A number of researchers have used mismatches between what subjects think they are aware of and what subjects can report on, to argue that we are subject to a grand illusion – that the idea that we are presented with a rich, detailed visual scene is false. Block shows that with some of these phenomena (e.g., the phenomena in the Sperling [Reference Sperling1960] and the Landman et al. [Reference Landman, Spekreijse and Lamme2003] experiments), the better analysis is that the items subjects think are phenomenally present are in fact present, but inaccessible in a certain sort of way. But there are other kinds of cases – change blindness and inattentional blindness – to which Block's analysis doesn't seem to apply, and so the threat of this illusion remains. I want to assist Block in dulling the teeth of the illusion argument.

The first topic I will discuss involves a sketch of the notion of generic phenomenology, the idea that some of what is phenomenally present is present only generically. Roughly the idea is that, for example, when reading a page of text, a word on the page in the visual periphery is phenomenally present, but not as the specific word it is, just as the generic text word. If I am right, then much mental representation, including phenomenology, is sui generis, and not well described as either picture-like or sentence-like; and in particular, generic phenomenology is neither a description, nor a blurry image. Nor is it an interpreted image (a combo-metaphor of both picture and sentence). The second part suggests how the problematic phenomena, change blindness and inattentional blindness, can be given plausible, and less alarmist, interpretations using the notion of generic phenomenology.

While there is no space for a full positive characterization of this sui generis format, I sketch three of its features here: First, it is possible that incorrect genera are employed in some cases. Second, a generic phenomenal presentation can present its content as clear without presenting the details. In this respect it differs from an image. This is, I currently believe, an affordance issue: a clear phenomenal presentation presents its content as affording answers to queries of detail. Images only offer this affordance if they actually have the detail. Third and relatedly, this representational format supports and is subject to a less radical version of the refrigerator light illusion, what I will call (with a great deal of trepidation, since I don't want to encourage quantum-mechanical approaches to the study of consciousness) the wave collapse illusion: If a given generic phenomenal presentation is clear because it presents itself as affording detail queries of a certain kind, and the phenomenal presentation changes from generic to detailed as a result of such a query, then this transition is not noticed as a phenomenal transition. This is actually a simplification, as I think there are two kinds of clarity: being presented (1) as affording answers to queries effected by modulation of sensory apparatus (e.g., moving the eyes), and (2) as affording answers to queries effected by attention modulation alone without modulation of sensory apparatus; both contrast with being presented as query-resistant, for example as occluded or blurry. For purposes of this commentary I speak here of a univocal clarity, though if pressed I would hypothesize that the wave-collapse illusion is present, or strongest, only in the latter sort of case. (As I understand it, the refrigerator light illusion is more radical, because it claims that when something can be expected to be present upon query, then the transition from nothing to the presence of that thing is not noticed as a phenomenal change. It is not obvious to me that we are really subject to this illusion.)

So, most of the words on the page are generically phenomenally present; some at the small region of foveation are present in a phenomenally detailed way, and some near this area, but just outside it, are presented as clear but only as the generic text word. When the eyes are moved to foveate the word, the added sensory detail effects a transition from the phenomenally generic text word to a phenomenally specific and detailed presentation of that text word. Now, because the genera employed can be wrong, it is possible to arrange for a  situation where all the “words” in this penumbral area are switched around when an eye movement to that area is detected. The subject will notice nothing because (1) the genus text word was used for the clear generic; (2) that genus remained applicable when more detail was available; and (3) the wave collapse illusion was in effect.

When being asked to count ball passes between people clothed in white, the perceptual system employs the ad hoc genera person-clothed-in-white and person-clothed-in-black. A person in a gorilla suit walking through the middle of the scene is phenomenally presented as clear and under the genus person-clothed-in-black. Many instances of change blindness would seem to be cases where some corresponding regions or objects in two scenes or images are phenomenally present as clear but generic, and under the same genus – even though either that one genus is applicable to both but the details differ, or in one case the genus is actually wrong.

If this admittedly sketchily presented hypothesis is on the right track, then we are under an illusion regarding the phenomenal content we entertain – but not a terribly radical illusion. We seem to have a full, richly detailed, phenomenal representation of the visual scene, though in fact what we have is, albeit full and clear (in the specified sense), only actually detailed in some places and in some respects, and in other places and other respects it is clear but generic. This might seem like no large departure from what some radicals have defended, but in fact it provides traction at exactly the point where the slide from “no fully detailed rich internal representation” to “no internal representation” occurs.