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Situated imagination.

Ludger van Dijk1, Erik Rietveld2,3,4

  • 1Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.

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|March 18, 2025
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Imagination is not just individual thought but emerges from coordinating multiple action possibilities (affordances) across time. This situated perspective reveals how simultaneous affordances create an open, imaginative experience.

Keywords:
AffordancesEcological psychologyEmbodied cognitionEnactionImaginationSkilled intentionality framework“Higher” cognition

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Phenomenology
  • Architectural Design

Background:

  • Traditional views position imagination as a de-contextualized, representational cognitive process.
  • Emerging research challenges this by emphasizing situated and embodied perspectives on cognition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose a relational and radically situated alternative to the representational view of imagination.
  • To explore the role of affordances in the imaginative process within a real-world context.

Main Methods:

  • Observational study of architects during the creation of an architectural art installation.
  • Analysis of how architects coordinate actions and possibilities across different timescales.

Main Results:

  • Imagination is understood not as an individual achievement but as an opening to larger-scale affordances (action possibilities).
  • Architects coordinate multiple affordances, from immediate (e.g., using a phone) to long-term (e.g., installation completion).
  • These affordances are co-determined through joint enactment, with imagination arising from their simultaneous, indeterminate unfolding.

Conclusions:

  • Imagination is fundamentally relational and situated, emerging from the dynamic interplay of affordances.
  • The indeterminacy inherent in coordinating multiple affordances allows for novel possibilities and creative expansion of activities.
  • This situated, affordance-based view offers a new framework for understanding imagination in practice.