What is an affordance? 40 years later

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.04.014Get rights and content

Highlights

  • About 40 years ago, James J. Gibson coined the term “affordance”.

  • Since, this notion has acquired many meanings, creating confusion in the literature.

  • We offer an operationalization of affordances and concepts in the field of tool use.

  • Our operationalization is based on the physical-neurocognitive levels distinction.

Abstract

About 40 years ago, James J. Gibson coined the term “affordance” to describe the action possibilities offered to an animal by the environment with reference to the animal’s action capabilities. Since then, this notion has acquired a multitude of meanings, generating confusion in the literature. Here, we offer a clear operationalization of the concept of affordances and related concepts in the field of tool use. Our operationalization is organized around the distinction between the physical (what is objectively observable) and neurocognitive (what is subjectively experienced) levels. This leads us to propose that motor control (dorso-dorsal system), mechanical knowledge (ventro-dorsal system) and function knowledge (ventral system) could be neurocognitive systems respectively involved in the perception of affordances, the understanding of mechanical actions and the storage of contextual relationships (three action-system model; 3AS). We end by turning to two key issues that can be addressed within 3AS. These issues concern the link between affordances and tool incorporation, and the constraints posed by affordances for tool use.

Introduction

Forty years have passed since Gibson (1977) coined the term “affordance” to refer to the action possibilities offered to an animal by the environment with reference to the animal’s action capabilities. Since then, the notion of affordance has gained huge popularity, becoming a common term in the jargon of researchers, but also students in psychology or neurosciences. There is hardly a week that passes without a colleague saying during lunchtime: “Hey, did you see that? I grasped and used the fork because of its affordance!” As many popular notions, the paradox is that the notion of affordance raises serious theoretical issues, notably when the time comes to define precisely what it is. The fact is that it has acquired a multitude of connotations, generating confusion in the published literature, particularly in the field of tool use. The risk is that it becomes progressively useless, losing its heuristic value by eventually meaning everything and its opposite. The reason for us to focus on the literature on tool use is that the notion of affordance is outrageously employed in this literature, not only by scholars studying the underlying neurocognitive bases but also by those interested by tool design. This can explain by the fact that Gibson (1979) himself drew a parallel between the action possibilities offered by the body and those provided by tools. For him, these two kinds of action possibilities could be perceived as affordances.

In this article, we aimed at formulating a more conservative definition of affordance as well as to propose a terminology for the other related concepts in the field of tool use. This terminology should be of primary importance for future research by helping investigators reach an agreement on the use of the notion of affordance and, as a result, integrate more easily their work within a broader theoretical framework for tool use, and to optimally articulate empirical data with a global conceptual system. To demonstrate the necessity of developing such a terminology, we will begin by presenting the discrepancies existing between the major conceptions of affordances in the field of tool use and cognitive neuroscience in light of three key criteria: Action domain, reference frame, and cerebral system. Then, we will discuss our attempt to operationalize affordance and other related concepts of tool use by distinguishing between two levels, namely, the physical level (i.e., what is objectively observable) and the neurocognitive level (i.e., what is subjectively experienced). We will end by opening new avenues for the study of affordances and tool use on the basis of our terminology.

Section snippets

Background

Since Gibson, 1977, Gibson, 1979 coined the term “affordance”, both the theoretical and the empirical literature have used it in various ways. In this section, we review the major conceptions of affordances in the field of tool use and cognitive neuroscience. Before doing so, we start by defining three key criteria (action domain, reference frame and cerebral system) that are particularly useful for highlighting the discrepancies existing between those conceptions.

An attempt to operationalize affordances and related concepts

In this section, we will present an attempt to operationalize the different concepts that have been related to affordances in the field of tool use. Our operationalization is shown in Table 2 and is based on a crucial distinction between a physical and a neurocognitive level. Specifically, this distinction leads us to develop the three action-system model (3AS), assuming that three specific neurocognitive systems (i.e., neurocognitive level: motor control/dorso-dorsal system, mechanical

Open issues

Having operationalized the concept of affordance, we turn to two key issues that can be addressed within 3AS. These issues concern the link between affordances and tool incorporation, and the constraints posed by affordances.

A final word

In this article, we propose a new operationalization of affordance, mainly based on tool use literature. We made this choice because of its huge popularity in this field in which it has generated theoretical confusion, meaning everything and its opposite (see Table 1). By developing 3AS, we suggest a more restricted definition by considering affordances as the description at a physical level of what the environment offers an animal in reference to its biomechanical characteristics. This

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from ANR (Agence Nationale pour la Recherche; Project “Démences et Utilisation d’Outils/Dementia and Tool Use”, ANR-2011-MALZ-006-03; Project “Cognition et économie liée à l’outil/Cognition and tool-use economy” ECOTOOL; ANR-14-CE30-0015-01), and was performed within the framework of the LABEX CORTEX (ANR-11-LABX-0042) of Université de Lyon, within the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11- IDEX-0007) operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR).

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