Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a psychopathological condition characterized by persistent deficits in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. To build an ecological-enactive account of autism, I propose we should endorse the affordance-based approach of the skilled intentionality framework (SIF). In SIF, embodied cognition is understood as skilled engagement with affordances in the sociomaterial environment of the ecological niche by which an individual tends toward the optimal grip. The human econiche offers a whole landscape (...) of affordances, and situated individuals respond to a field of relevant affordances. An important part of SIF is an ecological-enactive interpretation of the free energy principle and predictive processing. Predictive processing accounts indicate that in ASD too much precision is assigned to prediction errors. Autistic persons depend heavily on current sensory information and less on prior beliefs and cannot attune to stable regularities. To reduce uncertainty, they over-rely on routines, strict habits, and a familiar environment—a predictable ecological niche they construct. I argue that skilled intentionality gives us the framework from which to analyze the autistic field of affordances. Autistic patterns of affordance-related bodily states of action readiness are only sensitive to very specific solicitations in the environment and achieve optimal grip in well-known situations. Autism is to be understood as a disorder of bodily normativity. Taking this approach helps us figure out what neurotypical people can do to attune their environment in order to scaffold the needs of autistic individuals by redesigning the landscape of affordances. (shrink)

The debate about the definition of Latinidad as a social identity has fluctuated between accounts that put it closer to ethnicity or closer to race. We present and defend the claim that the multiplicity of features and experiences of Latinxs in the United States is best accounted for by placing Latinidad in a different theoretical space. We draw from the ecological psychology and enactive literature on affordances to argue that Latinidad can be better understood as a social identity affordance: a (...) multifaceted landscape of possibilities for interaction, to do and to be done unto. We then focus on four areas that are part of the objective factors that have come to constitute Latinidad and which provide reasons to shy away from both race and ethnicity: the facts of mestizaje and hybridization, a vexed relation to the land, the political horizons and histories of this population, and the multiplicity of sensory-based cultural practices of Latinxs. It is precisely the many and deep variations across Latinxs that make social affordances an apt way to conceptualize a social identity whose reality is asserted pragmatically in many aspects of social life in the U.S. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore and examine different ways in which affectivity is related to perception within ecological psychology. I assess whether some of those ways compromise the realist and direct aspects of traditional ecological perception. I sustain that they don’t. Affectivity, at least in some cases, turns the perception of fine-grained affordances possible. For an engaged perceiver, affectivity is not optional.

Are interpersonal affordances a distinct type of affordance, and if so, what is it that differentiates them from other kinds of affordances? In this paper, I show that a hard distinction between interpersonal affordances and other affordances is warranted and ethically important. The enactivist theory of participatory sense-making demonstrates that there is a difference in coupling between agent-environment and agent-agent interactions, and these differences in coupling provide a basis for distinguishing between the perception of environmental and interpersonal affordances. Building further (...) on this foundation for understanding interpersonal affordances, I argue that in line with some enactivist work on social cognition, interpersonal affordances ought to be considered as those that are afforded by agents and are recognized as such. Given this distinction, I also make the point that because our social conventions establish persons as more than mere agents, the direct perception of interpersonal affordances may also involve seeing others as embodied selves. Distinguishing between types of affordances thus also matters ethically: there can be harms done when an agent is not perceived as an agent, and there can be harms done when an agent is not perceived as a self. (shrink)

Although enactive approaches to cognition vary in terms of their character and scope, all endorse several core claims. The first is that cognition is tied to action. The second is that cognition is composed of more than just in-the-head processes; cognitive activities are externalized via features of our embodiment and in our ecological dealings with the people and things around us. I appeal to these two enactive claims to consider a view called “direct social perception” : the idea that we (...) can sometimes perceive features of other minds directly in the character of their embodiment and environmental interactions. I argue that if DSP is true, we can probably also perceive certain features of mental disorders as well. I draw upon the developmental psychologist Daniel Stern’s notion of “forms of vitality”—largely overlooked in these debates—to develop this idea, and I use autism as a case study. I argue further that an enactive approach to DSP can clarify some ways we play a regulative role in shaping the temporal and phenomenal character of the disorder in question, and it may therefore have practical significance for both the clinical and therapeutic encounter. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to important questions raised by Gallagher and Jacobson in the field of cognitive science about face-to-face interactions in Heidegger’s account of ‘intersubjectivity’ in Being and Time. They have criticized his account for a lack of attention to primary intersubjectivity, or immediate, face-to-face interactions; he favours, they argue, embodied interactions via objects. I argue that the same assumption underlies their argument as did earlier critiques of a lack of an account of the body in Heidegger ; (...) namely that because the body is not explicitly discussed in Being and Time, embodiment, rather than stressing the immediacy of experience, is insufficiently acknowledged in his emphasis on ‘being-in-the-world’. Through placing Gallagher and Jacobson’s accounts of intersubjectivity and the body alongside Heidegger’s accounts of Mitsein and Leib, this article shows Heidegger’s radical position on the body as immersed in a holistic environment, and its reverberations on his account of intersubjectivity. I argue that Dasein’s embodied engagement in the world is always one of immediacy and that the body of the other is perceived as ‘tied into’ its context, as well. In so doing, I offer an Heideggerian account of ecstatic involvement which moves away from the distinction between primary and secondary intersubjectivity toward an immediate engagement with objects and people always already ‘tied into’ a context; an account that, through the concept of Fürsorge, includes shifts of attention between objects and people that allow for the ethical distinctions Gallagher and Jacobson are looking for. (shrink)

