How do you understand this definition/description of affordance? Please put into your own words.
What if anything may or may not be problematic about this interpretation of the notion of affordances?
-Affordance is what can an object "afford" to give to you. A problem with affordance is that humans have taken more than the environment can afford.
What might be the connection between affordance and evolution?
-As a species evolves it take more affordances. In other words, as a species evolves, so does the affordances.
What is the difference between a niche and a habitat? Explain in your own words and give an example of each. What is your niche?
-A niche is what you can do for the environment. The way you decide to live dictates the affordances that you want to use and a habitat defines the resources that are available.
-Niche: Oak trees turn sunlight into food
-Habitat: Forest
An affordance cuts the dichotomy of subjective and objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. The affordances of the environment are facts of the environment, not appearances. But they are not on the other hand, facts at the level of physics concerned with matter and energy and animals left out.
Get into your groups and answer the following questions
Pick three aspects/environmental conditions of this room or the third floor of FAC.
--Light Switch
--A Chair
--A BackPack
Describe each of these aspects as an affordance.
-Light Switch: it can provide light but it can also take away light
-A Chair: offers support and comfort and a place to sit
-A BackPack: offers portable storage and protection
What activity is implied by the material?
What sorts of sensory input does this condition/object offer the user?
-Light Switch: it protrudes out of the wall so that you know it's not apart of the wall. It's small and simple so that anyone can use it. It is to explore it's function. When the light switch is tilted down or up it implies to the user that you can move it up or down.
-A Chair: it is sometimes soft and shaped for the contour of a person's body. Has legs or wheels which implies that it'll be off of the ground, offers back support, and mobility. It can be adjusted for a person's height. -A BackPack: it has straps, handles and compartments for storage and mobility. Has zippers which imply that it can open and close for extra storage. The material is durable. Sometimes they are designed for aesthetics. Sometimes you know what objects go in which compartments because of it's size.
One way of doing this might be able to put yourself in the place of an alien.
What about the object or condition compels you to act upon it in a particular way?
- Light Switch: it is signaled out in the wall by a different colored square thing around it.
-A Chair: The shape of a chair is open and implies that people can touch it and sit in it.
-A Backpack: a book pack has circular straps so that fit the shape of an arm.
What do you think is the difference between usefulness and utility with respect to affordances?
-Usefulness is our perception of how it works. Utility determines the affordances it has to offer. A tea pot can look useful if it has a spout and handle but it may not necessarily pour effectively.
What might be a false affordance? Create a situation other than that of the cat on the glass floor who is afraid to walk because the glass is transparent and there is a drop in floor? Think about how zoos keep animals in w/o cages or slapstick comedy.
-A window you can't see through it. If two buildings are close to each other and there could be a window facing a brick wall.
Are we aware of all of the affordances of an object or a condition? Do you think affordances are cultural? Are they different for people with disabilities?
-We are not aware of the affordances of an object because in this room there are multiple light switches that remain a mystery to us. Affordances can be cultural because there are things such as squat toilets in different cultures and someone who may not be used to using them may be very confused as to how they are useful. A stool or seats on airplanes may not be useful to people with disability.
Draw parallels between the idea of affordances and intentionality and art. What is the relationship between metaphor and affordances? I think this might be worth thinking about this.
-In art people may take parts of art that may not be seen as art in the culture but are actually functional. For example in African cultures they use reliquaries where they put statue figures over a bucket or but for art purposes they just take the figures themselves without the reliquary.
No comments:
Post a Comment