sensorimotor contingencies

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Sensorimotor contingencies are the patterned changes in sensory stimulation associated with changes in posture, movement and attention. RB2 develops their practical mastery through Noë’s account of perception as embodied engagement. Knowing how sensory flow changes helps disclose a world through action; the proposal distinguishes this attributed account from passive inner picturing and from the claim that any movement alone constitutes perception.

Explanation

The source describes perceiving as achieved through a repertoire of possible actions. The relevant mastery concerns how exploration changes stimulation, not merely motion occurring somewhere in the system. Posture and attention are included alongside movement, so the account cannot be reduced to a requirement for large visible movements on every perceptual occasion.

The single perceptual-circuit formulation links organism and environment without relocating a complete image to an inner spectator. RB2 attributes the argument to Noë and presents it alongside ecological and enactive approaches. Shared active engagement does not make their accounts of representation, autopoiesis and lived experience interchangeable.

Scaffolding adds bodies, tools and learned practices that stabilize what the agent can do. PB’s cane similarly extends practical reach. These comparisons preserve learned and situated mastery without deriving all agency or feeling from sensorimotor skill alone, or treating the tool as independently conscious merely because it changes perceptual access.

Scope and attribution

Retain attributed perceptual scope without inferring full agency or consciousness from coupling alone.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 302.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Noë’s sensorimotor mastery retains a specific theoretical role distinct from parallel approaches.

Occurrence locators: 78, 79.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 156.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Sensorimotor contingencies are distinguished from cane extension alone and external scaffolding.