This paper aims to examine the evolutionary role of affordances, that is, the possibilities for action available in our environments. There are two allegedly competing views for explaining the evolutionary role of affordances: the first is based on natural selection; the second is based on niche construction. According to the first, affordances are resources that exert selection pressure. The second view claims that affordances are ecological inheritances in the organism’s niche that are the product of a previous alteration of the (...) environment. While there seems to be a mutually exclusive definition of affordances in each of these views, I argue in this paper that the views are not competing but, rather, complementary. In this sense, affordances play the role of either resources or ecological inheritances depending on the temporal stage of the evolutionary process. I make this argument by analyzing how natural selection and niche construction affect each other even when they function independently from each other. In this light, if these two evolutionary mechanisms exert their power in parallel but at two different stages in the evolutionary history of a given econiche, then there is room to claim that affordances can be understood as both resources and ecological inheritances. This dual aspect of affordances shows their evolutionary role. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is possible to combine enactivism and ecological psychology in a single post-cognitivist research framework if we highlight the common pragmatist assumptions of both approaches. These pragmatist assumptions or starting points are shared by ecological psychology and the enactive approach independently of being historically related to pragmatism, and they are based on the idea of organic coordination, which states that the evolution and development of the cognitive abilities of an organism are explained by appealing to the (...) history of interactions of that organism with its environment. It is argued that the idea of behavioral or organic coordination within the enactive approach gives rise to the sensorimotor abilities of the organism, while the ecological approach emphasizes the coordination at a higher-level between organism and environment through the agent’s exploratory behavior for perceiving affordances. As such, these two different processes of organic coordination can be integrated in a post-cognitivist research framework, which will be based on two levels of analysis: the subpersonal one and the personal one. If this proposal is on the right track, this may be a promising first step for offering a systematized and consistent post-cognitivist approach to cognition that retain the full potential of both enactivism and ecological psychology. (shrink)

My main objective in this article will be to compare Heidegger’s description of the way we perceive our environment in everyday coping – which is based on the concept of equipment (Zeug) – and James Gibson’s theory of affordance perception. More precisely, I will discuss whether equipment and affordance can be equated. In contrast to some interpretations, I will defend that they cannot: equipment and affordances refer to different ontological kinds and the perceptual or cognitive processes that are implied in (...) each case have nothing in common. In addition, I will defend that distinguishing equipment and affordances is a key step towards a more comprehensive account of the way we perceive and deal with the possibilities offered by our environment, and that Heidegger’s and Gibson’s accounts, far from being mutually exclusive, complement each other. Some work has however to be done in order to articulate them in a coherent theoretical framework. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Extended Synthesis, ecological information, and biosemiotics are complementary approaches whose engagement will help us explain the organism-environment interaction at the cognitive level. The Extended Synthesis, through niche construction theory, can explain the organism-environment interaction at an evolutionary level because niche construction is a process guided by information. We believe that the best account that defines information at this level is the one offered by biosemiotics and, within all kinds of biosemiotic information available, we believe that (...) ecological information is the best candidate for making sense of the organism-environment relation at the cognitive level. This entanglement of biosemiotics, ecological information and the Extended Synthesis is promising for understanding the multidimensional character of the organism-environment reciprocity as well as the relation between evolution, cognition, and meaning. (shrink)

Originally introduced by J. J. Gibson (1979) in the context of the development of an ecological approach to visual perception, the notion of affordance refers to the perception of opportunities for...

