Understanding affordances: history and contemporary development of Gibson’s central concept

Gibson developed the affordance concept to complement his theory of direct perception that stands in sharp contrast with the prevalent inferential theories of perception. A comparison of the two approaches shows that the distinction between them also has an ontological aspect. We trace the history a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Avant
Main Authors: Dobromir G. Dotov, Lin Nie, Matthieu M. de Wit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Maria Curie-Sklodowska University 2012-12-01
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Online Access:http://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/DDLNMW-Understanding-affordances.pdf
Description
Summary:Gibson developed the affordance concept to complement his theory of direct perception that stands in sharp contrast with the prevalent inferential theories of perception. A comparison of the two approaches shows that the distinction between them also has an ontological aspect. We trace the history and newer formalizations of the notion of affordance and discuss some competing opinions on its scope. Next, empirical work on the affordance concept is reviewed in brief and the relevance of dynamical systems theory to affordance research is demonstrated. Finally, the striking but often neglected convergence of the ideas of Gibson and those of certain Continental philosophers is discussed.
ISSN:2082-7598
2082-6710