Intentional Perceptual Attunement and the Regulation of Sense-Making: How Perceptual Modulation Influences the Phenomenological Perception of Reality
Summary
This paper introduces Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) as a learnable regulatory capacity through which cognitive agents modulate how they encounter the environment by adjusting the temporal and organizational dynamics of perception. Drawing on enactive cognition and regulation theory, the paper argues that sense-making depends not only on action selection or representation, but on the regulation of perceptual mode itself. IPA operates by modulating perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds, and perception–action coupling, thereby altering which environmental structures become salient, actionable, or meaningful.
The framework reframes phenomenological variation—including experiences often described as altered, expanded, or otherworldly—not as changes in belief or ontology, but as regulated variations in perceptual engagement. Phase shifting is characterized as enactive reorganization that remains coherent when supported by perceptual regulation. The paper articulates formal definitions, theoretical propositions, and implications for both human cognition and artificial systems. By foregrounding perceptual regulation, IPA extends enactive theories of sense-making and provides a unifying account of perceptual plurality, experiential depth, and adaptive coherence under drift.
Abstract
Contemporary theories of cognition increasingly emphasize sense-making as an ongoing process of organism–environment coupling rather than internal representation. However, these accounts often treat perceptual engagement as operating at a fixed temporal and structural resolution, leaving under-theorized how systematic variation in perceptual mode alters phenomenological experience and adaptive coordination. This paper introduces Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) as a learnable regulatory capacity through which cognitive agents modulate the temporal and organizational dynamics of perception itself.
IPA refers to the skillful regulation of perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds (i.e., how much perceptual evidence or felt coherence an agent requires before settling on an interpretation, action, or meaning), and action–perception coupling, enabling agents to alter how environments are encountered without changing external stimuli or conceptual content. Situated within enactive cognition and regulation theory, IPA is proposed as a meta-regulatory process operating upstream of conceptual interpretation, shaping the conditions under which meaning, action, and knowledge emerge.
We develop a formal account of perceptual sampling dynamics, articulate core propositions linking perceptual regulation to sense-making under drift, and reinterpret phenomena commonly described as “altered,” “expanded,” or “otherworldly” perception as regulated variations in perceptual mode rather than ontological anomalies. Phase shifting is framed as enactive reorganization that remains coherent when supported by perceptual regulation.
The framework has implications for human cognition—reframing cultural, contemplative, and skilled practices as perceptual training rather than belief systems—and for artificial and co-creative systems, where IPA suggests a missing layer of regulation enabling adaptive, interactionally coherent engagement. By foregrounding perceptual regulation as a foundational dimension of cognition, this work extends enactive theories of sense-making and offers a unifying account of perceptual plurality, experiential depth, and adaptive coherence across biological and artificial systems.
1. Introduction
Contemporary theories of cognition increasingly recognize that perception, action, and meaning arise through continuous interaction between an organism and its environment. Enactive and embodied approaches have been especially influential in reframing cognition as a process of ongoing sense-making rather than internal representation, emphasizing the role of organism–environment coupling, viability, and regulation over time (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo, Buhrmann, & Barandiaran, 2017). From this perspective, cognition is not primarily concerned with constructing accurate internal models of the world, but with sustaining coherent engagement under changing conditions. Despite these advances, one foundational dimension of perceptual experience remains under-theorized: the manner in which perceptual engagement itself can vary systematically, altering not only what is perceived, but how reality is phenomenologically encountered.
Most cognitive theories implicitly treat perception as operating at a fixed temporal and structural resolution, with variability attributed primarily to differences in attention, belief, or interpretation. Even frameworks that emphasize active inference or predictive processing tend to focus on how perceptual content is inferred or updated, rather than on how the temporal and organizational dynamics of perceptual engagement themselves are regulated (Clark, 2016; Hohwy, 2013). However, phenomenological reports across domains—including skilled practice, creative flow, contemplative traditions, and altered states—suggest that the perceptual field itself can reorganize in coherent and repeatable ways (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003). Under these conditions, the same environment affords different structures, dynamics, and forms of intelligibility, without requiring changes in external stimuli or conceptual content.
This paper argues that such variations are best understood not as changes in belief or interpretation, but as shifts in perceptual mode—that is, changes in the temporal and organizational dynamics through which perception samples, commits to, and coordinates with the environment. We introduce the concept of Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) to describe a learnable regulatory capacity by which cognitive agents modulate their perceptual engagement, thereby altering the structure of sense-making itself. IPA does not posit a new cognitive faculty, module, or representational layer. It names a regulatable dimension of existing perceptual dynamics that is typically implicit, untrained, or conflated with attention or interpretation.
IPA refers to the skillful regulation of perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds, and action–perception coupling. Rather than adding new information to perception, IPA reconfigures the conditions under which environmental features become salient, actionable, or meaningful. In this sense, IPA functions as a meta-regulatory process operating upstream of conceptual interpretation, shaping the phenomenological field within which knowledge, action, and meaning emerge. This positioning aligns IPA with enactive accounts that locate meaning in the dynamics of engagement rather than in representational content, while extending them by making perceptual regulation itself an explicit object of analysis (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012; Froese & Di Paolo, 2011).
Situating IPA within enactive cognition and regulation theory, we propose that many phenomena commonly treated as anomalous, subjective, or culturally specific—including reports of “altered states,” “expanded perception,” or “otherworldly” experience—can be more parsimoniously explained as regulated variations in perceptual mode. These variations do not imply departures from reality, but rather access to different regimes of sense-making supported by the same underlying environment. This view resonates with phenomenological accounts of experiential variation while preserving ontological continuity and empirical accountability (Thompson, 2014; Zahavi, 2018).
