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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes. Findings: There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past. Originality/value: The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile instant messaging is widely used in governing circles today. This article considers the implications for political legitimacy, examining how far the technology encourages those in authority to act consistently with the obligations that come with their roles. It looks at several recent political scandals in which officeholders are alleged to have transgressed public norms with their use of instant messaging. It goes on to argue that the concerns raised are well grounded, as the affordances of the technology point to personalized, informal, and untransparent modes of rule. As the final section argues, that figures in public authority embrace the technology despite the scandals it can yield tells us something important about their political priorities, in particular their willingness to prize output over procedural legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum material use is an agentive, reciprocal and innovative practice, involving multiple stakeholders such as teacher, students and assessments that mutually shape one another. While it is generally acknowledged that teachers' knowledge and skills deeply shape the way they use materials, little is known about how material use can possibly perturb or afford teacher learning. This, however, is deemed important considering the close relationships among material use, teacher learning and instruction. This study adopts a qualitative case study method to examine three EFL teachers' experiences with new curriculum materials under a new round of national curriculum reform. Findings reveal that (1) new curriculum materials can perturb classroom ecology, prompting teachers to re-examine, reflect and innovate their beliefs and practices; (2) despite teachers' general consensus on features of curriculum materials, the way they enact them in practice along with emerging learning opportunities are rather different; (3) opportunities for teacher learning through material use can be subjected to teachers' existing knowledge, beliefs and experiences; (4) sometimes, lack of clear instructional guidance in the textbook renders teachers more agency and freedom to explore their ideas, which can be ultimately developmental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussion of affordance perception focuses almost exclusively on affordances for non-mental actions like climbing, walking and eating. This paper asks whether we might also perceive affordances for a specific class of mental action: acts of imagination. We first explore how the environment can present opportunities for imaginative action. We then combine phenomenological and theoretical considerations to argue that we do indeed perceive affordances for imaginative action. Putting this claim to work, we apply the concept of imaginative affordances to the topics of imaginative skill and imaginative tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traffic transfer between social media and E-commerce platforms is essential to the retailers in the E-commerce platform and the platform itself. Drawing on the affordance theory, this study presents the results from three experiments based on two kinds of social media (with or without E-commerce widow) to demonstrate the role of social media recommendation pages’ affordance on the visitors’ usage and sharing intention to the product link attached to the content. The result shows that traffic transfer exists between social media and E-commerce platforms. Moreover, the higher the level of social media affordances (visibility, editability, persistence, association), the higher the willingness of visitors to transfer from social media to E-commerce platforms. This change in traffic volume is mediated by the visitors’ relationship strength and perceived trust in the blogger and the platform. This study expands the research on affordance theory to the area of traffic transfer. Additionally, this study has also enriched the existing literature on cross-platform traffic imports in social E-commerce. The results will guide both content operators and retailers who wish to use social media to increase sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We asked whether the quantitative kinematics of standing postural activity might be related to short-term learning of affordances. Standing participants viewed a narrow path for 15 s, and then gave perceptual reports about the distance that they could walk along the path while wearing a weighted vest (novel affordance) or while not wearing the vest (familiar affordance). In a control condition, participants gave perceptual reports about egocentric distance along the path. During the 15 s viewing intervals, we measured the kinematics of head and torso movement as standing participants made a series of 12 perceptual reports. Perceptual reports improved across trials, but only in the condition in which participants were asked to perceive a novel affordance. The dynamical complexity of head movement changed across trials as participants gave perceptual reports about the novel affordance, but did not change systematically when perceiving a familiar affordance, or a non-affordance egocentric distance. We argue that the dynamical complexity of postural activity may have served an exploratory function supporting the learning of a novel affordance. Our results are consistent with the broader hypothesis that affordances are learned through active engagement with the environment, rather than (for example) through abstract cognitive processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordance refers to the opportunity available to a learning activity. Taking affordance as a theoretical and analytical construct, this exploratory study investigates learners' attitudes and the opportunities WeChat may provide for Chinese cultural knowledge (CCK) learning. The aim is to find out the potential new affordances and compare learners with different language levels. 24 participants were paired with native Chinese speakers and required to complete three-stage activities with the integration of WeChat. This study adopted a mix-method approach. Data were collected through questionnaires, two rounds of semi-structured interviews, chat logs, and WeChat moments. It is found that most learners were positive toward the activities and WeChat provided learners with opportunities for interaction and collaboration, for resource sharing, for knowledge internalization and construction, and for sustainable learning and friendship maintaining. The affordance of knowledge internalization and construction was mentioned with the highest frequency in the interview. The findings that distinguish this study from previous ones are: (1) the affordance for sustainable learning, and (2) differences between high-level (HL) and low-level (LL) learners. In comparison, the activities won more supports from HL learners, and HL learners' frequency in leveraging the affordance for resource sharing and sustainable learning was also higher. Pedagogical implications and research recommendations were provided respectively in discussion and conclusion parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to draw consensus