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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.

The aim of this article is to investigate how paper materials can be used as a dramaturgical premise when co-creating a fantasy world together with kindergarten children. Four exploratory workshops were carried out with a group of children in a kindergarten in Norway. The findings demonstrate how transformative materials function as a driving component in collective creations. The children moved between creating individually and collectively with the material, and through this interaction they co-created stories and play situations. These findings suggest implications for how art pedagogical practice can make use of transformative materials to build collective fantasy play. [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]

This article introduces the term "skinnedness" as a complementary notion to what we commonly refer to as skin. The term allows for a fundamental conceptual discussion that brings together human skin, animal skin, and other types of organic or artificial skin, such as fruit skin or the soft outer layer of a doll. The dermacritical approach developed here explores the unique affordances of skin and skin‐like phenomena, including their "graphordance," that is, the implicit invitation to write on them. Through a thorough discussion of works by Oskar Kokoschka, Hermine Moos, Lester Gaba, and Herta Müller, this paper offers a philosophically and historically informed perspective on the skinnedness of skin, integrating its symptomatic, semantic, and aesthetic dimensions from a comparative literary perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an increasing number of studies that explore language learning beyond the classroom (LBC), research examining LBC activities in relation to in-class learning is very limited. This paper investigates what kinds of LBC activities university students of Chinese and Japanese in Australia engage in and how they connect these activities to classroom learning. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, two-week diary entries about their exposure to the target language and stimulated-recall interviews based on their diary entries. The analysis reveals several ways that the students bridge in-class and out-of-class learning, including integration between in-class learning and LBC which are mutually supportive. It also shows some differences in types of LBC activities between learners of Chinese and those of Japanese, in part due to the limited availability of online resources and media in China. Based on these findings, we need to continue to discuss how to encourage LBC based on students' digital literacies and practices and how to integrate LBC with classroom learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As augmented reality (AR) gains prevalence, various AR exhibits are being installed in science museums. However, few research has thus far examined the extent to which these exhibits can improve visitors' learning. This study qualitatively evaluates the effectiveness of an AR dinosaur exhibit at the Gwacheon National Science Museum in Korea and examines the implications for its improvement. Eight elementary school students experienced the AR dinosaur exhibit, and their reactions were captured by audio and video recordings. Science museum experts were also interviewed to understand the intended affordances of the exhibit. The students' responses to the intended affordances were examined by analyzing their tour of the AR dinosaur exhibit. We found that the exhibit attracted the visitors by catching their attention. However, they did not pay attention to the exhibition's primary purpose of improving scientific understanding or reasoning. Some unintended interactions, unrelated to the intended affordances, also emerged. The limitations of the examined AR dinosaur exhibit suggest implications for improving AR exhibits in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, dark tourism attracts millions of visitors to indulge in various experiences. In the lightest shade of dark tourism lie dark fun factories, which are entertainment-centred through a high level of tourism infrastructure. Arguably, to a large extent, dark fun factories for visitors are an interactive and affective performance of fear and fun. This study employs retrospective collaborative autoethnography to explore how a dark fun factory can be understood as an assemblage including co-performances of service providers and visitors along with their interaction with non-human affordances. In so doing, this assemblage co-creates a participatory and affective space, as well as the desired experience(s) of fearful fun. The findings suggest theoretical and practical implications for researchers, lightest dark tourism suppliers, and visitors. For researchers, the findings provide a nuanced understanding of the process of how both visitors and hosts approach and practice performances in a dark fun factory. Suppliers can use the information to enhance the elements that effectively work to provide a quality experience for visitors. The findings inform visitors that they have an essential role in co-performing and co-creating the dark fun factory and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inconsistent findings about learning outcomes in VR (virtual reality) learning necessitate further robustness of empirical data. This article addressed this gap by comparing the learning outcomes across VR, phone, and mobile learning on two dimensions: recall accuracy and recall speed, as well as learners' attitudes. Additionally, this paper attempted to investigate the differences between 5 