Imagination, ecologized and enacted: driven by the historicity of affordance competition.

Imagination can be explained as driven by affordance competition, integrating ecological psychology and enactivism. Affordances are directly perceptible on the ecological view and co-created on the enactive view, and these views are compatible. Empirical evidence supports the historicity of affordance competition, interpreted non-representationally. A stand-off between competing affordances can be resolved by imagination, driven by affordance competition. Sensorimotor traces of previous interactions, such as strengthened synapses, can be repurposed as representations, grounding representational explanations in an ecologized enactive framework.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Together, ecological psychology and enactivism can explain imagination as being driven by affordance competition. This paper presents synaptic plasticity as a hotspot for the respective historicity. First, (i) affordances are introduced as directly perceptible on the ecological view, and as co-created by an individual on the enactive view. After pointing out their compatibility, (ii) empirical underpinnings of the historicity of affordance competition are summarized and followed by a non-representational interpretation thereof. They are used to explain: (iii) What affords imagining? After discussing both van Dijk and Rietveld's in 2020 non-representational answer and McClelland's in 2020 representational one, I propose a more general explanation: a stand-off between competing affordances can be resolved by imagination, driven by affordance competition. Arguably, (iv) the sensorimotor traces of previous interactions (e.g., strengthened synapses) can be repurposed as representations - grounding even representational explanations in an ecologized enactive framework.