title: Embodiment in the history of depth perception
Creators: name: Oxtoby, Don
Publisher: name: Universität Graz
Year: 2020
Subjects: depth perception
embodiment
epiricism

description: Background in philosophy. The philosophy of perception has traditionally focused on visual
perception. In recent decades, philosophical thought about auditory perception has gained
momentum, seeking to supplement visual models of perception (O'Callaghan, 2011, pp. 143-
160). A key difference between vision and audition concerns spatial acuity. Vision is usually
thought to present the location, especially depth, of what is seen with greater acuity than
audition presents the location of what one hears (Culling & Akeroyd, 2010, pp. 128-130).
Rethinking differences between visual and auditory depth perception offers fertile ground for
thought about spatial perception in general. Rationalism and empiricism are two philosophical
traditions which offer competing explanations of depth perception, with rationalists like
Descartes arguing for “geometrical views”, and empiricists like Berkeley arguing for views
based on the role of “experience”.
Background in psychoacoustics. Being surrounded by sound is popularly considered a
desirable quality for audiences of musical performances and film screenings, evident in the
demand for specialized sound recording and reproduction technology, marketed in the U.S.
circa 1978 as “Surround Sound”. Some novel circumstances of auditory depth perception arise
from surround sound arrangements and forms of musical performance, such as “quadraphonic
musical performance”, whereby four performance stages are arranged to surround an audience.
Theorising depth perception in this context relates to the ability of a creature to orient its body
upon hearing a sound, and locate the sound's source using vision and bodily movement, as
when perceiving the width of a sound's source (Whitmer et al., 2013), or “feeling surrounded
by sound”.
Aims. This paper offers support for the claim that empiricist views of depth perception in the
history of philosophy provide an earlier historical precursor for embodied cognitive science
than has been appreciated in the literature.
Main contribution. Forms of experience introduced in Berkeley's 1709 New Theory of Vision
provide support for the claim that historical empiricist views offer a precursor to issues
addressed in contemporary embodied cognitive science. Surround sound arrangements and
quadraphonic music performance provide specific examples which connect empiricist views of
depth perception to embodied cognitive science, psychoacoustics, and musical performance.
Implications. Empiricist views of depth perception isolate forms of experience with
implications for embodied cognitive science, psychoacoustics, and musical performance,
including experience of perception in multiple modalities, and experience of bodily movement.
Continuity between empiricism and embodied cognitive science suggests that current attention
to such forms of experience may be fruitful for our contemporary understanding of spatial
perception and for future research. This paper also discusses implications of embodied views of
auditory depth perception for spatial aspects of aesthetic experience and musical performance,
as in the notion of “feeling surrounded by sound”.