Key Arguments

• Experiments with repeated light tactile stimulation (a hair on the skin) show that initially perceptions are 'punctual, clearly distinguished, and localized each time at the same point', but with repetition localization becomes vague, the perception spreads spatially, and the specific contact sensation transforms into burning, cold, or heat, eventually into perceived movement, and finally vanishes, indicating that quality, localization, and even existence of sensation depend on the organism’s evolving mode of organization.
• From such findings Merleau-Ponty concludes that 'the “sensible quality,” the spatial determinations of the perceived, and even the presence or absence of a perception are not effects of the factual situation outside of the organism, but rather represent the manner in which the organism comes to anticipate stimulations and in which it relates to them.'
• Perception fails when a stimulation reaches 'a sensory organ that is not “attuned” to it,' suggesting that receptivity is not sheer passivity but a readiness or attunement structured by the organism.
• He characterizes 'the organism’s function in the reception of stimuli' as '“to understand” a certain form of stimulation,' explicitly using a cognitive term to describe organic functioning.
• Consequently, 'The “psycho-physical event” is thus no longer of the “worldly” type of causality. The brain becomes the place of an “articulation” that intervenes even before the cortical stage and that blurs, as early as the entrance into the nervous system, the relations between the stimulus and the organism.'
• Stimulations are 'grasped and reorganized by the transversal functions that make it resemble the perception that it is about to arouse,' so even at the physiological level, processes are structurally oriented toward the perceived form.
• These phenomena show that the linear picture of stimuli acting on a body conceived partes extra partes is inadequate, because the body’s mode of relating and anticipating is constitutive of what is sensed.

Source Quotes

This organization again, and not the specific energy of the nervous mechanism in question, makes a stimulus give rise to a tactile or a thermal sensation. If a given area of the skin is stimulated several times with a hair, we at first have perceptions that are punctual, clearly distinguished, and localized each time at the same point. To the extent that the stimulation is repeated, the localization becomes less precise, the perception spreads out in space, and the sensation simultaneously ceases to be specific.

If a given area of the skin is stimulated several times with a hair, we at first have perceptions that are punctual, clearly distinguished, and localized each time at the same point. To the extent that the stimulation is repeated, the localization becomes less precise, the perception spreads out in space, and the sensation simultaneously ceases to be specific. It is no longer a contact, but a burning, sometimes cold and sometimes hot. Later still, the subject believes that the stimulus moves and traces out a circle on his skin.

Later still, the subject believes that the stimulus moves and traces out a circle on his skin. In the end, nothing more is sensed.9 This is to say that the “sensible quality,” the spatial determinations of the perceived, and even the presence or absence of a perception are not effects of the factual situation outside of the organism, but rather represent the manner in which the organism comes to anticipate stimulations and in which it relates to them. A stimulation is not perceived when it reaches a sensory organ that is not “attuned” to it.10 The organism’s function in the reception of stimuli is, so to speak, “to understand” a certain form of stimulation.11 The “psycho-physical event” is thus no longer of the “worldly” type of causality.

In the end, nothing more is sensed.9 This is to say that the “sensible quality,” the spatial determinations of the perceived, and even the presence or absence of a perception are not effects of the factual situation outside of the organism, but rather represent the manner in which the organism comes to anticipate stimulations and in which it relates to them. A stimulation is not perceived when it reaches a sensory organ that is not “attuned” to it.10 The organism’s function in the reception of stimuli is, so to speak, “to understand” a certain form of stimulation.11 The “psycho-physical event” is thus no longer of the “worldly” type of causality. The brain becomes the place of an “articulation” that intervenes even before the cortical stage and that blurs, as early as the entrance into the nervous system, the relations between the stimulus and the organism.

Key Concepts

• If a given area of the skin is stimulated several times with a hair, we at first have perceptions that are punctual, clearly distinguished, and localized each time at the same point.
• To the extent that the stimulation is repeated, the localization becomes less precise, the perception spreads out in space, and the sensation simultaneously ceases to be specific. It is no longer a contact, but a burning, sometimes cold and sometimes hot.
• This is to say that the “sensible quality,” the spatial determinations of the perceived, and even the presence or absence of a perception are not effects of the factual situation outside of the organism, but rather represent the manner in which the organism comes to anticipate stimulations and in which it relates to them.
• A stimulation is not perceived when it reaches a sensory organ that is not “attuned” to it.
• The organism’s function in the reception of stimuli is, so to speak, “to understand” a certain form of stimulation.

Context

Continuation of subsection [a. Neural physiology itself goes beyond causal thought.], where Merleau-Ponty interprets psychophysical experiments on repeated skin stimulation to argue that perception reflects the organism’s anticipatory organization and attunement to forms of stimulation, rather than a direct imprint of external facts on a passive receptor.