among an expert panel regarding essential elements of an accessible fitness center guide for people with intellectual disabilities that will enable them to engage in physical activity fully and effectively. The study was situated in the socioecological model of disability. Researchers drew expert consensus regarding the essential features of accessible guides in fitness environments. A three-round Delphi procedure was used, involving repeated circulation of the questionnaire to an expert panel (N = 33). The panel was asked to rate the importance and adequacy of 66 items regarding the accessible fitness guide. A consensus was reached regarding 43 items after three rounds. The items include 7 body-weight exercises, 2 machine exercises, 12 environment-related items, 15 exercise preparations, 4 social etiquettes, and 3 emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each of the functions of fantasy described by J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay "On Fairy‐Stories" can be reframed through affordance theory into a kind of re‐visioning. Such re‐visioning is comparable to the formalist notion of defamiliarization or the science fiction technique that Darko Suvin called "cognitive estrangement." Whereas science fiction projects alternative futures, fantasy's affordances allow writers to generate alternative worldviews grounded in real or invented mythic pasts. The initial move away from claiming to imitate reality allows fantasy writers to project inner experience onto an outer storyworld (there is no pathetic fallacy in fantasy), to depict multiple contradictory selves (housed within a single body or spread out over several characters), and to invite readers to consider alternatives to commonsense assumptions and seemingly inevitable social orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unprecedented times compel new ways to explore relationships. Using interviews with dating app users quarantined in American cities at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, I show the impacts of digital mediation on the highly scripted interactional patterns in dating. Drawing from the literature on creative action, temporality, digital affordance, and the materiality of cultural objects, I examine how actors access the creative opportunities in digitally mediated interaction. I find that dating partners creatively mobilized the affordances of digital technologies to approximate a dating script in organizing online interactions, which simultaneously allowed them to formulate relational narratives with varying deviation from the scripted temporal structure. I identify three aspects of digital affordances offering creative opportunities: the dissolution of spatial-temporal boundaries, the production and circulation of digital objects, and the connection between contexts. Taking advantage of an extraordinary moment of cultural and interactional rupture that necessitated digital solutions to connect, this article demonstrates how digital technologies unsettle culturally institutionalized interactional patterns and the formation of meaningful relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of automated features, such as autocorrect, reflects an interesting paradox in digital media use: while users appreciate the interactivity afforded by these media, they also seem to enjoy passively observing the system perform the interaction on their behalf. We aim to understand this paradox by using the concept of interpassivity and exploring the primary gratifications users seek in automated features. Following the research methods in U&G research, we first conducted three focus groups to generate a list of 66 gratification items, which were subjected to exploratory factor analysis in a survey study (N = 498). Results show that convenience, user control, and user profiling are three distinct gratifications of automated feature usage. Furthermore, user control is universally desired across features, and user profiling motivates the use of all automated features. We discuss the implications of these findings for U&G research and interface design of automated features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bullying is a prevalent issue in American schools with short and long-term consequences for the students involved. Across the extensive anti-bullying literature, the emphasis has been on the social and behavioral aspects of bullying, largely to the exclusion of the physical environment. Implementing an ecological psychology framework, this study aims to shed light on the relationship between the spatial environment of schools and the prevalence of bullying. Following a comprehensive review of relevant literature, experienced school architects were interviewed as key informants. Thematic analysis of these interviews was used to investigate how school planning and design might exacerbate or alleviate bullying. The results suggest that there are a variety of ways that the spatial planning and design of the physical settings in schools is related to the occurrence of bullying and that it is essential that there be more research on this issue by planners, designers, geographers, and environmental psychologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks whether the slow process of divesting Indian native schoolteachers of their traditional authority was only about new concepts and representations of education and knowledge. Following the methodological idea of constellations of affordances, emphasising a relational ontology, the article discusses whether changes in the shape and the relations of objects in Indian classrooms together with the arrival of new objects may have played a silent role in the process of erosion of schoolteachers' authority. Based on a wide range of official and missionary sources, but also referring to individual native voices, the article reconstructs more pervasive and subtle transformations of native elementary classrooms, focusing on surfaces for writing and on "books". The article argues that shifts in the materialities of elementary native schooling took place that repositioned old "gurus" in an unfavourable light before the take-off of teacher training institutions would provide for new definitions of their role as schoolmasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces a themed section that focuses on the production of gender discourse and representations in the midst of tightening social and cultural control in China's entertainment industry and digital media landscape. In various ways, the two articles featured case studies that exemplify how the production of gender discourses and representations in this context emerges from the interplay of state control, the market, and the digital realm and unfolds against the rise of platform capitalism and techno-nationalism. Both articles center on the intricate and sometimes contradictory configurations of gender within China's state-market nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Building on the "needs–affordances–features" framework, the authors explored how users are motivated by their needs to actualize the feature-enabled affordances and engage in the metaverse. