Learning to smell: on the shifting modalities of experience

ABSTRACT

How can one learn to perceive? The study of an expert training shows how olfactory learning combines two operations and modalities of experience: firstly, it rests upon doubt and the questioning of perception to turn its undisputable evidence into a changing plurality. Secondly, perception is reconstructed and stabilized according to a set of chosen constraints, thanks to a perpetual control and reworking of the inadequate perceptions.

This analysis brings us to reconsider the interpretation of the notion of “attention”. Trainees focusing on their perception do not make it more salient, precise and detailed, as per the representational interpretation of perception. They question it. In so doing, they foster a surge of “shades” and make it plural and variable. Attention denotes here a process of perceptual destabilization, through doubt.

Additionally, in the cases studied, the reflexivity that enables learning shows deconstructive aspects: through doubt, the surrounding world turns from self-evident to changing and plural. This does not fit the usual constructive character of reflexivity, as in “mind-” or “self-building” processes, for instance. At the core of the learning process, the shifting modalities of perception seem to open the door to a larger variety of understandings of reflexivity and their correlative selves.