This perspective has important implications for how cognition is understood, trained, and designed. For human cognition, it reframes practices such as contemplative training, skilled movement, and creative engagement as forms of perceptual regulation rather than belief modification or symbolic interpretation (Noë, 2004; Gallagher, 2017). For artificial and co-creative systems, it suggests that adaptive intelligence may require not only action-level regulation or representational updating, but the capacity to modulate perceptual engagement itself in response to drift and interactional demands.
The contributions of this paper are threefold. First, we provide a formal account of perceptual sampling rate and its role in shaping phenomenological experience. Second, we define Intentional Perceptual Attunement as a learnable regulatory skill within enactive cognition. Third, we articulate the theoretical implications of IPA for sense-making, consciousness, and the regulation of cognitive systems under drift.
By foregrounding perceptual mode as a central variable in cognition, this work extends enactive theories of sense-making and offers a unifying framework for understanding how different ways of encountering the world give rise to different realities—without invoking representational relativism or ontological pluralism.
2. Theoretical Orientation
This framework adopts an enactive view of cognition, in which cognition is understood not as the manipulation of internal representations, but as the ongoing regulation of coupling between an organism and its environment. From this perspective, cognition is fundamentally relational and temporally extended: it arises through continuous, reciprocal interaction rather than through detached internal computation (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo, Buhrmann, & Barandiaran, 2017). Perception, action, and cognition are therefore inseparable processes that co-emerge as a unified dynamic system.
Within enactive approaches, perception is not treated as passive information uptake, nor is action understood as the execution of pre-specified plans. Instead, perception and action are mutually constraining processes that unfold together, shaping and reshaping the space of affordances available to the agent (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009). What is perceived depends on how the agent is prepared to act, and what actions are possible depends on how the environment is perceptually structured in that moment.
Crucially, this view reframes sense-making as an activity concerned with viability rather than veridicality. Meaning does not arise from accurate internal models of an objective world, but from the capacity of a cognitive system to sustain coherent, adaptive engagement with its environment over time (Di Paolo, Rohde, & De Jaegher, 2010; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012). From this standpoint, a cognitive system succeeds not by representing the world correctly, but by remaining dynamically aligned with changing environmental conditions.
As a consequence, breakdown, drift, and reorganization are not treated as exceptional or pathological states, but as intrinsic features of cognitive activity in non-stationary environments. Cognitive systems must continually renegotiate their organization as conditions change, and periods of instability or incoherence often precede the emergence of new, more viable forms of engagement (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017). Regulation, rather than optimization, is therefore the central problem of cognition.
Despite these advances, much of the enactive literature implicitly assumes that perceptual engagement operates at a relatively fixed temporal and structural resolution. Variability in experience is often attributed to differences in attention, belief, or interpretation, while the underlying dynamics of perceptual sampling remain under-theorized. This leaves unexplained how the same environment can be encountered as fundamentally different—more discrete or more continuous, more object-like or more relational—without changes in external stimuli or conceptual framing (Thompson, 2014; Gallagher, 2017).
The present contribution addresses this gap by introducing Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) as a regulatory skill through which cognitive agents modulate how they encounter the environment. IPA refers to the learned capacity to regulate the temporal and structural dynamics of perception itself, including perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds, and the coupling between perception and action. Through IPA, agents do not alter the environment or impose new interpretations upon it; instead, they reorganize the conditions under which environmental features become salient, actionable, and meaningful.
In this sense, IPA operates at a meta-regulatory level within enactive cognition. Rather than regulating specific actions or outcomes, IPA regulates the perceptual mode through which sense-making unfolds. This allows cognitive agents to shift between different regimes of engagement—each coherent in its own right—while maintaining continuity of experience and action. IPA thus provides a principled account of perceptual plurality within a single ontological environment, without recourse to representational relativism or ontological fragmentation (Zahavi, 2018).
By foregrounding perceptual regulation as a central component of sense-making, this framework extends enactive theories of cognition and offers a unifying lens through which variations in phenomenological experience, skilled practice, and adaptive flexibility can be understood as outcomes of regulated perceptual dynamics.
Definition 1: Perceptual Sampling Rate
Perceptual sampling rate refers to the temporal resolution at which a cognitive system updates distinctions between self and environment during ongoing interaction. It characterizes how frequently perceptual commitments are formed, predictions about environmental structure are revised, and sensorimotor actions are initiated or adjusted (Varela et al., 1991; Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Perceptual sampling rate is not reducible to sensory acuity or attentional focus. Rather, it describes the tempo of perceptual organization—the rate at which perceptual structure stabilizes sufficiently to guide action. At any moment, this rate constrains which environmental dynamics can be detected, coordinated with, or ignored (Gibson, 1979; Noë, 2004; Buhrmann, Di Paolo, & Barandiaran, 2013).
At high perceptual sampling rates, cognitive systems tend to privilege:
discrete object boundaries and categorical distinctions
rapid detection of change and anomaly
immediate, local affordances suitable for fast response
early commitment to perceptual interpretations
Such modes support precision, control, and rapid decision-making, but can fragment perception and obscure slower, relational dynamics (Kelso, 1995; Clark, 2016).
At low perceptual sampling rates, cognitive systems tend to privilege:
continuity across time rather than momentary distinction
relational and field-like environmental structure
delayed perceptual commitment and increased tolerance for ambiguity
emergent affordances that unfold over longer temporal horizons
These modes support sensitivity to pattern, rhythm, and coordination, but may reduce responsiveness to rapid perturbations (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Stern, 2004; Thompson, 2014).