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 35 participants. The authors applied thematic analysis to summarize the key features and affordances, supplemented by frequency analysis to explore the significance of the features. Sentiment analysis was employed to explicate the relationship between user affordance sentiments and engagement. Findings: The key features of the metaverse portal components—hardware, software and content—afford user behaviors. The features of mechanics and physics engines are important for user engagement in the metaverse. The affordances are related to needs satisfaction and user engagement. Mental immersion was frequently mentioned by the participants, implying that it is significant to afford mental immersion in the metaverse. Practical implications: The findings of the study provide a rich understanding for practitioners in the metaverse on how to use the features to afford user behaviors and engage them. The authors identified the key elements of user engagement that can be used to guide metaverse game designers. Originality/value: This study provides a rich and systematic understanding of features, affordances, needs satisfaction and engagement in the metaverse. Going beyond a fragmented view, the findings conclude a research framework that weaves features, affordances, needs and engagement together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we engage with the concept and theories of "affordance" in the adoption of digital tools to perform qualitative inquiry. We first raise the question of what is afforded when we use online digital tools such as Zoom to interview young children (5–10 years old) and then draw on empirical examples from our multi-sited critical ethnography with transnational Chinese children to illustrate our key methodological points. We lay out three dimensions along which the concept of affordance can be conceptualized: the relational, the embodied situational, and the social-cultural. We discuss the potential to map out a critical approach to enable qualitative researchers to practice reflexivity in technology-mediated qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial point for urban design is the acknowledgement that urban material structures are not only constituting a set of cognitive-cultural affordances that shapes people's behavior and experiential world, but likewise that the design process itself is an expression of cultural conceptualizations possibly evoked by ongoing cultural practices and perceptions, thus forming a dynamic loop. In this paper, we outline a framework for the study of material, cultural and social mechanisms interacting with human cognition, behavior and emotions. We attempt a conceptual model that integrates dynamic interactions between cognitive-cultural affordances and our conceptualization of the environment and provides a few illustrative case examples. The model proposes a set of dynamic relations between cognitive and cultural processes at shorter time scales modifying conceptualizations and environmental affordances on longer timescales, while these – in turn – come to guide and constrain processes at the shorter timescales. The model has important implications for our understanding of the role of environmental design, especially urban design, as bridging between aspects of human situated experience, behavior, social and cultural norms and material culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AI-enabled intelligent learning system (AEILS) is able to provide personalised and intelligent tutoring and is more capable of meeting individuals’ need. Nevertheless, limited studies focused on the effect of AI-specific factors on user behaviour. To fill this research gap, we identified the AEILS-specific affordances (i.e. interactivity, personalisation, competition, convenience) and explored their effect on user engagement and foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA). In this paper, we integrate quantitative and qualitative studies to explore user behaviour in AEILS. Survey data was collected from 457 respondents and analysed using structural equation modelling with the smart-PLS software. The results showed that AEILS-specific affordances significantly affect flow experience and self-expansion, thus facilitating user engagement and alleviating FLSA. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to corroborate the findings of the quantitative study. These findings highlighted the importance of technology affordance in AEILS. This study contributed to the literature on IS and education by incorporating context-specific factors into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptual analysis and critical review of the notion of ‘affordance’ and its uptake, transformation and application in the work of Gunther Kress. It traces its origins and explores how Kress, co-founder of social semiotics, (re)conceptualised affordance and incorporated it in his social semiotic theory of sign making, defining affordance in terms of the “potentials and limitations of specific modes”. The paper discusses how his take on the term was received, and develops a radical critique questioning the analytical merits of affordance. It concludes with a call for a return to Kress’s original question of exactly what it is about a form (signifier) that makes it suitable, in the eyes of the sign maker, for what they want to express (signified), and to consider materiality and social convention alongside the sign maker’s lifeworld, audience, situation, and conditions of sign making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a familiar but challenging task to manually transfer a liquid-filled container without spilling. The action requires stringent control because the dynamics of interacting with the non-rigid aqueous content is complex. In this work, we sought to discover what properties of a liquid-filled container were predictive of transfer without spilling performance. Two candidate variables were tested (Experiment 1): The distance between liquid surface and the container's rim (h) and the container's diameter (d). Participants attempted to transfer 15 containers (3 ds and 5 hs), one at a time and as fast as possible, without spilling. Kinematic analyses showed that the movement's peak velocity and the first peak acceleration were affected by h; the movement time and the frequency of acceleration change were affected by h and d in a hierarchical manner, where transfer without spilling was first affected by h and for full containers, the thick ones were moved more slowly and went through more acceleration change; for not so full containers, the container's diameter did not have any effect. Next, each of the 15 containers was compared with the other 14, and participants judged from a pair of displayed containers which one was more likely to be moved fast without spilling (Experiment 2). Perceived affordance was affected by h and d but not by whether containers were placed upright or tilted. In general, thinner and less full containers were judged as easier to be moved fast without spilling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study on COVID-19 warning designs in a Swedish context illustrates how a unified affordance approach may contribute to an understanding of the meaning-making in reminders, instructions, cues and prompts that communicate the message "keep your distance." The analysis combines semiotic and ecological affordance categories, taking both Gibson's original theorizing on affordances and more recent affordance-informed research efforts into consideration. In so doing, the study aims to bridge