and 10 min time duration. By inviting a total of 28 participants to the lab experiments on English vocabulary acquisition, this study yielded no statistically significant difference in vocabulary recall accuracy between VR, computer, and mobile learning. Nonetheless, the significant difference in vocabulary recall speed was generated. Besides, the time spent on vocabulary acquisition was significantly shorter in VR than in computer and mobile learning. Additionally, pairwise comparisons revealed that learners' perceptions and attitudes toward SUS resulted in significantly lower scores in VR than in computer- and mobile-based learning. Further, merely two of the nine items on the VR sickness scale demonstrated a significant raise in visual fatigue as well as significant decline in headache between 5 and 10 min learning duration. Future research should anticipate a larger sample size to ensure the validity of research findings and further construct a 3D modeling for the same language learning settings for non-college, primary, as well as secondary school students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hiding from war, violence, and persecution in a secret, confined place affects the subjectivity of the occupants. The hideout's material properties and the hiders' silence to avoid detection enter deep into their lives. This co-constitution of subjectivity and hiding becomes manifest in their affects, feelings, and emotions, as will be illustrated by an analysis of Anne Frank's lived experience of hiding for two years from Nazi persecution. She and her fellow hiders maintained a regime of silence in the secret annex of a canal house in Amsterdam to prevent their discovery and deportation. The hideout's material and social restrictions created a subjectivity of hiding that devalued Anne Frank's existence as a human being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social life of things, in the aftermath of war and forced displacement, is associated with change in significance and value. Against a background of massive destruction and dispossession, object survival is exceptional. However, not every object that survives gains value equally. Private possessions that survive might not be attended to or be discarded. This complicates a straightforward coupling of person and surviving object. In this paper, the becoming of biographic objects is addressed. My interview partners fled the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s as children. The objects they presented in biographic interviews have accompanied them throughout their lives. Rather than being mere prompts to tell life stories, these biographic objects, I suggest with Barad's study, emerged in tandem with the biographic subject. By example of a wartime letter and a childhood object, I demonstrate how these things become biographic objects as they afford social action at various points in people's lives. My main argument is that things come to be biographic objects because they afford agency in specific socio-historic constellations. [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]

Online dating and dating apps are meant to help sexual minorities find romantic partners, but they have also presented challenges and obstacles. Based on 27 in-depth interviews with lesbian, gay, and bisexual dating app users living in Taiwan, this exploratory study proposes the concept of hyperpersonal failure as a holistic framework for understanding these challenges. This framework specifies four types of failure, each corresponding to one element in the original hyperpersonal communication model: the failure to present oneself (online daters as the sender), the failure to meet conversational expectations (the channel), the failure to develop positive impressions of the targets (online daters as the receiver), and the failure to obtain responses (the feedback). The study also discusses how the affordances of online environments contribute to hyperpersonal failure. Overall, the framework has the potential to shed light on online dating in general, extending beyond the experiences of sexual minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise and error are usually considered to be disturbances negatively affecting the behavior of a system. Nevertheless, from a systemic perspective, taking into account openness and incompleteness of complex systems, noise and error may assume a creative, constructive, and positive role in that they are a source of novelty that can trigger the reorganization of the system, the growth of complexity, and the emergence of new meaning. Examples of this phenomenon can be found in evolutionary phenomena driven by affordances, the formation of new attractors in dynamic systems responding to external perturbations, and improvisation in music. We argue that it is possible to identify general properties that enable the positive effect of noise and errors in complex systems, namely, multilevel organization, redundancy, incompleteness, and criticality. These properties play a major role in living systems and can guide the design of robust and adaptive artificial systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study empirically analyzed activism participants' roles drawn from the lens of social media affordance and identified the activism opinion leaders based on the framework of network connectivity, message diffusion, and semantic relevancy through the case of the #Marchforourlives Twitter network, which has been rebranded as X. The study defines the #Marchforourlives Twitter network as a co-created activism network in collaboration with different degrees of contributors, such as the core advocates, the advocates, the supporters, and