Direct perception and theory-theory approaches to social cognition are opposed with respect to whether social cognition is inferential. The latter argues that it is inferential, the former that it is not. This paper argues that the opposition in terms of inference is mistaken. A sense of inference is specified on which social cognition can be inferential and directly perceptual. Arguing for inferential social cognition does not commit to a defense of indirect social cognition if inferential access to other minds can (...) be direct. Contrary convictions are symptomatic of working with too simplistic a notion of inference. The dispute between direct and inferentialist social cognition is one where both sides can be right. The argument, then, is that inferentialism should not be called on to witness in favor or disfavor of advocates of either direct or indirect social cognition. (shrink)

This article focuses on social perception, an area of research that lies at the interface between the philosophy of perception and the scientific investigation of human social cognition. Some philosophers and psychologists appeal to resonance mechanisms to show that intentional and goal-directed actions can be perceived. Against these approaches, I show that there is a class of simple goal-directed actions, whose perception does not rely on resonance. I discuss the role of the superior temporal sulcus as the possible neural correlate (...) of perception of goal-directed actions. My proposal is intermediate between claims according to which we perceive intentional actions and claims according to which we cannot perceive goal-directed actions. 1Preliminary Clarifications and Methodology2Does the Perception of Goal-Directed Actions Rest on Resonance?3What Are the Neural Correlates of Social Perception?4From Neural Correlates to the Experience of Goal-Directed Actions5The Development of the Perception of Goal-Directed Actions: A Possible New Role for Resonance6Conclusion: Seeing Goal-Directedness of Actions and Social Perception. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder is usually understood through deficits in social interaction and communication, repetitive patterns of behavior, and hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input. Affordance-based Skilled Intentionality that combines ecological-enactive views of cognition with Free Energy and Predictive Processing was proposed as the framework from which to view autism integrally. Skilled Intentionality distinguishes between a landscape of affordances and a field of affordances. Under the integrative Skilled Intentionality Framework, it can be shown that autistic differences in the field of affordances (...) stem from aberrant precision estimation. Autistics over-rely on the precision afforded by the environment—a stable econiche they build. According to this approach, autism is understood as characterized by an atypical field of affordances. I will build on the ecological-enactive account of autism to suggest that one way to shape the neurotypical landscape of affordances in accordance with autistic needs is through the use of Ambient Smart Environments (ASEs). Taking the cue from autistic lived experience, ASEs could help minimize environmental uncertainty and afford affective scaffolding by supporting dynamic and flexible niche construction in accordance with individual autistic styles. (shrink)

According to sensorimotor theory perceiving is a bodily skill involving exercise of an implicit know-how of the systematic ways that sensations change as a result of potential movements, that is, of sensorimotor contingencies. The theory has been most successfully applied to vision and touch, while perceptual modalities that rely less on overt exploration of the environment have not received as much attention. In addition, most research has focused on philosophically grounding the theory and on psychologically elucidating sensorimotor laws, but the (...) theory’s ramifications for neuroscience still remain underexamined. Here we sketch the beginnings of a research program that could address these two outstanding challenges in terms of auditory perception. We review the neuroscience literature on passive listening, which is defined as listening without overt bodily movement, and conclude that sensorimotor theory provides a unique perspective on the consistent finding of motor system activation. In contrast to competing theories, this activation is predicted to be involved not only in the perception of speech- and action-related sounds, but in auditory perception in general. More specifically, we propose that the auditory processing associated with supplementary motor areas forms part of the neural basis of the exercise of sensorimotor know-how: these areas’ recognized role in facilitating spontaneous motor responses to sound and supporting flexible engagement of sensorimotor processes to guide auditory experience and enable auditory imagery, can be understood in terms of two key characteristics of sensorimotor interaction, its “alerting capacity” and “corporality”, respectively. We also highlight that there is more to the inside of the body than the brain: there is an opportunity to develop sensorimotor theory into new directions in terms of the still poorly understood active processes of the peripheral auditory system. (shrink)

It is well-known that Husserl denies bodily behaviour as expressive in the I. Logical Investigation but he dramatically changes his view and holds that bodily behaviour is essentially expressive in...

