Dynamic Touch as Common Ground for Enactivism and Ecological Psychology

Frontiers in Psychology

article

David Travieso¹  Lorena Lobo²  Carlos de Paz¹  Thijme E. Langelaar⁴  Jorge Ibáñez-Gijón¹  David M. Jacobs¹ 

[1] Universidad Autónoma de Madrid;Universidad a Distancia de Madrid;Embodied Cognitive Science Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology;Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Groningen

关键词: ecological psychology;    dynamic touch;    enactivism;    intentionality;    postcognitivism;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01257

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The main purpose of this article is to show that enactivism and ecological psychology share more aspects than is often recognized. Rather than debating about differences, commonalities between the approaches are illustrated with the example of dynamic touch. Dynamic touch is a form of touch that implies muscles and tendons and that allows the perception of hand-held objects that are wielded but not seen. Given that perceivers perform the wielding movements with effort, dynamic touch necessarily implies active exploration. The strength of dynamic touch as an example lies in the fact that it has been formalized and analyzed in detail at the level of the laws that govern the organism-environment system. The example provides empirically supported instantiations of sensorimotor contingencies, in enactivist terms, and of intentional exploration and information detection, in ecological terms. Moreover, dynamic touch is a practical example of the enactivist concepts of bringing-forth the world and sense-making. As a second purpose, we use the example of dynamic touch to clarify key concepts of the ecological approach. Specifically, we analyze the concepts of invariance and affordance, indicating the crucial difference between perceiving and actualizing affordances, and highlighting the importance of these concepts for the dialogue between enactivism and ecological psychology.

【 授权许可】

CC BY