the amplifiers. The results showed that a very small number of tweets created by the core advocates played significant roles due to their extensive adoption by other participants, while many other original tweets were never mentioned or retweeted in the network. This study disclosed the extensive proportion of amplifiers as 95.13% among the examined participants. The study findings suggest that creating core agenda tweets with high amplifiability might be critical for successful hashtag activism to attract like-minded masses as networked protesters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums are multimodal environments where semiotic resources including objects, space, sound, light, movement, language and the body converge. Our case study of a Taiwanese ceramics exhibition draws on the concept of 'affective affordances', meaning the socially and contextually informed ways that semiotic resources invite felt and embodied responses. We use this concept to investigate the ways in which texts and space co-construct affective meanings. We discuss texts and space as physical entities within the affective exhibition, each possessing intrinsic properties which can potentially stimulate certain embodied responses from visitors. Specifically, the case study addresses two questions: (1) how written texts within an exhibition interact with space to afford affective meaning potential; and (2) how museum visitors as active participants respond to space and text as affective stimuli. The study adopts a novel composite theoretical framework that combines spatial discourse analysis using the Binding framework, linguistic analysis using the Appraisal framework, and walking interviews. Our analysis provides rich empirical evidence of how space and written texts interact to create a felt sense of place for visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study empirically analyzed activism participants’ roles drawn from the lens of social media affordance and identified the activism opinion leaders based on the framework of network connectivity, message diffusion, and semantic relevancy through the case of the #Marchforourlives Twitter network, which has been rebranded as X. The study defines the #Marchforourlives Twitter network as a co-created activism network in collaboration with different degrees of contributors, such as the core advocates, the advocates, the supporters, and the amplifiers. The results showed that a very small number of tweets created by the core advocates played significant roles due to their extensive adoption by other participants, while many other original tweets were never mentioned or retweeted in the network. This study disclosed the extensive proportion of amplifiers as 95.13% among the examined participants. The study findings suggest that creating core agenda tweets with high amplifiability might be critical for successful hashtag activism to attract like-minded masses as networked protesters.

Social changes are reshaping play affordance patterns and redefining the concept of play space fences. This study explores this shift by examining four “childcare support bases” in Setagaya ward, Japan. We provided a historical overview of play affordances and explored how fences reflect the contemporary understanding of new play affordances. We categorized the play environment into new designated play spaces (NDPS) and carved-out play spaces (CPS). These were observed from the perspectives of both operators and users. We conducted four unstructured interviews to understand the operator’s viewpoint. From the user’s perspective, we interpreted fences perceived through social media phenomenologically, drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s concept of “perception through embodied experience.” The study sites in Setagaya ward encompass NDPS created and operated through new play affordances. Each NDPS forms a flexible cluster of play spaces by generating temporary CPS around it. Institutionalized play assistants facilitate an alliance between NDPS and CPS, acting as a non-physical fence permeable to the city and expandable through CPS. By reinterpreting fences in the context of new play affordances, we envision the integrated use of DPS and CPS in urban space planning, transcending the traditional conflict between them. This study offers a comprehensive examination of these concepts together.

日本語教育において「学習環境」という用語はさまざまな文脈で用いられている。そこで本稿では、先行研究の「学習環境」という用語の使用実態を調査し、従来の学習環境は静的な学習者を中心にして、その特徴を捉えた「形態特徴的学習環境」であることを述べた。そして、学習環境は学習主体と環境とが相互作用をしながら変化していく能動的な循環関係であることから、動的な学習者/学習環境の姿を捉えようとする「経験・生態的学習環境」へと学習環境の捉え直しをしていくことを主張した。その上で、学習主体の経験・生態的学習環境を豊かにしていくためには、学習環境エンジニアの存在および意味のある価値づけとなる環境エンリッチメントの配置が重要であることを述べた。さらに個別の学習環境だけではなく、さまざまな人々の経験を組み合わせていくことで、持続的かつより豊かな学習環境を構築していくことができることを強調している。

Despite the intimacy between the situation and our agency, "situation" remains an ambiguous concept in theory. Even within the context of situated theories of cognition and agency that take the organism-environment system as central in their investigations, the notion of "situation" has been undertheorized. Yet, whether affordances are relevant depends on the situation. Therefore, Van Dijk and Rietveld argue that we must understand the practical situation in which behavior occurs in order to know how we respond to the affordances that the materials and other people offer. Taking John Dewey's notion of "situation" as the basis for investigation, I follow Shaun Gallagher's analysis of how we are not just part of a situation, but we understand what an action is only in relation to a situation. Situations act like large-scale affordances, but this does not mean that affordances are inviting or soliciting as such. Because of