Socializing Affordances

Costall, Alan

doi:10.1177/0959354395054001

Cited by 363 publications

(283 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…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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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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“…A small proportion of children (2.6%) had particularly large ranges, describing their use of the whole city or large areas or the countryside. It was evident that the children's experiences of local spaces were related to who lived near to them (Costall, 1995;Hart, 1979;Matthews & Field, 2001;Newson & Newson, 1977;Punch, 2000;Skelton, 2000), with over three quarters of children visiting friends and relatives at least once a week. In fact, there were no statistically significant differences found using gender or location as variables (gender/friends: p = 0.218, U = 2163.5, z = − 1.231; gender/relatives: p = 0.406, U = 2253.0, z = − 0.830; location/friends: p = 0.33, U = 1944.0, z = − 2.136; location/relatives: p = 0.164, U = 2190.5, z = 0.164), contrasting with earlier studies (Hart, 1979).…”

Section: Children's Uses Of Local Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“If you went out it would stick”: Irish children's learning in their local environments

Pike

2011

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educat

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This paper reports on the findings of a research project investigating children's experiences of their local environments. Children's experiences of spaces and places and the interaction of such experiences and their learning were investigated, using mixed research methods, informed by phenomenological and participatory methodologies. Through these activities including discussion, interviews and drawing, children described how they experienced affordances of spaces, places and people in a range of ways. The children also revealed varied and dynamic attitudes to their local environments. Children's use and opinions of the environment were influenced by temporal, physical, social and economic factors. As well as expressing that such local experiences enhanced their current lives, the children also described how experiences in their local environment contributed to the different areas of their development, including their learning. For most children, such experiences emanated from outside school, with learning in geography in school more likely to be about places farther from home. These findings suggest that attempts to make children's geographies in their local environments central to primary geography through content and activities like many of those outlined in the Primary School Curriculum would be successful. The children's views also suggest that the contributions of all children could be used in decision-making beyond schools. Such consideration and development of children's geographies has the potential to contribute to children's lives as active citizens, currently and in the future.

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“…As Noble [23] and Costall [24] have suggested, however, Gibson's work leads naturally to Mead's [6] work in social psychology. As Mead [6] saw it, the objects that humans encounter are 'collapsed acts': we view them teleologically, as being 'for' something.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking sociality seriously: the structure of multi-dimensional social networks as a source of information for individuals

Barrett

Henzi

Lusseau

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

153

140

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Understanding human cognitive evolution, and that of the other primates, means taking sociality very seriously. For humans, this requires the recognition of the sociocultural and historical means by which human minds and selves are constructed, and how this gives rise to the reflexivity and ability to respond to novelty that characterize our species. For other, non-linguistic, primates we can answer some interesting questions by viewing social life as a feedback process, drawing on cybernetics and systems approaches and using social network neo-theory to test these ideas. Specifically, we show how social networks can be formalized as multi-dimensional objects, and use entropy measures to assess how networks respond to perturbation. We use simulations and natural ‘knock-outs’ in a free-ranging baboon troop to demonstrate that changes in interactions after social perturbations lead to a more certain social network, in which the outcomes of interactions are easier for members to predict. This new formalization of social networks provides a framework within which to predict network dynamics and evolution, helps us highlight how human and non-human social networks differ and has implications for theories of cognitive evolution.

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Socializing Affordances

Cited by 363 publications

References 20 publications

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

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

“If you went out it would stick”: Irish children's learning in their local environments

Taking sociality seriously: the structure of multi-dimensional social networks as a source of information for individuals

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