# attention-perception-action SEE ALSO: [[A Brief History of Attention, Perception, and Action]] It's conventional and convenient to think of human attention, perception, and action as separate and independent aspects of our lived experience. For one thing, “thinking” about something surely must be distinct from “doing” something – we are often reminded to “think before you act,” as one example. For another thing, it makes conceptual sense that to “do” anything in the world, we must first pay attention, and then process what we attend to into a coherent perception, and *then* make a conscious choice to act. But once we understand the human animal as an [[_SUBSTRATE#We are action figures|action figure]], evolved and refined to take action in the world, it becomes clear that every aspect of our experience – including attention and perception – is built for "doing." As neuroscientist Anil Seth puts it: > Action is inseparable from perception. Perception and action are so tightly coupled that they determine and define each other. Every action alters perception by changing the incoming sensory data, and every perception is the way it is in order to help guide action. (Seth 2021) Evolving cognitive science suggests that [[_SUBSTRATE#We predict the present|humans are prediction machines]], anticipating sensory inputs rather than waiting for them to arrive. As cognitive philosopher Andy Clark writes, this challenges our conventional understanding of attention, perception, and action: > The image of the brain as a probabilistic prediction machine places context and action centre stage. It requires us to abandon the last vestiges of the 'input-output' model according to which environmental stimuli repeatedly impinge upon a richly organized but essentially passive system. In its place we find a system that is constantly active, moving restlessly from one state of expectation to another, matching sensory states with predictions that harvest new sensory states in a rolling cycle. (Clark 2015) As our bodies anticipate our world, they do so with the evolved directive to "act" within the world. Again, Anil Seth makes the point: > We perceive the world around us in order to act effectively within it, to achieve our goals, and – in the long run – to promote our prospects of survival. We don’t perceive the world as it is, we perceive it as it is useful for us to do so. (Seth 2021) Or, as writer Anaïs Nin expressed a similar idea: "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are" (Nin 1961). In brief, we human animals are continuously making sense of the world so we can act in the world. We do so by predicting the sensory inputs we expect to experience, error correcting our predictions through sensory data, and acting in the world in ways that resolve uncertainty (focusing attention, re-prioritizing the array of inputs, changing our location, or changing our environment). Writes Clark: > {Predictive Processing} posits core perception-attention-action loops in which internal models of the world and their associated precision expectations play key action-driving roles. (Clark 2015) Or, more eloquently: > The brain thus revealed is a restless, pro-active organ locked in dense, continuous exchange with body and world. Thus equipped we encounter, through the play of self-predicted sensory stimulation, a world of meaning, structure, and opportunity: a world parsed for action, pregnant with future, and patterned by the past. (Clark 2015) Why does this matter to Arts Management? Because everything we perceive and do in the world is built upon and with the [[_SUBSTRATE|substrate]] of the human animal. This includes creative expression and experience, as well as the coordinating, collective sense-making, and collective action of an arts organization. Further, a focus on predictive processing also unlocks a world of discovery around creative expression and experience – why we do it, what it provides, and how it "works" upon our evolved human systems. If we understand attention, perception, and action as inextricably intertangled, we can better align the actions we take in supporting, advancing, and connecting the arts, and the teams of us required to do so. --- ## Sources - Clark, Andy. *Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind*. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. - Nin, Anaïs. *Seduction of the Minotaur*. A Swallow Paperbook. Denver: A. Swallow, 1961. - Seth, Anil. *Being You: A New Science of Consciousness*. New York, New York: Dutton, 2021. ## Tags (click to view related pages) #substrate #sapling