the situational transactions with the environment that an agent has, the environment pushes and pulls the agent from and toward certain actions. This means that environments have expressive qualitative features that are non-subjective emotional qualities and social gestalt. I propose four overlapping but distinct features or axes of analysis of situations that can be identified and analyzed in terms of how they shape our agency: complexity, determinedness, the establishment of expectations, and restrictiveness. Situations can be more or less complex in a spatial, temporal, or layered way. They can also be more or less determined, meaning that the agent's actions are more or less obvious. Third, they can be characterized as socially established, meaning that certain behavior is expected. Finally, situations are more or less restricted, denoting the number of activities available to an agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological psychologist James J. Gibson defined the notion of affordances to refer to what action possibilities environments offer to animals. In this paper, we show how (artificial) agents can discover and exploit affordances in a Multi-Agent System (MAS) environment to achieve their goals. To indicate to agents what affordances are present in their environment and whether it is likely that these may help the agents to achieve their objectives, the environment may expose signifiers while taking into account the current situation of the environment and of the agent. On this basis, we define a Signifier Exposure Mechanism that is used by the environment to compute which signifiers should be exposed to agents in order to permit agents to only perceive information about affordances that are likely to be relevant to them, and thereby increase their interaction efficiency. If this is successful, agents can interact with partially observable environments more efficiently because the signifiers indicate the affordances they can exploit towards given purposes. Signifiers thereby facilitate the exploration and the exploitation of MAS environments. Implementations of signifiers and of the Signifier Exposure Mechanism are presented within the context of a Hypermedia Multi-Agent System, and the utility of this approach is presented through the development of a scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although mental health professionals traditionally have been viewed as sole experts and decision-makers, there is increasing awareness that the experiential knowledge of former patients can make an important contribution to mental health practices. I argue that current patients likewise possess a kind of expertise, and that including them as active participants in diagnosis and treatment can strengthen their autonomy and allow them to build up important habits and skills. To make sense of these agential benefits and describe how patients might act as co-regulators of a therapeutic encounter, I look to the enactivist notion of "participatory sensemaking". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Live streaming technologies transform the information processing of customers by changing the way they interact with and acquire information. However, this emerging technological artefact may induce both positive and negative consequences for customer decision making. It is yet unknown what constitutes the dimensions of the juxtaposed IT affordances and how they affect customer behaviours in this new social phenomenon. This paper contributes to IS research by uncovering the specific bright and dark sides of IT affordances in live streaming e-commerce and by explaining the cognitive mechanisms underpinning customer purchase and brand citizenship behaviours. We employed a sequential mixed-methods design to embrace and contextualise the theory of affordance, vicarious learning, and cognitive load to rigorously develop a theoretical framework of the juxtaposed IT affordance in live streaming e-commerce. The results indicate that positive affordances (e.g., interactivity, visibility, and entertainment) have stronger effects on both economic and non-economic value. However, the potential dark side (e.g., broadcasting and source diversity) has more negative effects on purchase intention than brand citizenship behaviour, underscoring the importance of involving customers in co-creating brand-related value in live streaming e-commerce. Our findings contribute considerably to the emerging literature on live streaming e-commerce and provide actionable recommendations for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe multi-sensorial and embodied experiences of ‘being transported’ as passengers are an important, but at times underemphasized, theme in transport policy and planning. Asking the key question ‘how does it feel?’ seems straight forward and yet still hard to accommodate in the realm of planning and transport policies. However, if the ‘way that we feel’ is what attunes us to be attracted (or the opposite) to different modes of transport, then the affective, embodied, and sensorial qualities of buses, subways, airplanes, and ferries is more than an issue of ‘comfort’ and competitive advantage (even though this is a central concern for public transport agencies in the post-covid 19 context). Rather, we should understand how the enrolment of human bodies into infrastructural systems and mobility technologies shape our experiences in the everyday life. This paper hones in on a few theoretical concepts developed under the umbrella of ‘mobilities design’. Seen as a field of ‘material pragmatism’ it presents concepts such as ‘material interpellation’, ‘mobility affordance’, ‘extended bodies’, and ‘osmosis’ as part of a vocabulary enabling a more granular understanding of how we experience the world as passengers. [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]