a knowledge gap in the study of visual instructions and warning designs as well as in a more comprehensive way delineate the multimodal design strategies associated with COVID-19 warning designs. The analysis shows that Swedish COVID-19 warning designs of the keep-your-distance-kind belong to a non-standardized and emerging genre that is marked by great variation and ad-hoc design solutions, several of which combine physical blocking functions with verbally based messages. The analysis also highlights the tension between verbal and visual recourses, on one hand, and the signage placement and choice of materials, on the other hand. It is concluded that communication resources do not always appear to convey the same basic message, but in incongruent ways weaken what might be considered the intended main message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athletes commonly make decisions about the passability of closing gaps when navigating sport environments. This study examined whether increased temporal pressure to arrive at a desired location modifies these decisions. Thirty participants navigated toward a waypoint in a virtual, sport-inspired environment. To do so, they had to decide whether they could pass through closing gaps of virtual humans (and take the shortest route) or steer around them (and take a longer route). The decision boundary of participants who were time pressured to arrive at a waypoint was biased toward end gaps of smaller sizes and was less reliably defined, resulting in a higher number of collisions. Effects of temporal pressure were minimized with experience in the experimental task. Results indicate that temporal pressure affects perceptual-motor processes supporting information pickup and shapes the information-action coupling that drives compliance with navigation demands. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ambitions to fund excellent researchers and path-breaking research unite a whole family of funding instruments ranging from Centres of Excellence to individual grants. While instruments aimed at funding excellence share a number of commonalities, there are important subsidiary features which determine their overall efficacy. The paper uses a case study of the Swedish Distinguished Professor Grant (DPG) to investigate the role of subsidiary features in enabling conditions associated with path-breaking research. Interviews were conducted with DPG recipients, to develop an “affordance analysis” identifying how features of the instrument enabled certain researcher actions and opportunities. Results suggest that while long duration and large funds are central to research excellence, the way in which subsidiary features such as reporting, planning and content requirements are structured affect the level of risk-taking. In terms of policy, the paper offers specific and general suggestions for the design of excellence funding instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shinzo Abe, Japan's former and longest-serving prime minister was assassinated on 8 July 2022. As the world expressed sorrow of the human tragedy, nationalists in China were celebrating the disappearance of a hardline Chinese hawk with great enthusiasm. When a Chinese journalist sobbed for Abe's death during a live report of the assassination, the surging anti-Japan sentiment exploded and soon developed into a hashtag-based nationalist protest attacking Abe and the journalist. Drawing from cyber nationalism and hashtag activism literature, the author coined a concept 'hashtag nationalism' to analyze this protest, the interactions between state-led nationalism and popular nationalism, and the role of digital media in the public-state relation. This article also generalized three affordances of hashtag – interconnectivity, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity – to approach the role of social media in digital activism from a relational perspective. Finally, the analysis revealed the discursive and networked nature of hashtag nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most theoretical and empirical studies of discourse marker multifunctionality do not approach it using a formal, systematic annotation model. Drawing on a domain-function taxonomy, this study examines 270 tokens of the discourse marker ni zhidao in Chinese media interviews. All values of the two-dimensional model designed for the whole category of discourse markers apply to ni zhidao, demonstrating its equally potent affordance on a particular discourse marker case cross-linguistically. By putting this model to the test, we found that "emphasis" needs to be added to the original 15 functions in the model, and that domains and functions need to be treated as dependent layers of pragmatic meaning. Functions determine domains, and domains need to be regarded as macro-functions to which specific functions are attributed. As such, we tentatively put forth an updated version that provides finer granularity and greater affordance, shedding new light on the pragmatic meaning of ni zhidao and the speaker's underlying communicative intent. We propose that the sample be divided into uni-functional and multi-functional categories before being analyzed within the updated model to capture the multifunctional discourse markers in the same context-specific utterances. This study has implications for the need of more exhaustive, speech-friendly annotation models of DM multifunctionality and the cross-linguistic adaptation or refinement of established DM annotation models to cater to the unique traits of spoken DMs in different languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most major platforms and news portals use the feed approach to information display, which offers people the ability to engage in continuous scrolling. This affordance, "scrollability," is an understudied feature that changes how people consume news. The endless scroll presents opportunities to monetize attention for advertisers, and a seemingly bottomless supply of headlines for news consumers. Moreover, more people report scrolling headlines than actually reading news stories. A scrollable technical environment creates circumstances that encourage headline reading, or what we call "news-scrolling," and yet we know little about the consequences of scrollability for other behaviors. In this paper we set forth an argument for increased scholarly attention to scrollability in the context of online news consumption, and articulate a theoretical framework for explaining the behaviors of news-scrollers and news-clickers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to propose a framework for understanding the nature of how people construct problems by interacting with situations and subsequently to offer implications for instructional design and future research. We propose that people must interactively frame the components of a situation in order to establish the meaning of a problem to solve. Although this interactive meaning-making process is critical to real-world problem solving, little research has been devoted to understanding the nature of interactive problem-framing or how to support students in framing problems effectively. