ABSTRACT
IN SURVEYING THE EXPERIENTIAL QUALITIES OF DIFFERENT SENSES in relation to the two basic perceptual modes in adult man, it has become apparent that the autocentric mode and the autocentric (lower) senses, because of their lack of objectification, tell the perceiver relatively little about reality and its spatial structure, but that they are closely linked to pleasure and displeasure feelings, many of which are physically localized on or in man's body. The allocentric (higher) senses, on the other hand, when functioning in the allocentric mode do not have this close link with pleasure and displeasure, but transmit to man all essential information about reality which he needs in order to orient himself in it. This comprises what man learns by hearing the words of others and seeing what they have written, including many things which he cannot grasp directly by looking at his environment and manipulating the objects in it. Even in the blind and deaf, as in the famous case of Helen Keller, only the high development of allocentric touch makes possible their sharing of the common world of man by enabling them to perceive the tactile communications of others. 116
The profound differences between, and peculiar qualities of, the two basic modes of perceptual experience suggest their relation to Freud's concepts of the pleasure and the reality principle. The autocentric mode, at first glance, seems to represent in the perceptual sphere a functioning of the senses more in accordance with the pleasure principle, while the allocentric mode seems to function more according to the reality principle. Freud assumes that in the earliest phase of development, the pleasure principle and its primary processes are the only kind of mental processes, and that at a later point the reality principle with its secondary processes is superimposed on the pleasure principle.1
