In their provocative article The perception of relations, Hafri and Firestone (H&F) argue that the processing of abstract relations such as SUPPORT, FIT, CAUSE and even SOCIALLY INTERACT, displays key signatures of perception: those relations are extracted rapidly and spontaneously from visual input, cannot be ignored, and influence other perceptual processes. They conclude, not only that perception is involved in processing relations, but that perception represents abstract relations. The latter conclusion sounds –at least– ahead of its time.