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to approach problem-framing from the perspective of cognitive theories focused on situated interactivity and propose a synthesized conceptual model based on the interaction of agents and context. We argue that solving a real-world problem involves a process of building it (the problem) by interactively shaping distributed situational resources into structures of meaning aimed towards the resolution of perceived contradictions. Using the key elements of the model, we also propose opportunities for future empirical research and possible implications for instructional design that can help facilitate the development of students' abilities to meaningfully frame problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To judge whether an action is possible, people must perceive "affordances"—the fit between features of the environment and aspects of their own bodies and motor skills that make the action possible or not. But for some actions, performance is inherently variable. That is, people cannot consistently perform the same action under the same environmental conditions with the same level of success. Decades of research show that practice performing an action improves perception of affordances. However, prior work did not address whether practice with more versus less variable actions is equally effective at improving perceptual judgments. Thirty adults judged affordances for walking versus throwing a beanbag through narrow doorways before and after 75 practice trials walking and throwing beanbags through doorways of different widths. We fit a "success" function through each participant's practice data in each task and calculated performance variability as the slope of the function. Performance for throwing was uniformly more variable than for walking. Accordingly, absolute judgment error was larger for throwing than walking at both pretest and posttest. However, absolute error reduced proportionally in both tasks with practice, suggesting that practice improves perceptual judgments equally well for more and less variable actions. Moreover, individual differences in variability in performance were unrelated to absolute, constant, and variable error in perceptual judgments. Overall, results indicate that practice is beneficial for calibrating perceptual judgments, even when practice provides mixed feedback about success under the same environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the ecological approach to perception, affordances (i.e., action possibilities) are perceived directly in the environment and body-scaled. Previous theoretical work has suggested that the perception of action possibilities is influenced by depression (which has sometimes been conceived as an action-related disorder). However, thus far the relationship between affordance and depression has never been investigated in an experimental study. The goal of this study was to assess the relationships between reachability perception and depressive symptoms. Participants estimated their maximum ability to reach a target with their hand (without moving). Actual motor reachability capacities were then assessed. To determine the critical point, both measures were related to the participant's arm length and converted into an intrinsic body-scaled measurement. Participants were allocated to either the healthy group or the group with depressive symptoms according to their Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen (BDI-FS) scores. Results showed that participants with depressive symptoms were more conservative in their estimations than healthy participants. Depressive symptoms were associated with the perception of decreased motor action possibilities in comparison with what was observed when no symptoms were reported. These data are discussed in relation to theoretical models of depression and affordance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on students' meaning-making when working with mathematics textbooks from a multimodal approach that encompasses all resources for communication, which is an under researched area. Central to this study are the designed meanings of the textbooks and the affordances discovered by students when working with the textbooks. Video transcripts from 18 Year 1 (ages 7–8) students working with seven textbook pages were analysed. The results show that the designs of exercises are complex, that the students use different approaches when working with the textbook – from one exercise to another as well as within the same exercise – and that they sometimes discover content other than what the textbook was designed to offer. Conclusions drawn from this are that textbooks can be improved as learning tools – multimodal aspects of this are highlighted – and that more awareness of multimodality in mathematics teaching could support students' mathematical learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analysing 600 Instagram posts that use mental health related hashtags, this article investigates how mental health communication and support practices are enacted on Instagram, and how such practices relate to the perceptible affordances and hegemonic uses of the service. The article demonstrates how Instagram tends to privilege casual snapshots of individual recovery, in line with broader discourses of positive thinking and individual responsibility. Whereas this hegemonic way of using the service may be functional for many users, three examples of negotiated and oppositional use are also discussed in the article: motivational picture quotes, text-rich posts, and non-recovery oriented posts. It is suggested that different ways of imagining and approaching the affordances of the service engender different patterns of support practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordance is a property of object with respect to the observer, which is related to the attributes of the object. In the present study, we examined whether affordance elicitation is primarily based on the conceptual attributes or instance attributes of the object. To distinguish the role of the two types of attributes in elicitation of affordance, we manipulated the size of a pan in virtual reality (Experiment 1). The critical condition is the giant pan, which should elicit manipulability affordance if affordance is concept-based and it should not elicit manipulability affordance if affordance is instance-based. The results support the former assumption, i.e., the elicitation of affordance is concept-based. To confirm the conclusion, we created a water-handled pan in virtual reality and examined its manipulability affordance (Experiment 2). The water-handled pan looks similar to a normal pan, but its handle is composed of flowing water which, in concept, cannot be grasped. Consistent with the concept-based conclusion, the water-handled pan did not elicit manipulability affordance. The present findings provided convergent evidence that ordinary people rely primarily on conceptual attributes of the object to elicit manipulability affordance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research showed that young domestic pigs learn through observation of conspecifics by using social learning mechanisms like social facilitation, enhancement effects, and even object movement re-enactment. The latter suggests some form of emulative learning in which the observer learns about the object's movements and affordances. As it remains unclear whether pigs need a social agent to learn about objects, we provided 36 free-ranging domestic pigs with varying degrees of social to non-social