The ecological approach to psychology has been a main antecedent of embodied and situated approaches to cognition. The concept of affordances in particular has gained currency throughout psychological science. Yet, contemporary ecological psychology has seemed inaccessible to outsiders and protective of its legacy. Indeed, some prominent ecological psychologists have presented their approach as a "package deal"—a principled and unified perspective on perception and action. Looking at the history of the field, however, we argue that ecological psychology has developed in rich and pluriform ways. Aiming to open the field to critical engagement and productive exchange, we identify three major strands of thought within ecological psychology, each of which emerged in the 20 years after Gibson's death: physical, biological, and social ecological psychology. Each of these strands develop ecological ideas in quite different directions, making different use of some of its central concepts, adopting different explanatory principles, and embodying different philosophical worldviews. Proponents of the ecological approach have been arguing for pluralism within cognitive science to make room for ecological psychology. Given the diversity of the strands, we extend this plea to within ecological psychology itself; the field is better off aiming for a productive pluralism in which the different strands are in dialogue with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies on deception in soccer penalty kicks have focused on the deceptive actions used by penalty takers. However, it is worth noting that deception can also be played out by goalkeepers. To examine the effectiveness of goalkeepers' deceptive actions in professional competition, we analysed 714 penalty kicks taken during matches in the English Premier League and German Bundesliga, spanning the seasons from 2016–2017 to 2019–2020. We scored whether goalkeepers used deception, and if so, what type of deception, the outcome of the penalty and the kicking strategy of the penalty taker. The results showed that goalkeepers used deception in half of the penalty kicks, resulting in significantly less goals compared to penalties without deception. This advantage was similar for the different types of deception, but larger when penalty takers paid attention to goalkeepers. We propose that the deceptive actions by goalkeepers are effective, mainly because it leads the penalty taker to lose focus. The practical implications of these findings are discussed for both goalkeepers and penalty takers. [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]

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]

Informed by the Digital Coping Model, this article explores the use of social network sites among chronically ill patients and caregivers. In particular, it focuses on the use of Facebook (FB) groups among patients diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their caregivers in the Philippines. Situated in a country with a high prevalence of CVD, it explores the communication technology affordances and digital coping activities of members belonging to a private FB group for CVD. Using in-depth interviews with members, this article found that digital coping engages with polymedia, that is, patients and caregivers use the private FB group together with other platforms. Members likewise engaged with praying as an emergent digital coping activity. Moreover, they characterised the private FB group as an epistemic community critical for creating, sharing and challenging CVD-related information. Taken together, the results extend the conversations about the ways patients and caregivers continue to repurpose communication and technology for managing their chronic illness in the larger backdrop of polymedia, limited access to healthcare, and the ongoing pandemic. Implications to moderators of health groups, healthcare professionals and health associations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the concept of affordance generated different interpretations, which are due to different stories aimed at describing how this notion accounts for visually guided motor behaviors. On the one hand, dispositional accounts of affordances explain how affordances emerge from the encounter of the agent’s perceptual-motor skills, with an object offering possible interactions, as behavioral dispositional properties. On the other hand, cognitive neuroscience explains what neural mechanisms are required for agents to detect affordances, resulting from an internal processing. As the literature recognized, it would be beneficial to connect these two stories. We propose an important step into this connection, showing how a dispositional notion of affordance can be distinguished into two versions, the Dispositional Account of Nomological Affordance Response and the Dispositional Account of Probable Affordance Response, and how to complement different aspects of visuomotor processing for affordance extraction, discussed in neuroscience, with them. An important benefit of our proposal is that it suggests, for the first time, that we should not prefer one dispositional account at the expense of the other. Indeed, we show that different dispositional accounts can capture distinct aspects of the plethora of complex manifestations, at the neurocognitive level of visuomotor-processing, that affordances can display in humans, both in healthy and pathological subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Dating apps are a popular tool