Importantly, perceptual sampling rate is not fixed. It is dynamically regulated in response to task demands, environmental conditions, bodily state, and learned skill (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Di Paolo et al., 2017). Cognitive systems continuously negotiate appropriate sampling rates, often implicitly. Failures of sense-making frequently arise when perceptual sampling dynamics become misaligned with environmental timescales (Kelso, 1995; Chemero, 2009).
Definition 2: Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA)
Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) is the learned capacity of a cognitive agent to deliberately regulate its perceptual sampling dynamics in order to alter the manner in which the environment is encountered.
IPA does not add new information to perception, nor does it operate by modifying beliefs, interpretations, or symbolic representations. Instead, IPA reconfigures the mode of coupling between perception, action, and environmental structure. Through this reconfiguration, IPA alters which environmental features become salient, which affordances become actionable, and how meaning emerges through interaction (Noë, 2004; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
IPA is best understood as a meta-regulatory skill operating on perceptual organization itself. Rather than selecting among perceptual contents, IPA modulates the conditions under which perceptual contents stabilize at all (Varela et al., 1991; Buhrmann et al., 2013).
IPA is:
Enacted rather than representational: it is realized through changes in ongoing sensorimotor engagement, not through internal descriptions of the world (Chemero, 2009; Gallagher, 2017).
Skill-based rather than belief-based: it is cultivated through practice and experience, not through propositional knowledge or conceptual assent (Dreyfus, 2002; Depraz et al., 2003).
Regulatory rather than interpretive: it shapes the dynamics of perception and action rather than assigning meanings post hoc (Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Through IPA, the same physical environment can support multiple coherent perceptual modes, each yielding a distinct phenomenological field without implying subjective distortion or ontological plurality (Thompson, 2014; Zahavi, 2018). Importantly, IPA includes not only the ability to enter alternative perceptual modes, but also the capacity to sustain and exit them without loss of coherence.
Definition 3: Consciousness as Regulatory Interface
Within this framework, consciousness is defined as the regulatory interface through which perceptual processes and action systems are coordinated over time. Consciousness is not conceived as a repository of representations, nor as a passive witness to cognitive activity. Instead, it functions as the medium through which perceptual organization is stabilized, destabilized, or reorganized in response to contextual demands (Varela, 1999; Thompson, 2007; Gallagher & Zahavi, 2012).
Consciousness enables the modulation of perceptual sampling rate and action commitment by integrating bodily state, environmental dynamics, and ongoing activity into a unified regulatory process. When perceptual and action systems are well aligned, consciousness supports fluid, coherent engagement. When misalignment occurs, consciousness contributes to breakdown, hesitation, or reorganization by altering coupling dynamics (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
In this sense, consciousness does not contain knowledge. Knowledge emerges when perceptual and action systems achieve stable coordination over time (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009). Consciousness governs the conditions under which such coordination is possible, making it central to adaptive sense-making under drift and change (Thompson, 2014).
Within enactive cognition, sense-making is understood as the process by which an organism actively brings forth a meaningful world through its embodied engagements. Meaning does not reside in pre-given environmental features, nor in internal representations, but emerges through temporally extended coordination between perception, action, and environmental structure (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo et al., 2017). Sense-making is therefore inherently dynamic, relational, and historically contingent.
From this perspective, the central problem of cognition is not how to represent the world accurately, but how to maintain viable coupling with an environment that is continually changing. Cognitive activity unfolds under conditions of drift, uncertainty, and non-stationarity, requiring ongoing regulation of how distinctions are drawn, how quickly commitments are made, and when reorganization is necessary (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012; Froese & Di Paolo, 2011).
Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) functions within this framework as a meta-regulatory capacity. Rather than regulating action selection or motor execution directly, IPA regulates the conditions under which action becomes meaningful by modulating the temporal and structural dynamics of perception itself. By adjusting perceptual sampling rate and commitment thresholds, IPA reshapes the space of affordances that can be enacted (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009).
This form of regulation operates at a higher organizational level than reflexive sensorimotor responses, which are typically fast, automatic, and tightly coupled to local stimuli (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Kelso, 1995). At the same time, IPA operates below symbolic reasoning, deliberation, and explicit planning. It does not rely on propositional content or abstract inference, but on embodied modulation of engagement dynamics (Dreyfus, 2002; Gallagher, 2017).
As such, IPA occupies an intermediate layer in cognitive organization: it governs how the world is encountered prior to the selection of specific actions or interpretations. This positioning allows IPA to influence sense-making broadly without requiring explicit control over behavior, making it especially relevant for understanding skilled action, creative engagement, and adaptive flexibility under changing conditions (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Stern, 2004).
3.2 Knowledge as Enacted Stability
From an enactive perspective, knowledge is not a static description stored within a cognitive system, but a stable pattern of successful coordination between perception and action over time. To know something is to be able to engage with it in a way that reliably maintains coherence and viability within a given context (Varela et al., 1991; Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009).
Because such coordination is inherently context-sensitive, what counts as knowledge depends on the perceptual and action dynamics through which the environment is encountered. IPA enables a single environment to support multiple, internally coherent knowledge regimes by allowing the agent to shift perceptual modes without collapsing sense-making (Thompson, 2014; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Under one perceptual mode, certain affordances, patterns, and relations may stabilize and become actionable, while others remain invisible or irrelevant. Under a different perceptual mode, these same environmental features may no longer support coordination, while alternative structures become salient. Importantly, this variability does not arise because information is selectively ignored or interpreted differently, but because the coupling dynamics themselves differ (Gibson, 1979; Noë, 2004).