demonstrations on how to solve a two-step manipulative foraging task: observers watched either a conspecific or a human demonstrator, or self-moving objects ("ghost control"), or a ghost control accompanied by an inactive conspecific bystander. In addition, 22 subjects that were previously tested without any demonstrator were used as a non-observer control. To solve the task, the subjects had to first remove a plug from its recess to then be able to slide a cover to the side, which would lay open a food compartment. Observers interacted longer with the relevant objects (plugs) and were more successful in solving the task compared to non-observers. We found no differences with regard to success between the four observer groups, indicating that the pigs mainly learned about the apparatus rather than about the actions. As the only common feature of the different demonstrations was the movement of the plug and the cover, we conclude the observer pigs learned primarily by emulation, suggesting that social agents are not necessary for pigs when learning through observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What roles do media play in community building? Based on life story interviews with 72 older gay men living in China, this study traces the rise and fall of four significant digital media platforms used by Chinese gay communities since the late 1990s. We propose the notion of community-based media affordance as an analytical device and show that the four platforms vary in terms of pervasiveness, self-presentation, searchability, visibility, editability, and awareness. This variation in affordances has contributed to "the good, the bad, and the ugly" in Chinese gay communities. Our analysis highlights the specific social, cultural, and political circumstances of the development of these platforms. It also suggests a link between certain community-based media affordances and the platforms' capacity for queer community building. The framework of community-based media affordance can also be used to compare affordances across different media in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 'a world that has been built to accommodate only some' (Ahmed 2019: 221), how do those engaging in public protest or experiencing housing insecurity make use of the material environment? In this article, we examine adaptation of the built environment in four sites in Melbourne, Australia. Everyday urban places are composed of myriad 'small things' acted upon as affordances for survival within structures of silencing and dispossession for the urban undercommons. We draw from cultural, spatial and atmospheric criminology to inform an ethnographic method focusing on materiality, use, adaptability and sensory composition. In so doing, our research contributes to criminological understanding of the significance of 'minor' events, activities and encounters in everyday life by proposing that 'small things in everyday places' constitute potentialities for defiance and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the effect of conceptual transparency in the physical structure of manipulatives on place-value understanding in typically developing children and those at risk for mathematics learning disabilities. Second graders were randomly assigned to one of three manipulatives conditions: (a) attachable beads that did not make the denominations or ones in the denominations transparent, (b) pipe cleaners that made only the denominations transparent, and (c) string beads that made both the denominations and the ones in the denominations transparent. Participants used the manipulatives to represent double- and triple-digit numerals. Statistical analyses indicated that the transparency of the denominations, but not the transparency of the ones in the denominations, is responsible for children's number representation and place-value understanding. Descriptive analyses of their responses revealed that the at-risk children were at a greater disadvantage than their typically developing peers with the attachable beads, failing to use place-value concepts to interpret their representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Structure' is the term whose proper use is exemplified by an expression like 'the structure of a diesel-engine,' in which what is referred to is accessible to immediate observation. It is also used figuratively like 'social structure.' While unobservable, what is referred to is empirically accessible. By contrast, molecules are neither observable nor empirically accessible. What philosophical grounds enable us to design invisible structure of molecules? Our cognition of objects becomes realized as phenomena when objects are given to our phenomenal fields. (Ochiai, Found Chem 22:77–86, 2020a, Found Chem 22:457–465, 2020b, A philosophical essay on molecular structure, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp 147–174, 2021) A phenomenal field is a pictorial representation of the mind's self-transcending character and shows the relation between 'self' and 'world.' Molecular structure becomes realized as an affordance of molecules in a phenomenal field proper to organic chemists. It is a context-sensitive dispositional attribute of an {organic chemist-world} complex. Although designing molecules presupposes molecular structure, the latter is not sufficient for the former to make sense. Molecules must be designable as well. Designing molecules aims to create or modify molecular structure in order to provide compounds with certain chemical and/or physical properties. That is, designable molecules make sense in contexts in which they serve as a means to achieve this purpose and become realized as an affordance. Given that molecular structure and designable molecules are affordances of molecules, the fact that there are contexts in which they make sense provides grounds for conceiving and designing invisible structure of molecules. Heidegger's arguments in Being and Time about characteristics of the being of beings corroborate our argument that what becomes realized as an affordance exists as what he calls a useful thing for us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Drawing on the theory of polymedia and on the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in (re)defining the articulation between the private and the public, this introduction reflects on what ICT does to and for families around the world. Background: Through the development of networking platforms, video call applications, personal sites, and collaborative information platforms, ICT has changed the way people live, love, and interact. It has also afforded new ways to "do family." Method: By featuring studies from a variety of national and regional contexts (Canada, Chile, Ghana, Greece, Moldova, South Korea, Ukraine, the Netherlands, United States, and Turkey), it establishes a dialogue between disciplines and a fruitful cross‐fertilization of research topics, methodologies, analyses, and theoretical perspectives. Results: This special issue explores (a) the nexus among family life, relationships, and ICT and (b) the relation between the everyday lived experiences of family members and the broader social structures that circumscribe the width and breadth of those experiences. Conclusion: The contributions show the porosity of the boundary between public and private spaces. Alternative forms of expertise and