Attention and Attendabilia: The Perception of Attentional Affordances

Abstract Agents are continually faced with two related selection problems: i) the problem of selecting what to do from a space of possible behaviours; ii) the problem of selecting what to attend to from a space of possible attendabilia . We have psychological mechanisms that enable us to solve both types of problem. But do these mechanisms follow different principles or work along the same lines? I argue for the latter. I start from the theory that bodily action is supported by a sensitivity to affordances . Strong evidence suggests that affordances feature in our perception of the world and that affordance perception can trigger the neural preparation of the afforded act. An agent can thus see a teapot as grippable and their doing so can automatically ready a gripping response. Something affords attending for an agent just in case it is a possible target of their focal attention. I argue that we are sensitive to these attentional affordances in much the same way. First I argue that we perceive things as attendable . Second I argue that our doing so can trigger the preparation of shifts in focal attention. My case for this is based on a variety of phenomenological, neurological and behavioural parallels between our sensitivity to bodily affordances and our sensitivity to attentional affordances. This yields a unified account with specific implications for our understanding of attention and affordance perception and general implications for our understanding of how the mind solves selection problems.