An Account of Image Perceptual Understanding Based on Epistemic Attention and Reference

Technological and scientific images, and other images with epistemic uses, have varied appearances and functions. They seem to be analog or symbolic representations available to researchers for a variety of epistemic purposes such as summarizing data, or presenting, discussing and verifying hypothetic propositions about the world. This article studies the perception and understanding of scientific/epistemic images within a conceptual framework grounded in the notion of reference. It introduces the hypothesis stating that the performance of the perceptual understanding of a particular scientific image depends on the epistemic uses of attention. The hypothesis suggests that understanding a scientific picture requires making an epistemic use of the attentional control of visual routines in order to obtain knowledge on the spatial structure and the referents of a particular image or graphic representation. 1. Phil. & CS: The cognitive problems of image/depiction understanding Technological and scientific practices rely routinely on the perception of technical tools such as optical systems and measure instruments. By means of these tools, and sometimes without them, theoreticians record data which are usually presented and communicated via a variety of images and graphics such as drawings, photographs, diagrams, mathematical graphs, schemas, IRMf scans, 3D models etc. One can call this variety of non-linguistic but epistemic representations ‘scientific images’ or ‘pictures for epistemic uses.’ Scientific images are representations available to researchers for a variety of epistemic purposes such as summarizing data, or presenting, discussing and verifying hypothetic propositions about the world. An important question for the epistemology of scientific images is the following: How are we to describe and explain the semantic and psychological conditions of the epistemic uses of images – as opposed to their sociopolitical or aesthetic uses? This problem can lead to different types of semantic investigations in cognitive science: 2.1 Two sets of problems (PB-S1) A first set of problems bears on the structure or conventions of the system which endow the image with its meaning (e.g., a ‘pictorial system’ in Lopes’ sense), and determine the competence required for its grasping: How does a pictorial system obtain its scientific use(s) and its meaning within the scientific community? (PB-S2) A second set of problems encompasses the questions about performance of image producing and understanding. How does an agent understand the meaning of a scientific picture (when he/she is producing it or examining it) in the real time examination or production of the image? How do we use our sensory and motor apparatuses for producing or understanding a scientific or a technical picture?