AFFORDANCE

by Michelle T. de los Santos

I want to talk about affordance this time since it’s the word that really stuck in my mind in our last 135 class reporting. As the word affordance was mentioned several times during the reporting, I clearly learned by heart that affordance means function or affordance = what objects are used for. Simple one right?! :D For example, an affordance would be seeing a chair as something to sit on or a bed as something to sleep. Easy as that! :P

I found a study by Chang, Wade, and Stoffregen (2009) who investigated the perception of affordances or critical action capabilities for aperture passage in an environment–person–person (E–P–P) system, which comprised a lead adult, responsible for perception of the system, and a child as a companion.

Their method includes eight large and eight small female undergraduates served as perceivers and one large and one small girl served as companions. The perceivers were companioned with a large and a small girl individually, the perceivers perceptually judged the minimum aperture width for the E–P–P system, and then the adult–child dyads (a pair of people) actually walked through to determine the system’s actual minimum aperture width (Chang, Wade, and Stoffregen, 2009).

Results of the study demonstrated that perceivers precisely judged the action capabilities of an E–P–P system based on the body-scaled information of each adult–child dyad. The findings extended the previous concept of affordances for an environment person system to affordances for an E–P–P system (Chang, Wade, and Stoffregen, 2009).
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I like the study because it was so relevant. The study is visible and available in our daily setting and environment. We usually escort weak and old people like our lolo and lola across the street and parents also help their children cross the crosswalk in daily life. These situations are very common. I learned in the article that the action has to do with the environment and a person plus person system. The article discussed that within the system, people perceive the environment from their own perspective; however, to act as a single unit, one of the two persons is dominant and determines how both should act to accomplish a specific goal. This environment–person–person (E–P–P) relationship is related to the dominant and the following individuals’ characteristics, as well as the characteristics of the environment. The perceptions of the lead person determine the behavior of the dyad. Thus, the study was made. The parent–child dyad can be an example. The parent needs to know the ratio of time needed to cross the crosswalk to time available to cross the crosswalk, as they are the more experienced and responsible member of the dyad. The researcher mentioned that if the ratio is less than one, then the dyad could cross safely (Chang, Wade, and Stoffregen, 2009).

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Indeed, this was an interesting study! :) Further experiments and researchers can improve and verify this more using another set of participants, a bigger number of participants. Male participants can also be considered next time to see if there's a difference and to avoid gender bias. In addition, I agree that in the future, reseachers should also examine the affordances of an E–P–P system in different joint actions.

Reference:

Chang, C., Wade, M. G., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2009). Perceiving affordances for aperture passage in an environment–person–person system. Journal of Motor Behavior, 41, 495-500.