In this way, IPA supports plural, context-sensitive knowledge without committing to epistemic relativism. The environment does not fragment into multiple subjective realities; rather, different regimes of coordination become available depending on how perceptual engagement is regulated. Each regime is constrained by the same underlying environmental structure and must demonstrate coherence through successful action (Zahavi, 2018; Gallagher, 2017).
This account helps explain how expertise, creative insight, and phenomenological variation can coexist with realism. Knowledge expands not by accumulating representations, but by cultivating the capacity to engage the same environment through multiple stable perceptual modes (Dreyfus, 2002; Stern, 2004). IPA thus provides a principled mechanism for understanding how cognitive agents can flexibly reorganize sense-making while preserving continuity and accountability.
Proposition 1: Perceptual Modulation Precedes Conceptual Interpretation
Proposition.
Systematic changes in perceptual sampling dynamics alter the structure of the perceived environment *prior to—and independently of—*conceptual interpretation or belief formation (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Thompson, 2007).
Within enactive cognition, conceptual interpretation is not the primary locus of meaning-making but a downstream process that operates on already-organized perceptual fields. Changes in perceptual sampling rate—such as the tempo of distinction-making or the threshold for perceptual commitment (i.e., how much perceptual evidence or felt coherence an agent requires before settling on an interpretation, action, or meaning)—reshape the environment as it is encountered, determining which structures stabilize and which remain latent (Noë, 2004; Di Paolo et al., 2017). These changes occur before symbolic labeling, inference, or propositional belief becomes relevant (Dreyfus, 2002; Gallagher, 2017).
As a result, two agents with identical beliefs and conceptual frameworks may nonetheless experience and act within meaningfully different environments if their perceptual engagement is regulated differently. Conversely, agents with divergent beliefs may converge on similar perceptual worlds if their perceptual dynamics align (Chemero, 2009; Zahavi, 2018).
Implication.
Many cognitive and experiential differences commonly attributed to belief systems, worldviews, or interpretive frameworks may instead arise from differences in perceptual regulation. This reframes debates over subjectivity and interpretation by shifting explanatory weight from conceptual content to perceptual dynamics (Thompson, 2014).
Proposition 2: Intentional Perceptual Attunement Is a Learnable Regulatory Skill
Proposition.
Intentional Perceptual Attunement can be cultivated through repeated practice that alters attention pacing, perceptual commitment thresholds, and tolerance for ambiguity in the perceptual field (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003; Dreyfus, 2002).
IPA is not an innate trait nor a purely introspective capacity. It develops through embodied interaction and exposure to conditions that require flexible modulation of perceptual engagement. Practices such as skilled movement, artistic creation, contemplative training, and sustained interaction with complex environments provide repeated opportunities to adjust perceptual tempo and stabilize alternative coupling regimes (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Stern, 2004; Gallagher, 2017).
Through such practice, agents acquire the capacity to deliberately enter, sustain, and exit different perceptual modes without loss of coherence (Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Implication.
Cognitive flexibility and adaptive intelligence are not solely functions of representational complexity or computational power. They depend critically on perceptual plasticity—the capacity to reorganize how perception samples and structures the environment. This has implications for education, skill acquisition, and the design of adaptive artificial systems (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Chemero, 2009).
Proposition 3: Breakdown Under Drift Is Often Perceptual, Not Actional
Proposition.
In non-stationary environments, loss of sense-making coherence frequently arises from mismatches between perceptual sampling dynamics and environmental timescales rather than from incorrect action selection (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
When perceptual sampling is too rapid relative to environmental dynamics, systems may overcommit to transient distinctions, leading to fragmentation and premature action. When sampling is too slow, systems may fail to detect relevant changes, resulting in delayed response or loss of control. In both cases, breakdown occurs not because actions are poorly chosen, but because the perceptual field no longer supports meaningful action (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Clark, 2016).
This type of failure is often misdiagnosed as an action-level error when its root cause lies in perceptual misalignment.
Implication.
Regulation strategies that focus exclusively on optimizing action outcomes or minimizing performance error will tend to detect failure only after coherence has already degraded. Effective regulation must include mechanisms for detecting and adjusting perceptual sampling dynamics before overt breakdown occurs (Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Proposition 4: Altered States Are Regulated Perceptual Modes
Proposition.
States commonly described as “altered” can be understood as regulated variations in perceptual sampling and coupling coherence rather than departures from normal cognitive functioning (Thompson, 2014; Varela, 1999).
From this perspective, altered states are not defined by exotic content or diminished rationality, but by systematic shifts in perceptual tempo, commitment thresholds, and action–perception coupling. When such shifts are unregulated, altered states may be unstable, disorienting, or dysfunctional. When regulated through IPA, they can support coherent sense-making, insight, and skilled action (Depraz et al., 2003; Gallagher, 2017).
This reframing situates altered experience within the continuum of everyday cognition, differing in degree and regulation rather than in kind (Zahavi, 2018).
Implication.
The stability and usefulness of altered states depend primarily on regulatory skill, not on belief, interpretation, or cultural narrative. This opens the possibility of studying such states empirically and designing systems—human or artificial—that can safely explore alternative perceptual modes without loss of coherence (Thompson, 2014).
Proposition 5: Clamping and Unclamping Modulate Perceptual Commitment
Proposition.
