Laws and Conventions in Language-Related Behaviors

Abstract

The goal of this article is to look at language-related behaviors in light of a strict definition of direct perception. I highlight a key dimension, conventionality, which discriminates between behaviors that are coordinated with respect to law-based information and those that are not (and, therefore, do not qualify as direct perception according to the definition used in this article). The difference between conventional and law-based information does not break down clearly along obvious lines such as natural versus human-made, social versus nonsocial, or linguistic versus nonlinguistic. Therefore, it is necessary to take a task-specific approach to deciding whether a behavior is organized with respect to conventional or law-based information. A tacit assumption in ecological psychology seems to be that anything that has an effect on behavior must be grounded in the perception of an affordance and, therefore, must be guided by law-based information. In this article, I question this assumption. I suggest, instead, that ecological information can be based on both laws and conventions. This move allows us to maintain rigorous definitions of affordances and direct perception, suitable for underpinning action-control, while still expanding the ecological study of behaviors into those that rely on conventional information.