An Outline of a Theory of Affordances

“…Although we break with earlier ecological conceptions of information, it is important to note that we do so by following a relational line of thinking that arguably forms the ontological foundation of the ecological movement (Chemero, 2003a;Costall, 1995Costall, , 2003Costall, , 2004Dent-Read & ZukowGoldring, 1997; J. J. Gibson, 1979Gibson, /1986Heft, 2001Heft, , 2007Ingold, 2000;Withagen & Michaels, 2005a;Zukow-Goldring, 1997;Ingold, 2000;Turvey, 2009;Wagman & Miller, 2003).…”

Section: Implications For the Ecological Approach To Perception And Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a new ecological conception of perceptual information: Lessons from a developmental systems perspective

Withagen¹,

Kamp²

2010

Human Movement Science

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Over the last two decades or so, empirical studies of perception, action, learning, and development have revealed that participants vary in what variable they detect and use and often rely on nonspecifying variables. This casts doubt on the Gibsonian conception of information as specification. It is argued that a recent ecological conception of information has solved important problems, but falls short in explaining what determines the object of perception. Drawing on recent work on developmental systems, we sketch the outlines of an alternative conception of perceptual information.It is argued that perceptual information does not reside in the ambient arrays; rather, perceptual information is a relational property of patterns in the array and perceptual processes. What a pattern in the ambient flow informs about depends on the perceiver who uses it. Here, we explore the implications of this alternative conception of information for the ecological approach to perception and action. The concept of information is a strongly debated notion in the study of perception and action. Indeed, among the issues that separate contemporary approaches to perception and action is the idea of what information is and where it resides. Proponents of indirect theories of perception have asserted that the information involved in perception exists both in the environment and the perceiver. Roughly speaking, this theory holds that the stimulus information that impinges on the senses is impoverished and needs to be enriched (e.g., Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1981;Neisser, 1967;Ullman, 1980). Thus, information residing in the animal enriches the impoverished stimulus information that the senses receive from the environment. Advocates of the theory of direct perception, by contrast, have claimed that all the information that is needed for perception is "out there" in the environment. J. J. Gibson (1966Gibson ( , 1979Gibson ( /1986, the founder of the ecological theory, asserted that the ambient energy arrays contain information that is rich and sufficient for perception. Because information in the arrays is specific to environmental properties, enrichment processes can be dispensed with. Perception is simply the extraction of specifying information that resides in the ambient array.Since its inception in the 1960s and 1970s, J. J. Gibson's ecological theory of perception and action has inspired many researchers, giving rise to a fruitful experimental program, the results of which are steadily accumulating (e

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“…Chemero, 2003;Rietvald & Kiverstein, 2014). Chemero (2009) then updated his account to suggest that affordances and abilities interact in real time and define each other more dynamically.…”

Section: The Task Dynamical Approach To Affordancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using task dynamics to quantify the affordances of throwing for long distance and accuracy.

Wilson

Weightman

Bingham

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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In 2 experiments, the current study explored how affordances structure throwing for long distance and accuracy. In Experiment 1, 10 expert throwers (from baseball, softball, and cricket) threw regulation tennis balls to hit a vertically oriented 4 ft ϫ 4 ft target placed at each of 9 locations (3 distances ϫ 3 heights). We measured their release parameters (angle, speed, and height) and showed that they scaled their throws in response to changes in the target's location. We then simulated the projectile motion of the ball and identified a continuous subspace of release parameters that produce hits to each target location. Each subspace describes the affordance of our target to be hit by a tennis ball moving in a projectile motion to the relevant location. The simulated affordance spaces showed how the release parameter combinations required for hits changed with changes in the target location. The experts tracked these changes in their performance and were successful in hitting the targets. We next tested unusual (horizontal) targets that generated correspondingly different affordance subspaces to determine whether the experts would track the affordance to generate successful hits. Do the experts perceive the affordance? They do. In Experiment 2, 5 cricketers threw to hit either vertically or horizontally oriented targets and successfully hit both, exhibiting release parameters located within the requisite affordance subspaces. We advocate a task dynamical approach to the study of affordances as properties of objects and events in the context of tasks as the future of research in this area.

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An Outline of a Theory of Affordances

Cited by 1,043 publications

References 28 publications

Context-Switching and Responsiveness to Real Relevance

Context-Switching and Responsiveness to Real Relevance

Towards a new ecological conception of perceptual information: Lessons from a developmental systems perspective

Using task dynamics to quantify the affordances of throwing for long distance and accuracy.

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