Mental Action and the Scope of Affordance Perception

Abstract

A key question in affordance research is how broad a range of affordances we can perceive. Most advocates of affordance perception agree on some well-trodden examples—affordances to walk, affordances to climb, affordances to eat—but the discussion continues over how far this list should extend. Within this discussion, attention has recently turned to the possibility that we perceive affordances for mental action. Some of our actions—such as attending, imagining, or deliberating—are typically described as mental actions. However, do we perceive our environment as affording such mental actions? Moreover, if so, which mental affordances do we perceive? These questions depend on how exactly the distinction between mental and non-mental action is drawn. This turns out to be something of a conceptual minefield, particularly when it comes to the possibility of embodied and extended cognition. Without arguing for any particular view, this chapter aims to map out three views of mental action and explore what they would each mean for the hypothesis that we perceive affordances for mental action.