ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the context of a concern, expressed by several participants at the conference, with theories that invoke mental representations in explaining behavior. The question of whether an inner interpreter is required to 'read' mental representations is only a problem if mental states are conventional 'internal languages'. In the context of the considerations just raised, there may seem to be attractions to the position presented by Rod Brooks in an article called 'Intelligence Without Representation'. Brooks argues that cognitive science has vastly overemphasized mental representation in explaining intelligent behavior. In the Gibsonian ecological tradition, as Liben notes, mental representation is 'a construct that is greeted with suspicion'. The Eleanor Gibsons argued that intelligent behavior should be explained in terms of "affordances" existing in the environment. They believed that psychological theories should focus on the role of environmental information in explaining behavior and avoid positing internal processes.
