Affordance

"Afford" redirects here. For the surname, see Afford (surname).
The handles on a tea set provide an obvious affordance for holding.

An affordance is a relation between an object or an environment and an organism that, through a collection of stimuli, affords the opportunity for that organism to perform an action.[1][2] For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling. As a relation, an affordance exhibits the possibility of some action, and is not a property of either an organism or its environment alone.[3][4]

Different definitions of the term have developed. The original definition described all actions that are physically possible. This was later adapted to describe action possibilities of which an actor is aware. Some define affordance as a potential resource for some (not a particular) organism or species of organism, and so while inviting the possible engagement of some species, not identified with any particular one.[5][6] The term has further evolved for use in the context of human–computer interaction (HCI) to indicate the easy discoverability of possible actions.

The word is used in a variety of fields: perceptual psychology, cognitive psychology, environmental psychology, industrial design, human–computer interaction, interaction design, communication studies, instructional design, science, technology and society (STS), and artificial intelligence.

As action possibilities

Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article "The Theory of Affordances"[7] and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[8] in 1979. He defined affordances as all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual's ability to recognize them, but always in relation to agents and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant. Gibson's is the prevalent definition in cognitive psychology.

Affordances were further studied by Eleanor J. Gibson, wife of James Gibson, who created her theory of perceptual learning around this concept. Eleanor Gibson's book, An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development explores affordances further.

Jakob von Uexküll had already discussed the concept in the early twentieth century,[9] calling it the "functional tinting" (funktionale Tönung) of organisms with respect to stimuli.[10]

Laszlo Garai founded his brain theory[11] among other concepts on that of affordance.

Anderson, Yamagishi and Karavia (2002) sought to determine whether visual attention or affordance forms the basis of the motor signals generated by many everyday graspable objects. By examining how the properties of an object affect an observer's reaction time for judging its orientation, they provided evidence to indicate that directed visual attention (not affordance) is responsible for the automatic generation of many motor signals associated with the spatial characteristics of perceived objects.[12]

As perceived action possibilities

In 1988, Donald Norman appropriated the term affordances in the context of human–machine interaction to refer to just those action possibilities that are readily perceivable by an actor. Through his book The Design of Everyday Things,[13] this interpretation was popularized within the fields of HCI and interaction design. It makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of an actor, but also the actor's goals, plans, values, beliefs, and past experiences. If an actor steps into a room containing an armchair and a softball, Gibson's original definition of affordances allows that the actor may throw the chair and sit on the ball, because this is objectively possible. Norman's definition of (perceived) affordances captures the likelihood that the actor will sit on the armchair and throw the softball. Effectively, Norman's affordances "suggest" how an object may be interacted with. For example, the size and shape of a softball obviously fit nicely in the average human hand, and its density and texture make it perfect for throwing. The user may also bring past experiences to bear with similar objects (baseballs, perhaps) when evaluating a new affordance.

Norman's 1988 definition makes the concept of affordance relational rather than subjective or intrinsic. This he deemed an "ecological approach", which is related to systems-theoretic approaches in the natural and social sciences. The focus on perceived affordances is much more pertinent to practical design problems from a human-factors approach, which may explain its widespread adoption.

Norman later explained that this restriction in meaning of the term had been unintended, and that he would replace the term by "perceived affordance" in any future revision of the book.[14][15] However, the definition from his book has been widely adopted in HCI and interaction design, and both meanings are now commonly used in these fields.

The different interpretations of affordances, although closely related, can be a source of confusion in writing and conversation if the intended meaning is not made explicit and if the word is not used consistently. Even authoritative textbooks can be inconsistent in their use of the term.[16]

False affordances

William Gaver[17] divided affordances into three categories: perceptible, hidden, and false.

This means that, when affordances are perceptible, they offer a direct link between perception and action, and, when affordances are hidden or false, they can lead to mistakes and misunderstandings.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Leo van Lier (2004). "Relations". e-Study Guide for: Handbook of Psychology, Volume 6: Developmental Psychology: Psychology, Human development. Springer. p. 4. ISBN 978-1402079047. a relationship between an organism and the environment that signals an opportunity for or inhibition of action See also a list of various definitions titled "What are affordances", p. 91
  2. ↑ Don Norman (2013). The Design of Everyday Things (Revised and expanded ed.). Basic Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-0465050659. An affordance is a relationship between the properties of an object and the capabilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used.
  3. ↑ Juval Portugali (1996). "Inter-representation Networks and Cognitive Mappings". In Juval Portugali, ed. The construction of cognitive maps. Springer. ISBN 9780585334851.
  4. ↑ Ulric Neisser (1989). "2: From direct perception to conceptual structure". In Ulric Neisser. Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization. Cambridge University Press. p. 12. ISBN 9780521378758.
  5. ↑ Edward S. Reed (1996). Encountering the World : Toward an Ecological Psychology. Oxford University Press. p. 40. ISBN 9780195360936. What makes something an affordance is that it has the right properties to support some species' behavioral processes
  6. ↑ For an extended discussion of views on affordances, see Anthony Chemero (2011). "§7.2 Affordances 1.0". Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. MIT Press. pp. 136 ff. ISBN 9780262258081.
  7. ↑ James J. Gibson (1977), The Theory of Affordances. In Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing, edited by Robert Shaw and John Bransford, ISBN 0-470-99014-7.
  8. ↑ James J. Gibson (1979), The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, ISBN 0-89859-959-8.
  9. ↑ Uexküll, Jakob von (1980 [1920 etc.]), Kompositionslehre der Natur, edited by Thure von Uexküll, Frankfurt am Main.
  10. ↑ Dorion Sagan (2010). "Introduction: Umwelt after Uexküll". In Jakob von Uexküll, Marina von Uexküll, Joseph D. O'Neil. A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning (Joseph D O'Neil translation of 1940 ed.). University of Minnesota Press. p. 5. ISBN 9781452903798. Organisms in their life-worlds recognize not only sensory inputs, but also functional tones, the use they need to make of certain stimuli if they are to do what they need to survive.
  11. ↑ Garai, L. (1993). "The Brain and the Mechanism of Psychosocial Phenomena". Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 31 (6): 71–91. doi:10.2753/RPO1061-0405310671.
  12. ↑ Anderson, S. J.; Yamagishi, N.; Karavia, V. (2002). "Attentional processes link perception and action". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 269 (1497): 1225. doi:10.1098/rspb.2002.1998.
  13. ↑ Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, ISBN 0-465-06710-7. Originally published under the title The Psychology of Everyday Things, often abbreviated to POET.
  14. ↑ Donald A. Norman (1999). Affordance, Conventions and Design. Interactions 6(3):38-43, May 1999, ACM Press.
  15. ↑ Affordance, Conventions and Design (Part 2)
  16. ↑ In Human–Computer Interaction, Preece et al. (1994, p. 6) explicitly define perceived affordances as being a subset of all affordances, but the meanings are intermingled later in the same paragraph by talking about "good affordance"; in Universal Principles of Design, Lidwell, Holden & Butler (2003, p. 20) first explain that round wheels are better suited for rolling than square ones and therefore better afford (i.e. allow) rolling, but later state that a door handle "affords" (i.e. suggests) pulling, but not pushing.
  17. ↑ Gaver, William W. (1991). "Technology affordances". Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems Reaching through technology - CHI '91. p. 79. doi:10.1145/108844.108856. ISBN 0897913833.
  18. ↑ "Affordances"
  19. ↑ "Placebo buttons, false affordances and habit-forming"

Additional reading

External links

Look up affordance in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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