Abstract
Introduction. Is perception discrete or continuous? This question has a long history, but in the light of experimental data obtained in recent years, it is gaining relevance again. The available models rely on different understandings of discreteness, and they highlight different units of discrete perception. Theoretical justification. This article reviews the development of discrete models of perception and discusses the various theoretical evidence for discreteness of perception. Results and discussion. The article provides a review of experimental studies supporting discrete models and their general critique. The results of the latest studies support the idea that it is precisely conscious perception that is discrete, while unconscious information processing can be continuous or carried out with higher temporal resolution. The authors compare two popular contemporary approaches to discrete perception. One approach assumes that the discrete unit of perception is relatively small and related to temporal resolution, but that it is not universal - discretization can occur at different frequencies, for example, for different modalities. The second approach associate’s discretization with the need to calculate the most meaningful interpretation of incoming data. The discrete unit in this approach (the time window of unconscious processing) is universal, but its duration is not fixed and depends on the nature of incoming data. Authors also propose an alternative approach based on V. M. Allakhverdov's negative choice theory, which implies the existence of the unconscious processing window, the duration of which is not constant. This approach suggests a novel idea that the duration of the window depends on the complexity of control operations, the goal of which is to select information for conscious processing. Authors discuss the capabilities of this approach to explain the temporal dynamics of priming and the attentional blink effects where the difference in the duration of discrete window can be seen as the manifestation of the general logic of discretization.
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