Control your mind, make affordance available

Abstract

Evaluating the affordance–control interpretation of the relationship between performance and object estimation has been proposed by psychophysical and psychonomic studies. This study examined the weight estimation–performance relationship. Individuals with visual impairment or blindness put shots that varied in weight among five scales. In Experiment 1, only the perceived weight was a significant performance constraint. In Experiment 2, the weight was perceived as heavier when the participants’ actions were manipulated through cognitive interpretation. The increase in perceived weight appeared to be related to performance and intrinsically scaled to the action, even when the action was only mental rather than physical. The study’s findings suggest that bodily experience and action are the basis for physical judgments and likely underlie other basic cognitive interpretations of sensory stimuli. This suggestion goes hand in hand with the biofunctional approaches which assume direct experience of the integrated wholeness of one’s body is fundamental for developing other kinds of awareness. Different perspectives from oriental philosophy and psychology are also discussed.

Biofunctional Understanding and Judgment of Size

“…The result that processing phonological information can enlarge the size estimation independent of processing semantic information is consistent with the idea of biofunctional embodiment, which proposes that actions are the basis for physical judgments and probably underlie other basic cognitive interpretations of sensory stimuli ( Jin et al, 2015 ) — no matter what the action is — it may be either actions that demand for differentiation (e.g., brain activity) or actions with effort (e.g., pronouncing). According to biofunctional understanding, lack of these possibilities may facilitate immediate and effortless integration by means of inherent downsizing processes.…”

“…The objective entity may or may not have sufficient information for articulator movements; however, it has been well-documented that people have an affordance-control ability to perceive “actableness” in favor of the action (e.g., Jin et al, 2015 ). Although our study does not supplement evidence for this ability, it may stimulate studies that demonstrate whether people perceive the objective world in terms of affordance-control abilities, which are instruments for perception and production of language.…”

“…Another explanation for size judgments uses the concept of affordance and the lens of biofunctional understanding theory ( Iran-Nejad, 1987a , b , 2013 ) that emphasizes the quality of affordance-triggered biological activity ( Jin et al, 2015 ) as reported and observed in attitudes toward playing sports ( Zengaro et al, in press ), effortless understanding ( Auble et al, 1979 ), knowledge-in-action ( Schön, 1983 ), biofunctional interest ( Iran-Nejad, 1987a ), meditative wisdom ( Rosch, 2000 ), and body–mind cycle of reflection ( Iran-Nejad and Gregg, 2001 ). This alternative has been endorsed by ecological perspectives, which have long appreciated that vision is inextricably linked to the control of action ( Gibson, 1979 ; Fajen, 2007 ) and implies that affordance-trigered biofunctional activity contracts size judgments as it moves toward coherence and expands size judgments as it moves away from coherence.…”

Biofunctional Understanding and Conceptual Control: Searching for Systematic Consensus in Systemic Cohesion

“…As reviewed in the introduction, a growing literature now embraces the theory that the physical biology is a diverse—color-coded, so to speak—source of special systemic functions ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ). Among these are the special systemic sources that support the embodied-mind functions ( Iran-Nejad and Ortony, 1984 ; Iran-Nejad and Gregg, 2011 ; Borghi et al, 2013 ; Alverson, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Scorolli and Borghi, 2015 ; Caligiore et al, 2016 ; Thill and Twomey, 2016 ). Chief among these functions are those having to do with the newly discovered idea that physical biology is the direct and immediate source of the hitherto-neglected wisdom of the intellectual capacity of biofunctional understanding that is the principle contributor to the systemic spiral of biofunctional understanding.…”

“…The transition era provided scarce ground for the kind of evidence, theory, and methodology about biofunctional understanding that is available worldwide today (e.g., Iran-Nejad, 2000 ; Ziemke et al, 2004 ; Borghi et al, 2013 ; Ghorbani et al, 2014 ; Alverson, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Johnson, 2015 ; Billing et al, 2016 ; Caligiore et al, 2016 ; Soylu, 2016 ; Thill and Twomey, 2016 ). Therefore, early biofunctional theorizing had to scrape for embodiment one metaphor at a time, just as one had to struggle breathlessly against the downhill current of prestigious metaphysical cognitive psychology ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ; Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017b ).…”