Seat state switching mechanism and seat provided with said seat state switching mechanism

A seat state switching mechanism for switching a state of a seatback tiltable in a front-rear direction of a seat between a walk-in state of locking the seatback at a walk-in position at a predetermined tilt angle and a reclining state of releasing the locking and allowing the seatback to lean to a frontmost position, the seat state switching mechanism comprising:

• a movable bracket fixedly attached to the seatback and being tiltable together with the seatback;
• a locking member for locking the movable bracket at a predetermined walk-in locking position so that the seatback reaches the walk-in position when the movable bracket tilts through a walk-in operation;
• and
• a releaser for releasing the locking of the locking member in receipt of a reclining operation force through a reclining operation and switching the state of the seatback to the reclining state,
• wherein the movable bracket has an abutment part which abuts the locking member when the movable bracket tilts,
• the locking member has an engagement part which engages with the abutment part for locking the movable bracket at the walk-in locking position when the releaser is not in receipt of the reclining operation force, and an outer peripheral surface which comes into contact with the abutment part when the releaser is in receipt of the reclining operation force, and
• the outer peripheral surface is configured to, when coming into contact with the abutment part, be pushed by the abutment part in a direction in which the locking member moves to a lock releasing position.