Enactive approaches to cognitive science aim to explain human cognitive processes across the board without making any appeal to internal, content-carrying representational states. A challenge to such a research programme in cognitive science that immediately arises is how to explain cognition in so-called ‘representation-hungry’ domains. Examples of representation-hungry domains include imagination, memory, planning and language use in which the agent is engaged in thinking about something that may be absent, possible or abstract. The challenge is to explain how someone could think about things that are not concretely present in their environment other than by means of an internal mental representation. We call this the ‘Representation-Hungry Challenge’ (RHC). The challenge we take up in this article is to show how hunger for representations could possibly be satisfied by means other than the construction and manipulation of internal representational states. We meet this challenge by developing a theoretical framework that integrates key ideas drawn from enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology. One of our main aims is thus to show how ecological and enactive theories as non-representational and non-computational approaches to cognitive science might work together. From enactive cognitive science, we borrow the thesis of the strict continuity of lower and higher cognition. We develop this thesis to argue against any sharp conceptual distinction between higher and lower cognition based on representation-hunger. From ecological psychology, we draw upon our earlier work on the rich landscape of affordances. We propose thinking of so-called representation-hungry cognition in terms of temporally extended activities in which the agent skilfully coordinates to a richly structured landscape of affordances. In our framework, putative cases of representation-hungry cognition are explained by abilities to coordinate nested activities to an environment structured by interrelated socio-material practices. The RHC has often figured in arguments for the limitations of non-representational approaches to cognitive science. We showcase the theoretical resources available to an integrated ecological-enactive approach for addressing this type of sceptical challenge.

中文翻译：

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重新构想渴望表征的认知：一项生态激活提案

认知科学的积极方法旨在全面解释人类的认知过程，而不对内部的、承载内容的表征状态产生任何吸引力。这种认知科学研究项目立即面临的挑战是如何解释所谓的“渴望表征”领域的认知。需要表征的领域的例子包括想象力、记忆、计划和语言使用，其中代理参与思考可能不存在、可能或抽象的事物。挑战在于解释一个人如何除了通过内部心理表征之外，如何思考环境中不具体存在的事物。我们称之为“代表权饥饿挑战”(RHC)。我们在本文中面临的挑战是展示如何通过内部表征国家的构建和操纵以外的方式来满足对表征的渴望。我们通过开发一个理论框架来应对这一挑战，该框架整合了来自主动认知科学和生态心理学的关键思想。因此，我们的主要目标之一是展示生态理论和生成理论作为认知科学的非表征和非计算方法如何协同工作。从生成认知科学中，我们借用了低级认知和高级认知严格连续性的论点。我们提出这篇论文是为了反对基于表征饥饿而在高级认知和低级认知之间进行任何尖锐的概念区分。我们从生态心理学出发，借鉴了我​​们早期关于丰富的可供性景观的研究成果。我们建议根据时间延伸的活动来思考所谓的渴望表征的认知，在这些活动中，智能体巧妙地协调到丰富的结构可供性景观。在我们的框架中，渴求表征的认知的假设案例可以通过将嵌套活动协调到由相互关联的社会物质实践构建的环境的能力来解释。RHC 经常出现在认知科学非表征方法局限性的争论中。我们展示了可用于解决此类怀疑挑战的综合生态激活方法的理论资源。