Aha! Here I am preparing a lecture for tomorrow about narrative and
collective memory a la Wertsch and come across the phrase "A crucial
factor in shaping the affordances and constraints of narratives is the
"sense
of ending" .
(Back to anticipating my uhdergrads' confusions to escape my own!)
mike
On 1/23/06, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
>
> Don, What would you say about the idea of "affordances" as used in
> situated cognition by folks like Greeno? This clearly is not meant to be
> just an instance of affordances as featured in Gibsonian perception
> theory. It does seem to be pretty important for Greeno et al.'s way of
> accounting for knowledge as an aspect of situated activity. Do you
> disagree with such accounts, or do you think they would be better
> articulated in terms of mediation? If the latter, could you say a little
> bit more about what you see as the mediating terms and relations?
>
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006, Cunningham, Donald James wrote:
>
> > Well, Ok, a hammer might afford learning in the right hands! ;-)
> >
> > Perhaps you meant "does a hammer afford pounding"? I would prefer to say
> > it can mediate driving a nail. For me, to _afford_ has a more limited
> > domain. Gibson talks about "information pick-up". Affordances are
> > invariants available in the ambient optic array and perception of
> > affordances results from monitoring those aspects of this array which
> > persist and those which change. This conception places the affordance in
> > the light, not in the needs or motives of the observer. By _analogy_ we
> > can talk about perceiving features and relationships in the environment
> > that persist and change and "picking up" the associated affordances. But
> > Gibson is talking specifically about "direct" perception, not perception
> > as mediated by prior knowledge and world view. It is as that point that
> > I think it makes more sense to talk about mediation. What persists and
> > what stays the same about a hammer? How come my wife, an innovative
> > first grade teacher, relies on her shoe to accomplish most pounding
> > tasks in her classroom? Would you say shoes 'afford' pounding? I would
> > not.
> >
> > But then I spend a lot of time in the bushes......djc
> >
> >
> > Don Cunningham
> > Indiana University
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > On Behalf Of Mike Cole
> > Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 7:22 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] effectivity?
> >
> > Don--
> >
> > I certainly agree that schools do not afford learning!! But how about a
> > hammer?
> > Do you suggest we restrict the use of the term to phylogenetic
> > properties of
> > humans
> > and their "natural" environments? I get the point about not overusing
> > terms,
> > but do
> > you want to say that the term, affordance, should not be used with
> > respect
> > to artifacts and
> > artifact mediated human action? If not, what do you want to say about
> > all
> > this.
> >
> > Come back from the Bushes!
> > :-)
> > mike
> >
> > On 1/23/06, Cunningham, Donald James <cunningh@indiana.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> Forgive the intrusion because I have not been following the discussion
> >> very carefully. But this note caught my attention. I really think we
> >> need to be careful with the term affordance. . The general notion of
> >> affordance has surfaced frequently in a variety of theoretical and
> >> empirical traditions but not always in a manner faithful to the
> > Gibsons'
> >> original formulation. As J. Gibson originally proposed it and E.
> > Gibson
> >> developed it, particularly within the domain of perceptual learning
> > and
> >> development, the concept seems relatively clear. When applied to more
> >> complex cultural phenomena or structures, however, it begins to lose
> >> some of its clarity. For example, to speak of the ground as affording
> >> locomotion or a caregiver's vocalizations as affording a nurturing
> >> interaction seems more appropriate to me than saying that a classroom
> >> affords learning or a cocktail party affords socialization, for
> > example.
> >>
> >>
> >> For the Gibsons, affordances are available whether or not the organism
> >> perceives them as such or is motivated to engage in a particular
> >> activity; that is, there is some universality, permanence, and
> >> independence to them. To say that cultural constructions like
> > classrooms
> >> afford learning trivializes the concept in my opinion. What does it
> > gain
> >> us to say that? Classrooms are places where learning is _supposed_ to
> >> take place, so to say that it affords learning is redundant-whether or
> >> not learning occurs is an empirical question, not one of universality,
> >> permanence and independence. We could be more specific and say that
> > the
> >> teacher, the textbooks, the tests, the technology are all affordances
> >> for learning and so on but does this reduce the circularity?
> >>
> >> I wonder about the utility of the theoretical concept of affordance,
> >> beyond a certain level of complexity, for ordinary social behavior.