Over the past 40 years, the sense of place concept has been well-established across a range of applications and settings; however, most theoretical developments have ‘privileged the slow’. Evidence suggests that place attachments and place meanings are slow to evolve, sometimes not matching material or social reality (lag effects), and also tending to inhibit change. Here we present some key blind spots in sense of place scholarship and then suggest how a reconsideration of sense of place as ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ (...) could fill them. By this, we mean how direct and immediate perception-action processes presented in affordance theory (resulting in immediately perceived place meanings) can complement slower forms of social construction presented in sense of place scholarship. Key blind spots are that sense of place scholarship: 1) rarely accounts for sensory or immediately perceived meanings; 2) pays little attention to how place meanings are the joint product of attributes of environmental features and the attributes of the individual; and; 3) assumes that the relationship between place attachment and behaviour is linear and not constituted in dynamic relations among mind, culture and environment.. We show how these blind spots can begin to be addressed by reviewing key insights from affordance theory, and through the presentation of applied examples. We discuss future empirical research directions in terms of: 1) how sense of place is both perceived and socially constructed; 2) whether perceived and socially constructed dimensions of place can relate to one another when perceived meanings become unsituated, and; 3) how place attachment may change over different stages of the life course based upon dynamic relationships between processes of perception-action and social construction. We conclude with insights into how processes of perception-action and social construction could be included in the design and management of urban landscapes. (shrink)

From an architectural perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic relations between individuals and the environments using the concept of affordance. In three different cases of architectural research, the concept of affordance is used as an analytical tool – yet demonstrating different scopes and outcomes. A post-occupancy evaluation of an office space in transformation; a lighting assessment and intervention in low vision rehabilitation situated in private home environments; and an urban event at an architecture festival involving (...) the intervention of a sound- and scentscape. The three cases show that the concept of affordance can embrace and operationalize the human perception of the environment, pointing at descriptive, prescriptive, and exploratory possibilities in relation to architectural design and research. The concept of affordance enables rich descriptions and explorations of qualities of architecture, related to multisensorial, emotional, and social interactional aspects of humans and their environments. (shrink)

Recent enactive approach to social cognition stresses the indispensability of social affordance with regard to social understanding and contends that it is affordance that primarily solicits one’s reaction to the other, such that one becomes affected by the other and attends to the other’s situated appearance in the first place. What remains to be explored, however, is the sense in which social affordance is delineated by an affective sphere and the extent to which the affective sphere serves as a meaning (...) constraint for social sense-making. In this paper, we analyze Husserl’s genetic theory of affection, so as to better understand the nature of the social affective sphere. And we argue that social understanding takes places at different levels and it is at the passive and pre-reflective level that the social surroundings are pre-delineated by a sort of affective ambience where the empathizer and the empathizee come into contact. Once this is appreciated, we can better articulate the affective structure of social affordance and its meaning constituents. And we show that, at the passive level, social coupling is in nature an affective intertwinement between oneself and the other and it consists of a particular kind of corporeal intentionality with which one adverts to the other’s presence and responds to the other’s appeal. (shrink)

Disturbances in social cognition are a core feature of schizophrenia. While most research in the field has focused on emotion perception, social knowledge, theory of mind, and attribution styles, the domain of social perception has received little specific attention. In this paper, we suggest that this issue can be explained by the lack of a precise and unitary definition of the concept, this leads to the existence of different competing uses of the concept and their conflation with other domains of (...) social cognition. Relying on resources coming from the ecological approach to psychology and the phenomenological tradition in psychiatry, we propose that the concept of Social Perception should be used to refer to low-level pre-reflective processes underlying the awareness of interpersonal interactions with and between others. Clinical data suggests that people with schizophrenia have problems perceiving social situations as opportunities for social engagement, so, in order to fulfil this explanatory need, we propose that the term should be used to capture this important—yet neglected—domain of social cognition. We conclude with the discussion of some future directions for research derived from our proposal. (shrink)