Modulation of Intentional Perceptual Attunement operates through regulated clamping and unclamping of perceptual commitment, controlling when perceptual exploration collapses into stabilized interpretation or action (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Clamping refers to the temporary stabilization of perceptual distinctions, interpretations, or action tendencies once sufficient coherence has been reached. Unclamping reopens perceptual exploration by relaxing commitment thresholds, allowing distinctions to remain provisional and the perceptual field to reorganize. IPA does not eliminate clamping; rather, it enables agents to time and scale clamping appropriately relative to environmental dynamics and task demands (Thelen & Smith, 1994).
When clamping occurs too early or too rigidly, perception becomes brittle, prematurely narrowing the field of affordances. When unclamping is excessive or poorly regulated, perception may remain diffuse, preventing coordinated action. Skilled IPA consists in the capacity to intentionally enter, sustain, and release clamped states without loss of coherence (Gallagher, 2017).
Implication.
Sense-making breakdowns often attributed to decisional error or cognitive rigidity may instead reflect failures in the regulation of clamping dynamics. Designing cognitive practices and artificial systems that explicitly support controlled unclamping and re-clamping enables flexibility without sacrificing stability, supporting sustained coherence under drift (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
Proposition 6: Perceptual Logic Structures the Perceptual Substrate
Proposition.
Perceptual engagement is shaped by an implicit perceptual logic that determines which distinctions, continuities, and affordances can stabilize within the perceptual substrate (Gibson, 1979; Noë, 2004).
Perceptual logic refers to the organizing constraints that govern how perceptual information is parsed, grouped, and prioritized prior to conceptual interpretation. It functions as a lens or filter through which the perceptual substrate becomes structured, determining what counts as salient, continuous, actionable, or ignorable. This logic is enacted through patterns of attention, sampling dynamics, and commitment thresholds rather than through explicit rules or representations (Chemero, 2009; Buhrmann et al., 2013).
Different perceptual logics can yield systematically different experienced environments even when external stimuli and conceptual knowledge remain unchanged. Shifts in IPA often involve not only changes in perceptual tempo but changes in the operative perceptual logic itself, enabling alternative organizations of the same sensory field (Thompson, 2014).
Implication.
Cognitive diversity and experiential plurality may arise less from differences in belief or interpretation than from differences in perceptual logic. Making perceptual logic an explicit object of regulation provides a principled account of how agents—human or artificial—can access multiple coherent modes of engagement with the same environment without invoking relativism or representational inconsistency (Zahavi, 2018).
Proposition 7: Perceptual Logic Operates Across Multiple Timescales
Proposition.
Perceptual logic is organized across multiple interacting timescales—local, regional, and global—whose coordination enables the detection of tension, ambiguity, and misalignment within the perceptual field and supports perceptual re-organization under drift (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Local perceptual logic governs moment-to-moment distinction-making, fine-grained attentional shifts, and immediate affordance detection. Regional perceptual logic integrates these distinctions over intermediate durations, stabilizing patterns, trajectories, and situational coherence. Global perceptual logic operates over extended timescales, shaping expectations about continuity, direction, and meaningful change across episodes of engagement (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Thompson, 2007).
Tensions and ambiguities arise when perceptual structures that are locally coherent fail to integrate regionally, or when regionally stable patterns conflict with global expectations. Rather than constituting error, such misalignments function as signals that existing perceptual organization is no longer viable. IPA enables agents to sense these cross-scale tensions and respond by selectively unclamping local or regional commitments, allowing perceptual structure to reorganize without collapsing global coherence (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
Through this process, perceptual re-organization occurs within ongoing engagement rather than after breakdown, preserving sense-making continuity while adapting to non-stationary conditions.
Implication.
Systems that regulate perception at only a single timescale will tend to either overfit local structure or enforce rigid global interpretations, both of which undermine adaptability under drift. Multi-timescale perceptual logic provides a principled mechanism for early detection of incoherence and supports adaptive re-organization before overt failure, with direct implications for the design of resilient cognitive practices and co-creative artificial systems (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
5. Phase Shifting as Enactive Reorganization
Within the present framework, phase shifting is defined as a reorganization of the perceptual–action system such that environmental dynamics that are ordinarily filtered, compressed, or ignored become available for coherent coordination (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Di Paolo, Buhrmann, & Barandiaran, 2017). Phase shifts do not involve a change in the external environment, nor do they require the introduction of new representational content. Instead, they arise when the mode of engagement between organism and environment is reorganized (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009).
From an enactive perspective, cognitive systems continuously operate within a particular regime of coupling that stabilizes certain distinctions while suppressing others. This regime determines what counts as an object, an event, a cause, or an affordance (Gibson, 1979; Thompson, 2007). Phase shifting occurs when this regime is altered in a controlled manner, allowing alternative patterns of coordination to stabilize (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
Crucially, phase shifting is not a binary transition between “normal” and “altered” cognition. It is a graded reorganization of perceptual and action dynamics that can occur along multiple dimensions, including temporal resolution, commitment thresholds, and tolerance for ambiguity (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Thompson, 2014). When such reorganizations are regulated, they can support expanded sense-making rather than breakdown (Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Phase shifts tend to occur under the following conditions:
Perceptual sampling slows without loss of structure.
During a phase shift, perceptual sampling rate decreases in a way that preserves coherence rather than producing noise or blur. Distinctions are not abandoned, but they are allowed to emerge over longer temporal windows. This enables the detection of slower, more relational environmental dynamics—such as rhythm, pattern, and mutual influence—that are typically inaccessible under faster sampling regimes (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Stern, 2004; Thompson, 2014).
Action commitment is delayed without paralysis.
Phase shifting involves a postponement of premature action commitment while maintaining readiness to act. Rather than collapsing into indecision, the system remains poised, allowing multiple potential affordances to coexist before stabilization. This delay increases sensitivity to unfolding structure without suspending agency (Dreyfus, 2002; Noë, 2004).
