Open for learning: perception as an active, relational process

Contemporary research in cognitive science, philosophy of mind and educational science is converging on a powerful idea: perception is neither a passive given nor a simple processing of information, but an active, predictive and relational process.

From then on, being an actor in one's senses is not a matter of mastery, but of the ability to influence the dynamics by which the world becomes perceptible. Opening up is the condition for this.

Selecting the perceived

Predictive models of perception offer a first decisive insight. In these approaches, the brain does not record the world: it continuously anticipates it on the basis of internal models. shows that our experience is shaped by predictions continually adjusted to sensory signals (Clark, 2022).

This framework implies that perceiving is already selecting. What we see depends on what we expect. Being an actor in our senses then consists in acting on these expectations - not directly, but by creating situations that displace them. Opening up means introducing a gap in our perceptual models, making surprise possible.

Choosing priorities

This capacity for openness is inseparable from work on attention. Recent research into the ecology of attention shows that it is largely captured by technical and organizational devices that often direct our perceptions in invisible ways.

In this context, opening up our senses becomes an act of recovery: regaining the ability to direct our attention, rather than being subjected to it (Citton, 2021). But this orientation is not limited to focusing; it also involves suspending, slowing down, letting weak or unexpected forms emerge. Being an actor of the senses means being able to modulate these attentional regimes.

Conditions of receptivity

Recent work in embodied cognition has deepened this dynamic. Perception is now understood as the product of sensorimotor and interoceptive loops: it depends on actions, postures and internal states of the body.

Research into interoception shows that the way we perceive our own bodily states directly influences our perception of the world (Seth, 2021). Opening up the senses implies bodily availability: a body that is too tense, too fast or too saturated limits the ability to perceive. Being the actor of our senses implies working on these bodily conditions of openness.

Multiple points of view

Recent enactive and interactional approaches emphasize the relational dimension of perception. De Jaegher's work shows that meaning emerges in interaction, in what she calls "participatory sense-making" (De Jaegher, 2021).

Perceiving is not only individual; it is often co-perceiving. From this perspective, opening up one's senses also means opening up to the perception of others, accepting that the world appears differently from one point of view to another. Being an actor in one's senses thus becomes a relational practice: contributing to a shared field of perception.

This collective dimension is now widely studied in research on organizational sensemaking. Recent work shows that, in complex situations, understanding does not pre-exist action: it is constructed from fragmentary perceptions brought into dialogue (Maitlis & Christianson, 2023).

Opening up, in these contexts, means maintaining the plurality of perceptions long enough for a common meaning to emerge. Being an actor in one's senses means resisting premature closure and the temptation to stabilize an interpretation too quickly.

Managing filters

However, this research also reveals powerful forces of closure. Cognitive biases, perceptual routines and environmental constraints strongly orient what is perceived. Recent work on "cognitive environments" shows that our perceptual abilities are profoundly influenced by the informational architectures in which we evolve (Heersmink, 2017).

Being an actor in one's senses therefore does not consist in extracting oneself from these influences, but in recognizing them and acting, as far as possible, on the environments that produce them.

Openness and presence

A hypothesis can be formulated: openness and being the actor of one's senses are part of the same skill of adjustment in dynamic systems. It's not a question of controlling perception or abandoning oneself to it, but of navigating tensions: between prediction and surprise, focus and openness, stabilization and exploration. This skill is situated, contextual, and always in the making.

In training, facilitation and research practices, this articulation becomes central. Creating the conditions for perceptive openness - slowing down, varying points of view, working with the body, suspending judgments - enables us to transform what becomes thinkable and shareable. In this context, being the actor of one's senses is not an isolated individual objective, but a condition for collective learning.

Thus, opening up is not an abstract disposition, but a concrete work on the conditions of perception. And being an actor in one's senses does not mean mastering them, but learning to intervene, in a fine-tuned and situated way, in the processes that bring them about.

This is perhaps where a contemporary form of freedom comes into play: not in controlling the perceived world, but in being able to expand its possibilities.

References

Clark, A. (2022). The experience machine: How our minds predict and shape reality. Pantheon.

Citton, Y. (2021). Médiarchie. Seuil.

De Jaegher, H. (2021). Loving and knowing: Reflections for an engaged epistemology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 20, 847-870.

Heersmink, R. (2017). Extended mind and cognitive enhancement: Moral aspects of cognitive artifacts. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 16(1), 17-32.

Maitlis, S., & Christianson, M. (2023). Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward (update). Academy of Management Annals.

Seth, A. K. (2021). Being you: A new science of consciousness. Faber & Faber.