Co-Perception
Traditional theories of perception have treated it as an individual phenomenon, focusing on how single observers process sensory information. However, humans and animals frequently perceive their environment alongside others, raising fundamental questions about how social presence shapes basic perceptual processes. The research investigates how the presence of other perceivers affects sensory processing and the distinction between privately versus commonly perceived objects.
The project introduces the novel framework of “co-perception” which proposes that perceiving with others fundamentally changes how we process sensory information. This goes beyond mere social influence on judgments or beliefs. The research demonstrates that humans automatically distinguish between privately and commonly perceived objects, affecting basic perceptual processing, detection accuracy, and memory.
The research reveals that co-perception operates through distinct mechanisms from joint attention or coordinated action. When objects are perceived as common with others, this affects early visual processing and perceptual decisions, even without explicit coordination between perceivers. Reviewing existing experimental studies demonstrates that the private/common distinction in perception is more basic than and different from higher-level social cognitive processes like establishing common ground or mutual knowledge.
This work represents a significant shift from viewing perception as purely individual to understanding it as inherently shaped by social context. The findings have important implications for understanding social learning, collective behavior, and the development of social cognition. The research also has practical applications for designing more effective collaborative systems and virtual/augmented reality environments that can support natural co-perception between users.
Publications
Deroy, O., & Longin, L. (2024). Joint Perception Needs Representations. In The Roles of Representation in Visual Perception (pp. 25-45). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Deroy, O., Longin, L., & Bahrami, B. (2024). Co‐perceiving: Bringing the social into perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, e1681.