Joint Perception Needs Representations

Perception often occurs in the presence of others. Here we introduce joint perception as what occurs when the perceptual states of perceivers get mutually entangled, irrespective of the occurrence of joint attention. From a conceptual perspective, this entanglement results in two or more perceivers being aware that objects or scenes are mutually seen and at least visible. From an empirical perspective, this entanglement also results in a difference in how the perceivers see the objects or scenes in question. Here we argue that the empirical evidence of a social sensitivity of perception is best explained by appeal to visual representations. We propose that joint perception is a place where visual representations play both an explanatory and constitutive role. We still point that representationalism needs to better explain what happens to the subject of perception when ‘we see’ an object, instead of seeing it alone.