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Hallucinations and mental imagery demonstrate top-down effects on visual perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2017

Piers D. L. Howe  and
Olivia L. Carter
Piers D. L. Howe
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. pdhowe@unimelb.edu.auocarter@unimelb.edu.auhttp://psych.unimelb.edu.au/people/piers-howehttp://psych.unimelb.edu.au/people/olivia-carter
Olivia L. Carter
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. pdhowe@unimelb.edu.auocarter@unimelb.edu.auhttp://psych.unimelb.edu.au/people/piers-howehttp://psych.unimelb.edu.au/people/olivia-carter
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Abstract

In this commentary, we present two examples where perception is not only influenced by, but also in fact driven by, top-down effects: hallucinations and mental imagery. Crucially, both examples avoid all six of the potential confounds that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) raised as arguments against previous studies claiming to demonstrate the influence of top-down effects on perception.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e248
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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