Exploratory behaviors and recalibration: What processes are shared between functionally similar affordances?

Development of affordance perception and recalibration in children and adults

“…On shorter timescales, carrying or using objects can temporarily modify abilities. For example, wearing a backpack or holding a long rod increases the doorway size needed to pass through (Franchak, 2017;Franchak & Somoano, 2018;Yasuda, Wagman, & Higuchi, 2014) and wearing platform shoes allows actors to sit on higher seats (Mark, 1987). However, sudden alterations to affordances adversely affect calibration of perception because actions that were once possible may become impossible (or vice versa).…”

“…However, sudden alterations to affordances adversely affect calibration of perception because actions that were once possible may become impossible (or vice versa). Adults are skilled at recalibrating their affordance perception to reflect changes in the body and abilities provided they can access the right perceptual information (Franchak, 2017;Franchak & Somoano, 2018;Mark, 1987;Mark, Baillet, Craver, Douglas, & Fox, 1990;Stoffregen, Yang, & Bardy, 2005).…”

“…Thus, recalibration is not as simple as "adding" the perceived size of the platform shoe to adjust one's judgment of sitting or the perceived size of a backpack to one's judgment of fitting through doorways. Rather, observers recalibrate to changing affordances through action experience, which reveals relational information about the body and environment (Franchak, 2017;Franchak & Somoano, 2018;Labinger, Monson, & Franchak, 2018;Mark, 1987;Mark et al, 1990;Stoffregen et al, 2005;Yasuda et al, 2014).…”

“…Practice feedback from actually sitting on seats-performing the action and observing the resultsis not required for recalibration in the sitting task (Mark et al, 1990;Stoffregen et al, 2005). However, practice feedback is likely required to recalibrate to altered body size in the doorway squeezing task (Franchak, 2017;Franchak & Somoano, 2018;Labinger et al, 2018). In particular, adults' recalibration in the squeezing task depends on receiving both success feedback (i.e., fitting through a sufficiently large doorway) and failure feedback (i.e., attempting to fit through a small doorway and becoming stuck) (Franchak & Somoano, 2018).…”

“…Judgment bias was determined by measuring both the size and the direction of errors-whether participants tended to err by attempting risky, impossible doorways versus avoiding large, possible doorways. Because prior work showed that recalibration in the squeezing task requires experiencing both success and failure feedback (Franchak, 2017;Franchak & Somoano, 2018), the informativeness of practice feedback was measured to determine whether participants' decisions to attempt doorways and thus to generate useful feedback predicted their judgment accuracy.…”