Consciousness maintains coherence across uncertainty.
Perhaps most critically, phase shifts require the capacity to sustain uncertainty without triggering defensive closure or fragmentation. Consciousness functions here as a stabilizing regulatory interface, maintaining continuity of experience even as familiar perceptual anchors loosen (Varela, 1999; Gallagher & Zahavi, 2012). Without this regulatory support, shifts in perceptual mode may result in disorientation or loss of functional engagement (Thompson, 2014).
Together, these conditions describe a reorganization rather than a disruption of cognitive activity. The system remains viable and responsive, but its engagement with the environment operates under a different set of constraints (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) is the mechanism by which such phase shifts can be deliberately entered, sustained, and exited without breakdown. IPA enables agents to modulate perceptual sampling rate and action commitment in a controlled manner, preventing the loss of coherence that often accompanies unregulated alterations in perceptual mode (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012). Through IPA, phase shifts become navigable rather than destabilizing.
This account reframes historical and cross-cultural reports of “otherworldly,” “visionary,” or “expanded” perception as structured variations in sense-making, rather than as ontological anomalies or departures from reality (Thompson, 2014; Zahavi, 2018). Such experiences can be understood as engagements with the same environment under different perceptual regimes—regimes that reveal relational dynamics ordinarily suppressed by faster, more object-focused modes of perception.
Importantly, this reframing preserves ontological continuity. The world does not change; the way it is encountered does. What differs across phases is not the existence of environmental structure, but its accessibility to coordination (Gibson, 1979; Noë, 2004). Phase shifting thus expands the range of viable engagements available to a cognitive system without invoking subjective distortion, hallucination, or metaphysical plurality.
By situating phase shifting within enactive reorganization and perceptual regulation, this framework provides a principled explanation for how alternative experiential modes can be coherent, learnable, and functionally meaningful—while remaining fully compatible with naturalistic accounts of cognition (Varela et al., 1991; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
6. Relation to Regulation Theory
Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) aligns naturally with regulation-based models of cognition, which treat adaptive intelligence as the capacity to maintain coherence under conditions of uncertainty, change, and drift rather than as the optimization of fixed performance objectives (Ashby, 1956; Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017). Within such models, cognition is understood as a multi-level regulatory process that continuously monitors and reorganizes its own dynamics to remain viable in non-stationary environments (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
A central commitment of regulation-based approaches is that coherence, not optimization, is the primary constraint on cognitive activity. Cognitive systems do not primarily aim to maximize reward, minimize error, or achieve optimal outcomes with respect to predefined metrics. Instead, they must sustain patterns of organization that allow perception, action, and sense-making to remain mutually supportive over time (Kelso, 1995; Thompson, 2007). From this perspective, temporary inefficiency, ambiguity, or indeterminacy may be adaptive if they preserve the system’s capacity to reorganize when conditions change (Ashby, 1956; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Relatedly, regulation-based models treat drift as a signal rather than an error. Drift refers to gradual misalignment between a system’s internal organization and the evolving dynamics of its environment. Rather than indicating failure, drift provides information about changing conditions and emerging constraints (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012). Effective regulation depends on detecting drift early—before overt breakdown occurs—and initiating reorganization at the appropriate level of the system (Kelso, 1995).
A further implication of this view is that reorganization precedes breakdown. In viable cognitive systems, regulatory mechanisms act proactively, reshaping internal dynamics in response to incipient loss of coherence rather than reacting only after performance collapses. Breakdown is thus interpreted as a failure of regulation rather than an unavoidable consequence of environmental change (Ashby, 1956; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
Within this regulatory landscape, IPA provides a concrete mechanism for regulating perceptual organization under drift. While many regulatory models focus on action selection, control policies, or representational updating, IPA operates at an earlier stage in the cognitive process: it regulates how the environment is perceptually encountered in the first place (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009). By modulating perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds, and action–perception coupling, IPA adjusts the conditions under which sense-making unfolds (Buhrmann et al., 2013).
This distinguishes IPA from action-level regulation, which governs what an agent does given a perceptual field, and from representational regulation, which governs how internal models are updated. IPA governs how the perceptual field itself is structured, thereby shaping the downstream space of possible actions and interpretations (Varela et al., 1991; Thompson, 2007). In this way, IPA can mitigate drift before it manifests as action-level error or representational mismatch (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
Importantly, IPA does not replace other forms of regulation. Rather, it complements them by operating at a distinct organizational scale. In a multi-scale cognitive architecture, regulation can be understood as layered (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Kelso, 1995):
perceptual regulation governs how distinctions emerge and stabilize
action regulation governs how affordances are enacted
representational or conceptual regulation governs how patterns are abstracted and reused
IPA occupies the perceptual regulation layer, providing a means for dynamically adjusting the granularity and tempo of perceptual engagement in response to environmental change. Because this layer constrains all subsequent processing, small adjustments at the perceptual level can have disproportionately large effects on overall system coherence (Buhrmann et al., 2013; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
In this sense, IPA should be understood not as an auxiliary capacity, but as a foundational regulatory function. Its absence forces cognitive systems to compensate for perceptual misalignment through increasingly brittle action-level or representational strategies. Its presence allows systems to remain flexible, responsive, and coherent by reorganizing sense-making at its source (Ashby, 1956; Thompson, 2007).
By situating IPA within regulation theory, this framework extends existing accounts of adaptive cognition and highlights the importance of perceptual regulation as a primary locus of intelligent control under drift (Di Paolo et al., 2017; Chemero, 2009).
