Int. J. Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, 2010 235 Chances, affordances, and cognitive niche construction: the plasticity of environmental situatedness Lorenzo Magnani* and Emanuele Bardone Department of Philosophy and Computational Philosophy Laboratory, University of Pavia, Piazza Botta, 6, Pavia 27100, Italy E-mail: lmagnani@unipv.it E-mail: bardone@unipv.it *Corresponding author Abstract: As a matter of fact, humans continuously delegate and distribute cognitive functions to the environment to lessen their limits. They build models, representations, and other various mediating structures, that are considered to aid thought. In doing these, humans are engaged in a process of cognitive niche construction. In this sense, we argue that a cognitive niche emerges from a network of continuous interplays between individuals and the environment, in which people alter and modify the environment by mimetically externalising fleeting thoughts, private ideas, etc., into external supports. Through mimetic activities humans create external semiotic anchors that become cognitive chances. Keywords: abduction; affordance; distributed cognition; cognitive niche construction; chance discovery. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Magnani, L. and Bardone, E. (2010) ‘Chances, affordances, and cognitive niche construction: the plasticity of environmental situatedness’, Int. J. Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, pp.235–253. Biographical notes: Lorenzo Magnani is a Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist, and Professor at the University of Pavia, Italy, and the Director of its Computational Philosophy Laboratory. He is the author of Abduction, Reason, and Science (Kluwer) and Morality In a Technological World. Knowledge as Duty (Cambridge University Press). The new book Abductive Cognition. The Epistemological and Eco-Cognitive Dimensions of Hypothetical Reasoning will be published by Springer. In 1998 started the series of International Conferences on Model-Based Reasoning. Emanuele Bardone received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pavia. He teaches Philosophy of Cognition at the University of Pavia and he is member of the Computational Philosophy Laboratory at the University of Pavia. Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.