in the world. The joint use of multiple senses thus extends human perceptual capacities.