Extended Perception

The extended mind thesis (in brief, EMT) does not reserve a position for inner representations, which certainly play a substantive role in the making of human mind, however. It is, as a consequence, hard to conceive of perception as extended. The present paper, as a complement to EMT, argues that perceptual processes are extended, and so is perceptual content. The argument proceeds with three reasons. Firstly, perceptual content is action-oriented, supporting perceptual-motor coordination. Secondly, the spatial structure of perceptual content is set externally. Finally, active perception manifests the interactive and selective nature of perception. This complementary work provides a ground for rebutting two recent criticisms and a claimed corollary of EMT.