Cognition and computation: although comparisons are often made, they aren't alike. The recently published Sensory Experiences: Exploring meaning and the senses, co-created by Matt Coler, Associate Professor and Dr. of the MSc Voice Technology (University of Groningen - Campus Fryslân), elaborates a more nuanced understanding of sensory differences based on an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative approach to perception, sensation and cognition. In doing so, the book challenges the brain-as-computer analogy.

Exploring meaning and the senses

'Sensory Experiences: Exploring meaning and the senses' provides an analysis of relationships between language, cognition and perception, through studies challenging for example the universality of primary colors, basic flavors and musical scales. This approach is a departure from the analytic, reductive view of human experiences as information processing.

Coler: “Our approach is not based in studying the perceived object as the ‘ground truth’. Nor do we propose to augment such an analysis with an account of neuronal functioning. Instead, we show how an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and situated cognitive approach can yield new and exciting insights into the diversity of experiences, facilitating a rigorous, empirical understanding of perception, sensation and cognition.”

The book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners dealing with sensory experiences and anyone who wants to understand and celebrate the cultural diversity of human productions that make life enjoyable.

About Matt Coler

Matt Coler is Associate Professor and Director of the MSc Voice Technology, University of Groningen (NL). He is chair of the Language Technology & Culture research group at Campus Fryslân. Coler's work focuses on voice technolgoy, cognition, and language.