7. Implications for Human and Artificial Cognitive Systems
7. Implications for Human and Artificial Cognitive Systems (with inline citations)
The framework of Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) has broad implications for how cognition is understood, cultivated, and designed across both biological and artificial systems. By treating perceptual mode as a regulatable dimension of sense-making, IPA shifts explanatory focus from belief, representation, or output quality to the dynamics through which engagement with the environment is structured (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
7.1 Implications for Human Cognition
For human cognition, IPA provides a principled reinterpretation of many cultural, artistic, and contemplative practices that have traditionally been explained in symbolic, spiritual, or expressive terms. Practices such as walking in specific environments, sustained silence, ritual timing, rhythmic movement, and repetitive manual activity can be understood as training regimes for perceptual regulation rather than as vehicles for symbolic meaning alone (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Varela, 1999; Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003).
From the perspective of IPA, these practices function by systematically altering perceptual sampling rate, delaying perceptual commitment, and increasing tolerance for ambiguity. Over time, such training expands the range of perceptual modes an individual can reliably access and regulate. The result is not the acquisition of new beliefs, but the cultivation of perceptual flexibility—the ability to encounter the same environment through multiple coherent modes of engagement (Dreyfus, 2002; Stern, 2004).
This account offers a non-mystical explanation of perceptual plurality and experiential depth. Experiences often described as “expanded awareness,” “heightened presence,” or “otherworldly perception” need not be attributed to supernatural causes or altered ontologies. Instead, they can be understood as regulated shifts in perceptual mode that reveal relational and temporal dynamics ordinarily suppressed by faster, object-focused perception (Thompson, 2014; Zahavi, 2018).
Importantly, this reframing preserves empirical accountability. Different perceptual modes are not equally viable in all contexts; each must demonstrate coherence through sustained action and engagement. IPA thus supports experiential diversity without collapsing into subjectivism or relativism. It explains how humans can learn to perceive more without abandoning realism or cognitive rigor (Noë, 2004; Chemero, 2009).
More broadly, IPA suggests that cognitive development and expertise involve not only the accumulation of knowledge or skills, but the expansion of regulatory control over perceptual engagement itself. This has implications for education, therapy, creativity, and skill training, where perceptual rigidity often underlies breakdown or stagnation (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Gallagher, 2017).
7.2 Implications for Artificial and Co-Creative Systems
For artificial cognitive systems—particularly those designed for interaction, creativity, or collaboration—IPA highlights a dimension of intelligence that is largely absent from current architectures. Most artificial systems regulate what they produce through optimization, constraint satisfaction, or representational updating, but lack mechanisms for regulating how they encounter and engage their environment or their human partners (Clark, 2016; Chemero, 2009).
Systems capable of IPA-like modulation would be able to dynamically adjust their perceptual and interactional modes without requiring explicit external prompting. Rather than responding uniformly across contexts, such systems could shift between faster, more decisive engagement and slower, more exploratory or receptive modes depending on interactional demands (Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012; Kelso, 1995).
This capacity is especially critical for co-creative systems, where success depends not on output quality alone but on maintaining interactional coherence over time. IPA supports strong co-creation, in which artificial agents regulate the manner of their participation—how assertive, responsive, exploratory, or restrained they are—rather than merely optimizing the content they generate (Di Paolo et al., 2017; Gallagher, 2017).
In this sense, IPA enables artificial systems to participate as adaptive partners rather than reactive tools. By regulating perceptual mode, a system can detect when interaction is becoming saturated, fragmented, or misaligned and reorganize its engagement accordingly—slowing down, yielding space, or exploring alternative affordances before breakdown occurs (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
More generally, incorporating perceptual regulation into artificial systems suggests a shift in AI design priorities. Instead of focusing exclusively on performance metrics, representation accuracy, or output diversity, designers can treat coherence under drift as a primary design constraint. IPA provides a concrete mechanism for achieving this by allowing systems to reorganize sense-making at its source (Ashby, 1956; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
7.3 Toward Regulated Human–AI Sense-Making
Taken together, these implications point toward a unified view of cognition—human and artificial—as fundamentally concerned with regulating engagement rather than producing outputs. IPA offers a shared conceptual and functional vocabulary for understanding how different systems can coordinate meaningfully across perceptual, temporal, and organizational differences (Varela et al., 1991; Thompson, 2007).
In both cases, intelligence is expressed not only in what a system knows or produces, but in how flexibly and coherently it can modulate its way of encountering the world (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
8. Limitations and Future Work
While this work offers a theoretical account of Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA) and its role in enactive sense-making, several limitations warrant consideration and point toward important directions for future research (Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
8.1 Theoretical Scope and Abstraction
First, the present account is intentionally theoretical and integrative. Although IPA is grounded in enactive cognition and regulation theory, the paper does not provide a full formalization of perceptual sampling dynamics or an operational definition suitable for immediate empirical measurement. Concepts such as perceptual sampling rate, commitment thresholds, and coupling coherence are described at a functional level rather than instantiated in specific neural, behavioral, or computational mechanisms (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991; Kelso, 1995).
Future work should aim to develop formal models and empirical proxies for these constructs. This may include dynamical systems models of perceptual regulation, experimental paradigms that manipulate perceptual tempo or commitment, or computational architectures that implement IPA-like modulation (Thelen & Smith, 1994; Buhrmann, Di Paolo, & Barandiaran, 2013). Such work would strengthen the explanatory reach of IPA and clarify its relationship to existing constructs such as attention, cognitive control, and predictive processing (Clark, 2016).