parenting norms are emerging online. ICTs are integrated into parents' information‐seeking and sharing practices, and emotional support. They sustain relationships between family members across distance. However, inequalities regarding access to the Internet and computer literacy still jeopardize digital citizenship and democratization. Implication: The contributions in this special issue highlight the need for better structuring of interventions and policies to support families by using up‐to‐date ICT systems and creating mentorship programs and digital mediation for family professionals and beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we translated the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development-Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS) into Turkish, adapted the instrument culturally, examined its psychometric properties within a Turkish population, and identified its limitations. We administered the AHEMD-IS to families of 65 premature or full-term Turkish infants and repeated this testing for 17 families after one-two weeks to establish test-retest reliability. We calculated the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach alpha coefficient to assess reliability, and we evaluated test validity using the Spearman's correlation coefficient and correlations with the Bayley-III motor development score. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.846, and, for test-retest reliability, the ICC score was 0.830. The Turkish AHEMD-IS total score was moderately correlated with the Bayley-III fine motor development score (r = 0.469, p < 0.001), the Bayley-III gross motor development score (r = 0.533, p < 0.001), and the Bayley-III total motor development score (r = 0.526, p < 0.001). The Turkish version of the AHEMD-IS was found to be valid and reliable for children born prematurely or at full-term. The use of this questionnaire in Turkey will facilitate the creation of a home environment that will support motor development in children between 3-18 months of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bearded capuchin monkeys at Fazenda Boa Vista, Piauí, Brazil older than 8 years routinely crack palm nuts with a stone hammer and anvil. An embodied, perception–action stance hypothesizes that monkeys' improving skill at this task is enabled by learning affordances of spatial and force relations produced with objects. Affordances are individual-relative opportunities for action that may change across development. We evaluated predictions linking behaviours with nuts and stones and body mass to success at nut cracking in young bearded capuchins (1.3–6.3 years old) and adults over three annual observation periods. Behaviours with nuts and stones reflected the monkeys' learning affordances for cracking; body mass constrained affordances for cracking. For each period in which they were observed, individuals were assigned to novice, intermediate or expert classes in accord with their success at cracking nuts. Novices did not crack nuts, despite striking them with stones. Body mass was modestly associated with intermediates', but not experts', likelihood of cracking a nut. Experts exhibited higher proportions of manipulation devoted to positioning nuts on the anvil and shorter bouts of cracking than intermediates; intermediates exhibited greater variability in these variables than experts or novices. The strongest classification model predicting individuals' assignments to skill class with 89% accuracy combined average bout duration and the ratio of manipulation devoted to positioning to other manipulation. The findings suggest practise using the body-pus-tool system for cracking palm nuts supports affordance learning and results in gradual mastery of this skill and that changing body mass plays a small role in this process. • Most monkeys <7 years old did not have adult (expert) skill at cracking nuts. • Body mass had little to no effect on monkeys' skill at cracking nuts. • Experts cracked nuts in short bouts and relatively frequently positioned the nut. • Less skilled monkeys used long bouts and varied duration and action more over bouts. • Monkeys slowly learn affordances of the body-plus-tool system for nut cracking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution investigates the campaign posters of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in four communication domains: in public space, in the mass media, their impact on other political actors and manipulations of the posters. This approach combines social semiotics, discourse analysis, media linguistics, and linguistic landscaping to present a comprehensive account of the posters’ usage and design. Relying on social semiotics, we first analyze the posters themselves. We then show how the posters are reproduced in journalistic news media which creates a visual framing of the discussion about migration. This framing effect is also evidenced by the fact that many political actors adapt to the SVP’s visual language. Consequently, the discussion about migration increasingly follows the SVP’s logic. In a fourth analytical step, we show how the posters become objects of manipulation that turn them into a place of public debate. We sum up by pointing out the affordances that the posters offer to actors in these different domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should sociologists understand the everyday lives of those living in adversity, coping with the experience of structural violence? In this article, focusing on the urban experience, we suggest a perspective on 'everyday life' that can encompass corporeal, mental, relational and social dimensions, which we term 'niche sociality'. First, we use Gibson's niches and affordances to enrich the post-representationalist understanding of human beings as embodied/cultural/environmentally embedded organisms. Second, we enrich Gibson's niches and affordances with theories for 'small-scale' sociality drawn from social practice theory and interaction ritual chains. Third, we illustrate the productivity of these ideas throughout the article, by grounding our conceptual work in empirical examples that analyse the everyday lives and mental life of migrant workers in Shanghai. Niche sociality, we argue, is a way of framing the experience of the everyday, a perspective that could – perhaps should – provoke novel ecosocial studies of adversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The truth‐conditions of many utterances have components that do not correspond to any uttered morpheme. This happens because linguistic acts are always a supplement to whatever else is available to agents engaged in a conversation. Unarticulated constituents result from the informational trade‐off between what is available in the situation of utterance and what needs to be linguistically articulated. Unarticulated constituents are constituents of propositions, that is, of classifying tools that are neutral with respect to the way in which what is given in a situation interacts with the words uttered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsourcing holds great potential: macro-task crowdsourcing can, for example, contribute to work addressing climate change. Macro-task crowdsourcing aims to use the wisdom of a crowd to tackle non-trivial tasks such as wicked problems. However, macro-task crowdsourcing is labor-intensive and complex to facilitate, which