University Campuses remain important settings for nurturing and supporting student health and quality of life (QoL). Research shows the health benefits of nature experiences may be facilitated by campus spaces and activities that afford connectedness. Connectedness to nature, others, and self may allow students to cope with mental fatigue, stress, and a constant need for restoration. Despite recent encouraging trends, we still lack an integrative conceptual framework to describe the mechanisms involved in achieving connectedness for making recommendations for campus design. (...) In this conceptual review, we examine students’ connectedness in campus settings in relation to biophilic elements and attributes. We aim to understand how both direct and indirect pursuits in nature and also place-based experiences on campus foster connectedness and consequently impact students’ health and QoL. Our analysis shows that connectedness seen through the lens of Kellert’s biophilic design principles and aided by Alexander’s pattern language provides a relational and long-term perspective on recommending strategies for connecting students to nature, to others, and to themselves in campus settings. (shrink)

Artykuł zawiera analizę wykorzystania kategorii afordancji w koncepcjach socjologicznych, podejmujących problematykę relacji pomiędzy strukturą społeczną a jednostkowym sprawstwem. W tekście skoncentrowano się na dwóch koncepcjach, które stanowią próbę ujęcia tej relacji w spójnym podejściu teoretycznym i bez popadania w skrajny determinizm społeczny oraz nadmierny indywidualizm. Są nimi krytyczny realizm i koncepcja habitusu Pierre’a Bourdieu. Kategoria afordancji jest przedstawiona w artykule jako użyteczne narzędzie do opisu relacji między podmiotem a środowiskiem, które to narzędzie pozwala zwrócić uwagę na czynnik materialny w badaniu (...) struktur społecznych, przy jednoczesnym uznaniu aktywnej roli podmiotu w ich współtworzeniu. Szczególnie obiecujące jest tu osadzenie afordancji w koncepcji poznania rozproszonego, wykorzystywanej w socjologii do badania tzw. struktur socjotechnicznych. ----------------------------------------- Zgłoszono: 30/04/2023. Zrecenzowano: 15/02/2024. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 24/04/2024. (shrink)

Recurrent, unvarying, and seemingly purposeless patterns of action and cognition are part of normal development, but also feature prominently in several neuropsychiatric conditions. Repetitive stereotyped behaviors can be viewed as exaggerated forms of learned habits and frequently correlate with alterations in motor, limbic, and associative basal ganglia circuits. However, it is still unclear how altered basal ganglia feedback signals actually relate to the phenomenological variability of RSBs. Why do behaviorally overlapping phenomena sometimes require different treatment approaches−for example, sensory shielding strategies (...) versus exposure therapy for autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, respectively? Certain clues may be found in recent models of basal ganglia function that extend well beyond action selection and motivational control, and have implications for sensorimotor integration, prediction, learning under uncertainty, as well as aesthetic learning. In this paper, we systematically compare three exemplary conditions with basal ganglia involvement, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parkinson’s disease, and autism spectrum conditions, to gain a new understanding of RSBs. We integrate clinical observations and neuroanatomical and neurophysiological alterations with accounts employing the predictive processing framework. Based on this review, we suggest that basal ganglia feedback plays a central role in preconditioning cortical networks to anticipate self-generated, movement-related perception. In this way, basal ganglia feedback appears ideally situated to adjust the salience of sensory signals through precision weighting of new sensory information, relative to the precision of predictions based on prior generated models. Accordingly, behavioral policies may preferentially rely on new data versus existing knowledge, in a spectrum spanning between novelty and stability. RSBs may then represent compensatory or reactive responses, respectively, at the opposite ends of this spectrum. This view places an important role of aesthetic learning on basal ganglia feedback, may account for observed changes in creativity and aesthetic experience in basal ganglia disorders, is empirically testable, and may inform creative art therapies in conditions characterized by stereotyped behaviors. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary interest in affordances is increasing. This paper is a philosophical contribution. The question is: Do persons offer affordances? Analysis of the concepts ‘person’ and ‘affordance’ supports an affirmative answer. On a widely accepted understanding of what persons are, persons exhibit many of the features typical of socionormative affordances. However, to understand persons as offering affordances requires, on the face of it, stretching traditional understandings of the concept of affordance: persons, in contrast to the organisms that partially constitute persons, do (...) not seem to be available to perception. This and similar worries are responded to. (shrink)

Javier Osorio Mancilla Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Granada, España Históricamente, las plantas han recibido un papel secundario … Read More →.

Javier Osorio Mancilla Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Granada, España Historically, plants have received a secondary role in … Read More →.