Affordances || Response to questions

Affordances

"an action possibility available in the environment to an individual, independent of the individual's ability to perceive this possibility"

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?

So its not based on whether on the individual can use this action in this environment, if is meant for grasping and you dont have fingers it does not change its state, if its meant for climbing and you have the feet and hands for it, it still is independent and meant for climbing regardless of whether or not you have that ability.

What might be the connection between affordance and evolution?

so if the individual cannot grasp, therefore they cannot hold certain foods to eat or climb certain objects or grasp certain environments meaning that they adapt to other features such as digging or crawling and eating foods a different way, developing different habits of living and if there is say a flood, that individual will not survive due to the fact that they cannot grasp and climb up certain environments to help them survive.

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 a place that has been made before the individuals or inhabitats have found the land, such as mounds, trees and etc and will be there regardless of being used or not, and after they are used and left will still remain. a habitat has not been made by the environment and exists after the individual has settled there, where they make things convenient for them, making them sit-on-able and etc.

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. Describe each of these aspects as an affordance. What activity is implied by the material? What sorts of sensory input does this  condition/object offer the user? 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?

The chord hanging for the window shutter is grasp-able, making one grasp it and then realize it is also pull-able, allowing the individual to pull and in result open the shutter of the window.  The chairs of the room are at knee high and allow it to be sit-on-able and once sat upon it moves, revealing that the object is also move-able around the environment. The mouse is small and compact, making it graspable, and then it is light and move-able, allowing me to pick it up and shuffle it across the surface. 

What do you think is the difference between usefulness and utility with respect to affordances?

to what extent the object can be used is usefulness and to what quality it extends to is the utility aspect.  Usefulness is functional while utility is how satisfying it is to use it.

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 tall wall that allows the animals to be in a form of ditch or glass surface between audience and animals making it seem like the wall is a barrier or glass. A trench in between the animals and the people at the fence make it to where they dont cross the trench. 

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 probably not all aware of the affordance of an object or condition, for we perceive based off what we need at the moment or what we know from experience and may not even go to find out what the affordances of an object is. Affordances are not particularly cultural, for in every culture humans have the same ability of grasping, walking, seeing, lifting and etc which enables them to make objects that utilize these standards. So if one were to go into another culture, a small object would right away infer that it was graspable and able for the individual to pick up if it is not heavy, not knowing what the object is.  A rope on something would indicate it was for climbing or pulling.  I think for people with disabilities it is slightly different, for if they can't grasp or walk or see, they perceive objects differently.

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, things are made even though they may be abstract or uncertain, they are made in a way that we as humans recognize to either grasp it, to pull it, to hold it, to touch it, to percieve it, to walk around it, to sit on it, to eat it.  One example is how there was a gallery of cupcakes and a wall next to a table with chairs, and my instinct was to see the surface as to sit on it and to see the food that was eat-able, and a surface of the table to place my hands on it to rest.  It helps us to perceive instinctly what the art wants.