Hi Jude,

There seem to be several views on affordances and I suggest these seem to
divide not on the definitions of them but on two assumptions that underpin
them about 'what it is to be human' and 'how the human animal is best
theorised about'.

Most views on affordances seem to assume the 'thinking subjectively
perceptive human' - the entity  we perceive when we subjectively think/feel
about ourselves - as the foundation  of theory about affordances. Taking
this position fits well with the extensive literature over the last couple
of millennia about what it is to be human and  works well in terms of
getting people to agree with theories about human -object interactions. From
this perspective, 'affordances' and 'perceived affordances' offers a useful
concept to discuss the issues relating to design when humans are viewed from
this perspective. Recently, this position appears, however, to increasingly
present problems in terms of making design theories that cohort well with
current understandings about the  physiological functioning of cognition,
decision-making and emotion - how we believe we think, feel and act.

Many others, however, follow an alternative view that seems to better fit
the neurocognitive evidence. This alternative perspective involves the idea
that human thinking  and feeling and sense of self and ego are secondary
peripheral constructs and that our (human) activities involving
decision-making,  actions, thinking, feeling, perception and meaning making
have already been completed before they appear and come into our
consciousness. In other words, the sense that we have of being a human
person (that to date is what has been viewed as central to 'what it is to be
human') is an illusionary secondary image and  the main business of being a
human is already undertaken by other parts of our being/physiology.

In terms of making design theory, this perspective has many benefits as it
clarifies and helps make visible many issues that otherwise are addressed in
design theory as 'magic' (e.g.  'by chance', creativity, intuition,
feeling...). The main difference of this alternative perspective is that it
moves the foundation of theory making about design activity away from 'lived
experience  as subjectively perceived and understood'.

This alternative perspective on 'what it is to be human' seems to be
personally challenging for most of us as we have been deeply acculturated
into believing that our being (as human) comprises the self perceived
construct of our identity. This alternative understanding of the human
condition has been around for a long a time. Currently, Daniel Dennett and
others in cog sci /neurocognition are distilling theory using it that seem
to make good sense and applies directly to making design theory.

The theory challenge for design researchers (and for many social scientists
and Humanities researchers) is that this alternative perspective extends
further than it first appears as it also  offers an alternative theory
foundation and framework that replaces common understandings about
well-established human-made concepts such as   'emotion', 'thinking',
'creativity', 'decision making',  'intuition', 'belief' and 'perception'.

Instead of viewing humans in terms of how humans see themselves through
their self image and ego-structures, an alternative is to view humans in the
same way as any other biological entity in its relation with other elements
of its eco-system(s) similar to the approaches of ethologists.

Gibson's definition of affordances follow a similar ecological/ethological
foundation  and there is much similarity between 'cognitive ethology' and
Gibson's theories about how humans visually perceive objects. This
alternative foundation and its relationship with Gibsonian 'affordances'
would appear to extends to and challenge all areas of design practice,
theory and research.

The key difference, and the challenge for design researchers, is in the
difference between the understandings of how to view what it is to be human:
and the differences between definitions of 'affordance seem to be secondary
to and dependent on that.


Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI

Senior Lecturer
Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]

Senior Lecturer, Dept of Design
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

Director, Design Out Crime Research Centre
Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________


Jude:  Perhaps many of these affordances are discovered by chance. Then
education can be precisely to generate or communicate signifiers for these
new affordances. The generation of these new signifiers could be a kind of
design research, whereas the communication is the teaching of these
discovered affordances.  And this would be something relevant to many
people, who are users (and also Designers), but not professional designers.