An **affordance** is what a given environment provides for the use of its inhabitants. The term was first introduced by James J. Gibson and "implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment."[^1] In a concrete, biological sense, affordances facilitate the survival of plants and animals. In the sense of human cognition, affordances communicate what is possible inside the environment, notably in terms of activity. For plants, soil nutrition, light conditions, and prevalence of pests may all be thought of as affordances. The degree to which each is present informs the availability of resources to a particular species. We can think of these as components within the [[The Grime general model]]. For animals, abundance of food, distribution of predators, and connectivity between habitats may be thought of as affordances. The extent to which an animal is able to obtain food, escape predation, and provide shelter for reproduction determines the likelihood of its survival. Humans similarly experience affordances biologically the same way, but they also experience them in a more complex, cognitive way. Spatially, affordances can communicate what an environment is *used* for, that is, they inform what activities can take place within a given space. Playground equipment communicates a place for children to play. A table saw and drill press communicates a place of work. --- [^1]: J. J. Gibson (1979). '[The Theory of Affordances](https://monoskop.org/images/c/c6/Gibson_James_J_1977_1979_The_Theory_of_Affordances.pdf)'. _The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception_. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), Boston. p. 127.