Sensorimotor Contingency Theory

Sensorimotor contingency theory is the claim that perception is not the passive reception of sensory input but the active mastery of the laws governing how sensory stimulation changes with movement. To perceive an object is to know, implicitly and practically, how one's sensory experience would transform if one moved relative to that object. The theory was developed by Alva Noë and others in the enactivist tradition, building on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and the ecological psychology of J.J. Gibson.

The radical implication is that the neural correlate of perception is not sufficient for perceptual experience. A brain in a vat that received identical stimulation would not perceive the world, because it would lack the practical knowledge of how movement and sensation are coupled. Perceptual experience requires the whole sensorimotor loop, not just the sensory input. The theory thus challenges the brain in a vat thought experiment at its root: the scenario is not merely unlikely but conceptually incoherent if perception is essentially sensorimotor.