The usual considerations about high-level properties perception focus on contents of perceptual experiences. While different types of high-level properties are considered, such as category-related, causal, emotional, and aesthetic, they are all interpreted as elements of experiential content. This paper introduces a new category of perceptual properties—structural phenomenal properties—by utilizing the important distinction between experiential contents and experiential structures. It is argued that while these are not content-properties, some of them have characteristics typical of high-level content properties. In particular, three structural phenomenal properties related to the visual field will be considered: the boundedness of the visual field, its feature-filled character, and its oriented character. It is argued that, similarly to typical high-level properties, their experiential presence does not consist in the presence of an arrangement of low-level properties, but they do supervene on some low-level properties.
The debate about the perception of high-level properties is usually framed in terms of experiential content. In particular, the debate focuses on the ‘scope’ or ‘reach’ of perceptual content by considering what types of properties are perceptually represented (e.g., Bayne 2009; Briscoe 2015; Siegel 2006). A common question within this debate is whether human vision represents only ‘low-level’ properties such as colors and shapes, or also ‘high-level’ properties such as natural kinds, causal relations, and…
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