J. J. Gibson was first to use the term ‘affordance’ to refer to the actional properties that exists between the world and the person. Affordances don’t happen inside the person or the object but between the object and what it tells the person. We only know what to do with an object because we have learned its affordance. If you have never seen an object before than it is unlikely you will know its affordance. This was demonstrated well in the video The Gods Must Be Crazy (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080801/). Released in 1980 as a comedy, it demonstrates what happens when bushmen discover a glass bottle that falls from the sky.

An affordance is what an object ‘offers’ a subject.

In our studies on Enactivism, our first homework activity has been to show to the group an object that requires unique knowledge of what that object demands. I got the discussion started by showing everyone online this object:

I asked everyone in the group what it was and how it was used. Of the 50 or so people from all over the globe, no-one knew what this was for. Similarly, it was not the type of object one could work out by intuition. This is not a problem because this object is really only useful to a guitar player. The object is used to wind the tuning nut on the guitar when re-stringing. It saves the twisting motion of thumb and forefinger turning many times to tighten a guitar string. And, if you have six or twelve strings, it can come in handy and save time and strain.

It is simply called ‘a guitar string winder’. These days there are battery operated ones that are more efficient.

You can see a tutorial on such a device here: https://youtu.be/OQhbcr89qj0?si=RFSpaeP3s2ktapVn

The lesson is, that affordances are learned over time and that proficiency with any affordance takes: time, development, recognition, adaptability, practice and then becomes embodied so it can be done in automaticity, that is, without cognition (thinking).

Most of the way human persons interact with their world is through affordance. It is how we do 95% of all things unconsciously. Most decision-making we use to over through the world in life is unconscious.

If you get in a new environment and have not been taught or coached what to do or the ergonomics of an object is foreign, you won’t be able to interact well with its affordance.

I had a friend the other day who had to hire a car from the airport for the first time and was given the keys to the vehicle and some brief instructions. When he got into the car, he couldn’t work out how to start it. He sat there for 10 minutes trying to work it out through simple problem-solving trial and error but had no success. In the end, he had to go back to the counter and ask for help. A kind person then walked him out to the car and showed him the simple process of how to start the car and then some other little ‘tricks to know’ that were not intuitive to those who have only driven petrol operated vehicles. Some of those little ‘tricks’ had major safety implications.

The trouble is, when we know an affordance we assume that everyone else has the same knowledge. We assume the myth of ‘common sense’. There is no such thing (https://safetyrisk.net/you-dont-believe-in-common-sense/) and, the myth of belief in common sense can be a dangerous thing. Assumptions of what other’s know can be dangerous. It’s why he have inductions and toolbox talks. But sadly, both of these are rarely done well.

The key to understanding affordances is that they are unseen, unconscious and embodied.

Affordances are found in the physical, social, semiotic and textual worlds and if you don’t know what one is, the temptation is like HOP, to just call it ‘dumb’. It couldn’t possibly be that there is an affordance I don’t understand. All systems require multiple on multiple affordances if one is to enact them efficiently. Understanding affordance is the foundation for understanding enactivism (https://safetyrisk.net/embodied-mental-health-risks/). Just because something doesn’t make sense to one, doesn’t mean its automatically ‘dumb’.

The label of ‘dumb’ should be avoided as much as possible. It is most often an expression of a lack of mature understanding of something or a moral/political projection on another. One thing is for sure, it is not dumb to the person enacting it. The language of ‘dumb’ in the end just becomes a barrier to relationships and listening. Similarly, anchoring risk to Jenga blocks is just swiss—cheese semiotics applied to linear causality.

You can read up more on affordances here:

https://safetyrisk.net/holistic-ergonomics-and-affordances/

https://safetyrisk.net/safety-silences-in-culture-affordances/

https://safetyrisk.net/curriculum-and-bodies-of-knowledge-as-instructional-affordances/

https://monoskop.org/images/2/2c/Gibson_James_J_1977_The_Theory_of_Affordances.pdf