In this experiment, we operated within the novel research area of Informal Green Spaces (often called green wastelands), exploring emotional well-being with the employment of portable electroencephalography (EEG) devices. The apparatus (commercial EEG Muse headband) provided an opportunity to analyze states of calmness and alertness in n = 20 participants as they visited selected Informal Green Spaces in Warsaw, Poland. The article aims to test the hypothesis that passive recreation in Informal Green Spaces (IGSs) has a positive impact on emotional well-being and that there is a connection between the intensity of states of calmness and alertness and 1. the type of green space (IGS/GS), 2. the type of scenery and 3. the type of IGS. The preliminary experiment showed that there might be no substantial distinction in the users’ levels of emotional states when considering existing typologies. On the other hand, data-driven analysis suggests that there might be a connection between the state of alertness and some characteristics of specific areas. After carrying out the multivariate analyses of variance in the repeated measurement scheme and finding significant differences between oscillations in different areas, we conclude that there might be three possible sources of lower alertness and increased calmness in some areas. These are 1. the presence of “desirable” human intervention such as paths and urban furniture, 2. a lack of “undesirable” users and signs of their presence and 3. the presence of other “desirable” users.

In this paper, we argue that several recent ‘wide’ perspectives on cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive, and distributed) are only partially relevant to the study of cognition. While these wide accounts override traditional methodological individualism, the study of cognition has already progressed beyond these proposed perspectives toward building integrated explanations of the mechanisms involved, including not only internal submechanisms but also interactions with others, groups, cognitive artifacts, and their environment. Wide perspectives are essentially research heuristics for building mechanistic explanations. The claim is substantiated with reference to recent developments in the study of “mindreading” and debates on emotions. We argue that the current practice in cognitive (neuro)science has undergone, in effect, a silent mechanistic revolution, and has turned from initial binary oppositions and abstract proposals toward the integration of wide perspectives with the rest of the cognitive (neuro)sciences.