[Air-L] Primary text on affordances

Michael Zimmer zimmerm at uwm.edu
Sat Jul 24 19:19:35 PDT 2010


Yeah, that's what the minds at Wikipedia are saying:

Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article "The Theory of Affordances" and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception 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 the actor 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance



On Jul 24, 2010, at 9:17 PM, Jesper Aagaard Petersen wrote:

> "I know the term comes from engineering"...
> 
> I thought the term originated in perception psychology? J. J. Gibson's "The
> Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" (1977) and all that?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Jesper.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> Jesper Aagaard Petersen
> Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies
> NTNU, Dragvoll
> NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
> Tlf. 0047-735-98312
> email: jesper.petersen at ntnu.no
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall
> Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:06 AM
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances
> 
> Dear AIR-ERS -
> 
> I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the
> concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
> 
> I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary
> reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
> 
> Cheers, Denise
> 
> (writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite
> Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
> 
> 
> Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern
> Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344
> http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/
> Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. 	
> Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies
 (Interim Undergraduate Program Director)
Associate, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm at uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org





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