limits its efficiency, effectiveness, and use. Technological advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) might overcome these limits by supporting the facilitation of crowdsourcing. However, AI's potential for macro-task crowdsourcing facilitation needs to be better understood for this to happen. Here, we turn to affordance theory to develop this understanding. Affordances help us describe action possibilities that characterize the relationship between the facilitator and AI, within macro-task crowdsourcing. We follow a two-stage, bottom-up approach: The initial development stage is based on a structured analysis of academic literature. The subsequent validation & refinement stage includes two observed macro-task crowdsourcing initiatives and six expert interviews. From our analysis, we derive seven AI affordances that support 17 facilitation activities in macro-task crowdsourcing. We also identify specific manifestations that illustrate the affordances. Our findings increase the scholarly understanding of macro-task crowdsourcing and advance the discourse on facilitation. Further, they help practitioners identify potential ways to integrate AI into crowdsourcing facilitation. These results could improve the efficiency of facilitation activities and the effectiveness of macro-task crowdsourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordances serve as design cues, facilitating users in effortlessly identifying the intended use of objects. However, due to the phenomenological nature of the affordance concept, its application and understanding in the human-computer interaction (HCI) domain remain uncertain, resulting in limited utilization in design practice. This study introduces the concept of nested affordances, linking affordances more closely and explicitly with perception. We reposition the affordance concept and transform it into a design tool--the Affordance Interaction Matrix (AIM). This matrix captures the nested relationships and perceptual conflicts between target affordances within a product, assisting designers in identifying and eliminating potential confusion for users when facing a design, providing implicit interaction cues. The AIM-based design method proposed in this research addresses the shortcomings in describing product affordance interactions, focusing on the natural guidance of specific behaviors. This approach enables designers to clarify intuitive interaction foundations and make swift, effective decisions. Finally, the paper demonstrates the application and advantages of AIM through a practical case study of accessible kitchen furniture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of theorists have looked to the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind or the affordancebased approach from ecological psychology to make sense of a wide variety of phenomena; some theorists believe that these theoretical accounts can offer rich insights about the nature of mental disorders, their etiology, and their characteristic symptoms. I argue that theorists who adopt such approaches also should embrace the further claim that all mental disorders are affective disorders. First, enactivist accounts of mental disorder push us towards such a view insofar as they characterise such conditions in terms of disordered sensemaking and conceptualise sense-making as fundamentally affective. Second, conceptions of mental disorders that emphasise affordance perception likewise motivate such a view insofar as they highlight the role that affectivity plays in the disclosure of action possibilities. What is more, both sense-making and affordance disclosure are best understood as processes of selective attention and responsiveness that rely heavily on affectivity. To illustrate and support these claims, I discuss how (a) language disturbances in schizophrenia and (b) "context blindness" in autism both result from disruptions to affectivity and selective attention that make it difficult for subjects to engage effectively with relevant affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends our understanding of inland waterways by theorising the temporary absences of water in canals and rivers as possibilities for action, that is, affordances. The interplay of temporary absence and presence of water in the inland waterways provides a range of potentialities for various activities and practices. Affordance theory can help us to further theorise material absences and position them as important elements of performing, practicing and interpreting place. We show how temporary absence of water can create spatial, historical and communicative affordances, affording the movement of boats, revealing and recreating the past and raising environmental awareness. The paper is based on semi-ethnographic research on the rivers and canals in the United Kingdom and Italy, featuring document analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews with various waterway users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the interdisciplinary study of time we see a shift from a physicalistic paradigm, as we know it from Julius T. Fraser's work, to a rather more cognitive-theoretical approach, as advanced, for instance, by Allen Newell, who takes mental activity to consist of a complex, active search through a problem space. In this article, I compare some recent efforts of physically oriented researchers Prigogine and Barbour with the cognitive approach taken by chronopsychologists Lakoff, Gibson, Jones, Leyton and others. It stipulates that the classical notion of temporality as an absolute property of the universe has in fact been replaced by versions of local time. Recent examples of timing on the basis of local time include temporal information processing according to the demands of metaphor, scripts, dynamic attention, and more. The common ground appears to be that time is a derived entity, based on embodied (inborn) as well as situated (acquired) processing activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With humor, which has long been known as a coping mechanism in extreme crises, punning memes, armed with words and images, have become weapons of 'mass disruption' influencing the hearts and minds of a target audience. This invites the examination of how memes detailing Russian-Ukrainian war employ verbo-visual puns as a strategic tool of information warfare to counter president Putin's military aggression and misleading political messaging. This article1 proposes an interdisciplinary template for the analysis of puns drawing on multimodal social semiotics, cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis and crisis communication analysis. The data sampled for this research comprises 87 memes about Russian-Ukrainian war that employ verbo-visual puns with 6 cases described in this paper. The article proposes a taxonomy, in which verbo-visual puns can be classified in accordance with mechanisms that are used to classify wordplay (homonymy, polysemy, and paronymy). Evidence is thus provided to show that this typology is applicable to the taxonomy of multimodal signs as well. The results of this research reveal cognitive and semiotic triggers of puns as well as their potential to serve as a tool generating public reaction to Russia's military aggression in Ukraine and reaching the intended goals of crisis communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]