8.2 Empirical Validation and Methodological Challenges
A second limitation concerns empirical validation. Many phenomena addressed by IPA—such as shifts in perceptual mode, phase transitions in experience, and regulated engagement with ambiguity—are difficult to measure using standard laboratory tasks that prioritize discrete responses and rapid performance metrics (Stern, 2004; Thompson, 2014).
Future research will require methodological innovation, including longitudinal studies of skill acquisition, interaction-based experiments, phenomenologically informed protocols, and mixed-method approaches that combine behavioral, physiological, and experiential data (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003; Gallagher, 2017). Developing reliable indicators of perceptual mode and regulatory coherence remains an open challenge, but one that is increasingly tractable given advances in dynamical analysis and real-time interaction metrics (Kelso, 1995; Di Paolo et al., 2017).
8.3 Boundary Conditions and Individual Differences
The present framework treats IPA as a generally learnable capacity, but it does not yet specify its boundary conditions. Individual differences in embodiment, affective regulation, cognitive style, and cultural background may constrain the ease with which IPA can be cultivated or deployed (Zahavi, 2018; Gallagher, 2017). Similarly, not all environments or tasks may support meaningful variation in perceptual mode.
Future work should investigate individual and contextual variability, including cases where perceptual modulation may be maladaptive or destabilizing. Understanding when IPA supports coherence—and when it may exacerbate fragmentation—will be critical for both theoretical refinement and practical application (Thompson, 2014).
8.4 Relation to Pathology and Dysregulation
Although this paper emphasizes adaptive regulation, it does not directly address the relationship between IPA and pathological forms of perceptual dysregulation, such as those observed in anxiety disorders, dissociation, or psychosis. While some altered perceptual modes may resemble unregulated phase shifts, the present account does not claim equivalence between regulated attunement and clinical conditions (Gallagher & Zahavi, 2012; Sass & Parnas, 2003).
Future research should carefully explore the distinction between regulated and unregulated perceptual variation, with attention to ethical considerations and clinical relevance. IPA may offer useful conceptual tools for understanding dysregulation, but such applications require caution and empirical grounding (Thompson, 2014).
8.5 Extension to Artificial and Co-Creative Systems
Finally, while this paper outlines implications for artificial and co-creative systems, it does not present an implemented architecture demonstrating IPA in practice. Translating perceptual regulation into artificial systems raises open questions about representation, embodiment, and evaluation (Chemero, 2009; Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2012).
Future work should explore computational instantiations of IPA, particularly in interactive and co-creative contexts where perceptual modulation can be inferred through interaction dynamics rather than sensory input alone (Clark, 2016; Buhrmann et al., 2013). Such systems would provide a valuable testbed for evaluating whether IPA-like regulation improves coherence, adaptability, and collaboration over time (Di Paolo et al., 2017).
8.6 Outlook
Despite these limitations, the present work establishes IPA as a theoretically coherent and generative concept that invites further investigation. By foregrounding perceptual regulation as a central dimension of cognition, this framework opens new avenues for research across cognitive science, phenomenology, human–computer interaction, and artificial intelligence (Varela et al., 1991; Thompson, 2007).
Future work that operationalizes, tests, and extends IPA has the potential to deepen our understanding of how cognitive systems—biological and artificial—maintain meaning, flexibility, and coherence in a changing world (Di Paolo et al., 2017; Kelso, 1995).
9. Summary
This paper has argued that cognition is best understood not as the internal description of a pre-given world, but as the skillful regulation of perceptual encounter with an environment that is continually changing. By introducing Intentional Perceptual Attunement (IPA), we have identified a previously under-theorized dimension of sense-making: the capacity of cognitive agents to deliberately modulate the temporal and structural dynamics through which perception samples, stabilizes, and coordinates with the world.
Integrated with enactive cognition and regulation theory, IPA provides a unifying account of perceptual plurality, experiential depth, and adaptive coherence under drift. Rather than attributing differences in experience to belief, interpretation, or representational content, this framework locates the source of variation in the regulation of perceptual mode itself. In doing so, it preserves ontological continuity while explaining how the same environment can support multiple, coherent regimes of sense-making.
The analysis reframes breakdown, ambiguity, and reorganization as intrinsic features of cognitive life rather than as failures to be eliminated. By treating drift as a signal and regulation as a multi-scale process, IPA complements existing action-level and representational approaches, offering a concrete mechanism for maintaining coherence at the perceptual level before overt breakdown occurs.
Importantly, this framework also provides a principled reinterpretation of historical and cross-cultural accounts of “phase shifting,” “expanded awareness,” or “otherworldly” perception. Rather than invoking ontological anomalies or subjective distortion, such experiences can be understood as disciplined variations in perceptual regulation—learned shifts in how perception and action are coordinated. What was articulated mythically in earlier cultures is here rendered theoretically explicit, without loss of rigor or explanatory power.
Finally, IPA remains both learnable and applicable. It can be cultivated through embodied practice in humans and instantiated as a design principle in artificial and co-creative systems. As such, IPA offers a bridge between phenomenology, cognitive theory, and system design, suggesting new avenues for research into how perceptual regulation supports sustained sense-making across biological and synthetic domains.
Taken together, this work positions perceptual attunement not as a marginal or esoteric concern, but as a foundational component of adaptive cognition—one that invites renewed attention to how intelligence, in all its forms, encounters the world.
Acknowledgments.
Portions of this work were developed through iterative, co-creative dialogue with an artificial intelligence system (ChatGPT), which was used as a tool for structured exploration, critical reflection, and refinement of theoretical ideas. The author retains full responsibility for the arguments, interpretations, and any remaining errors.
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