CDate:: [[05-07-2024]] Status:: #🌱 Tags:: Links:: # Affordances Affordances are opportunities for behavior given by the relationship between a subject and their environment. For example, some trees afford climbing because of the way they grew but only for some people. Individuals with certain [[Constraints]]—perhaps those that are particularly good climbers or have tree climbing equipment—afford climbing the tree, where as for others it doesn't. A small flat rock might afford sitting, but only for someone small enough to be able to sit on it. Perceiving affordances is to carve the world up in meaningful units of action rather than using the meaningless units of physics. In Gibson’s words: “The perceiving of an affordance is not a process of perceiving a value-free physical object to which meaning is somehow added in a way that no one has been able to agree upon; it is a process of perceiving a value-rich ecological object. Any substance, any surface, and any layout has some affordance for benefit or injury to someone. Physics may be value-free, but ecology is not”. [^1] [^1]: Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Psychology Press