Technologies of Perceptual Mediation: Algorithmic Preorganization and the Conditions of Recognition
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Perceptual aids can improve performance while changing which distinctions a person can inspect. This paper develops a conceptual framework for evaluating the organizing work such aids do. Technologies of Perceptual Mediation are systems that select, transform, prioritize, classify, suppress, or supplement environmental information before or during its presentation to a perceiver. Algorithmic Preorganization names the computational work that shapes the particular representation available for recognition and inquiry. The framework distinguishes biological organization, technological restoration, and algorithmic construction as overlapping analytic descriptions. It profiles mediation through organizational intensity, opacity, interrogability, and reversibility, and it defines Perceptual Laundering as an unsupported transfer of credibility from demonstrated functional success to untested upstream operations. Beyond performance, it sets out what to notice: provenance, failure, correction, and confidence. The contribution is a set of distinctions grounded in existing work on perception, technological mediation, and automation. No new empirical findings are reported.
Author: Cary, Alexandra
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225561446