> >> Gibson & Pick, in their wonderful book " An Ecological Approach to
> >> Perceptual Learning and Development" write "Knowledge for good or ill,
> >> of people, or things or places is meaningful and is obtained in the
> >> first place from what people, things and events may afford us"
> > (p.178).
> >> My claim is that the initial learning about people, things, and events
> >> is usefully conceptualized from the perspective of affordances but
> > that
> >> later interactions with them are more of a sorting process mediated by
> >> one's worldview or cognitive schemes. Building a worldview is clearly
> > a
> >> process of connecting with the structures that one's physical and
> >> cultural worlds offer, but once built, a worldview is rather
> > impervious
> >> to change. My new learning about people, things, and events is almost
> >> certain to be embedded in, or at least strongly influenced by the
> >> categories I have formed in my previous interactions. At this point,
> >> mediation seems the operable concept, not affordance.
> >>
> >> Back to the bushes.......djc
> >>
> >> Don Cunningham
> >> Indiana University
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> >> On Behalf Of Mike Cole
> >> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 11:17 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: Re: [xmca] effectivity?
> >>
> >> bb-- The following text is taken from a Martin Ryder and colleague's
> >> article
> >> with the url
> >>
> >> http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html
> >>
> >> They write, in part:
> >> We use the term *affordance* to describe a potential for action, the
> >> perceived capacity of an object to enable the assertive will of the
> >> actor.
> >> The term was coined by psychologist James Gibson
> >> (1977)<http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html#gibson>to
> >> describe the action possibilities posed by objects in the real world.
> >> There are many objects in our environment. Some we ignore, some we
> > adapt
> >> to,
> >> and some we appropriate for our assertive will. It is the objects in
> >> this
> >> last category which fall under the the definition of *affordances*.
> >> Certain
> >> objects *afford* opportunities for action. An affordance is a
> > value-rich
> >> ecological object that is understood by direct perception. Perception
> >> informs the individual of affordances. Action transforms affordances
> >> into *
> >> effectivities* which extend human capabilities (Allen and Otto,
> >> 1995)<http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html#allen>.
> >> Our own bodies are affordances. The eyes afford perception, the ears
> >> listening, the hands manipulation, the tongue and vocal cords afford
> >> utterances (Jonassen, Campbell and Davidson,
> >> 1994)<http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html#jonassen>.
> >> Natural affordances emerge into effectivities through use in conscious
> >> activity. The hand of an infant, though attached, is a separate
> > object.
> >> The
> >> infant is amused by it, studies it, tastes it, touches other things
> > with
> >> it.
> >> Soon the infant learns to *use* the hand to manipulate other objects.
> > In
> >> the
> >> process, the hand gradually transforms its object-ness to
> > subject-ness.
> >> The
> >> child becomes less conscious of the hand as she uses it as an
> > extension
> >> of
> >> her own intentioned will. The *affordance* becomes an *effectivity*.
> >> Technology and media are affordances to the extent that they promise
> >> extended human capabilities of seeing, hearing, and uttering. Tools
> > are
> >> affordances to the extent they offer extended human capabilities for
> >> manipulating things in the environment. (Rasmussen, et. al.,
> >> 1994)<http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html#rasmussen>.
> >> Through use, skill is acquired and the object becomes an extension of
> >> ourselves (McCluhan,
> >> 1964)<http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html#mcluhan>.
> >> These artifacts are transformed from affordances to effectivities.
> >>
> >>
> >> Lots to think on here
> >> mike
> >>
> >> On 1/22/06, bb <xmca-whoever@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I'm still working on understanding the affordance-effectivity
> >> relation,
> >>> Peg.
> >>> I understand your hanging texts example the best, as I use something
> >>> similar
> >>> for teaching a course in child development -- students bring in
> >> drawings
> >>> they
> >>> have solicited from children of any age up to adolesence and we post
> >> them
> >>> on
> >>> the wall. The more, the better. Patterns emerge from *their* data,
> >> and
> >>> we
> >>> see developmental progressions in the drawings, always with
> >> variations,
> >>> but
> >>> definitely patterned. From this, many students eyes gleam with
> >>> understanding
> >>> and I sense, without testing, that they have groked the development
> > of
> >>> independent performance.
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
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>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK DE 19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> _______________________________
>
> "those who fail to reread
> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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