for finding sexual and romantic partners. Yet, these apps can pose risks that arise from gendered affordances of technology that users deploy to harass and victimize their matches, particularly matches who are women or sexual and gender minorities. Just as gendered affordances may facilitate risks, dating app users may also deploy technology in ways that mitigate risk. In this study, we examined risks that men and women perceive dating app matches to pose, as well as ways in which they use technology to mitigate these risks. Through an analysis of focus groups conducted with a sample of college student dating app users, we found the perceived risks that matches pose were markedly different for men and women, particularly among those seeking mixed-gender pairings. Women who matched with men were concerned about being sexually assaulted, whereas men who matched with women were concerned about being falsely accused of assault. Thus, women used gendered affordances to enhance their safety, and men used affordances to enhance their "believability." We suggest our findings point to the positional and interactional nature of gendered affordances, encompassing ways in which gender inequality may be both maintained and subverted with digital technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) serves as a crucial hub for the integration of sensory with motor cues related to voluntary actions. Visual input is used in different ways along the dorsomedial and the dorsolateral visual pathways. Here we focus on the dorsomedial pathway and recognize a visual representation at the service of action control. Employing different experimental paradigms applied to behaving monkeys while single neural activity is recorded from the medial PPC (area V6A), we show how plastic visual representation can be, matching the different contexts in which the same object is proposed. We also present data on the exchange between vision and arm actions and highlight how this rich interplay can be used to weight different sensory inputs in order to monitor and correct arm actions online. Indeed, neural activity during reaching or reachto- grasp actions can be excited or inhibited by visual information, suggesting that the visual perception of action, rather than object recognition, is the most effective factor for area V6A. Also, three-dimensional object shape is encoded dynamically by the neural population, according to the behavioral context of the monkey. Along this line, mirror neuron discharges in V6A indicate the plasticity of visual representation of the graspable objects, that changes according to the context and peaks when the object is the target of one's own action. In other words, object encoding in V6A is a visual encoding for action. [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]

This study examines the dynamic interplay between platform providers and complementors in the context of digital ecosystems, focusing on the complementary factors of affordance, autonomy, and super-modularity. Using national survey data from the Korean digital industry, the study applied multivariate ordered probit and k-mode clustering models to analyze what determines these factors and how these factors are interrelated from the perspective of platform providers and complementors, respectively. The results indicate that platform providers with open APIs promote affordance, but providing an SDK inhibits affordance. In terms of complementors, choosing a platform providing APIs increases super-modularity. And affordance increases when using the platform for logistics and new product development. In addition, we found that affordance and autonomy have a trade-off relationship from the perspective of both platform providers and complementors. Finally, we classified platforms and complementors into subgroups with respect to affordance, autonomy, and super-modularity using cluster analysis and found that the size of a complementor's firm, such as revenue and number of employees, influences which platform it chooses. Conversely, the size of a platform provider also influences how much autonomy and collaboration it offers. This study contributes to the understanding of digital platform ecosystems and provides insights for practitioners on how to leverage platform dynamics to enhance competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of urban public space is inherently problematic because the range of its possible uses and meanings is broad and unpredictable. This paper engages this problematic through the lens of Gibson's theory of 'affordances'—the ways the material world affords for human desires. We first explore some conceptual and methodological problems of the theory of affordances and its application in understanding and designing public space. These dimensions of affordance theory are then reconceived using the relational thinking of assemblage and actor-network theory (ANT). A key contribution of the paper is an expanded typology of affordances which includes improvised and serendipitous affordances that extend beyond the intentions of designers and users. This opens new ways of thinking about the design of urban public space as a space of possibility where outcomes are open, multiple, and unpredictable. The paper suggests how urban spaces can be shaped to better support rich cultural diversity and social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral research investigates the link between human behavior and the natural and the built environment where the behaviors occur. In the ensuing interactions between human behavior and the environment, individuals change their environment, and, in turn, their behaviors are changed by their environment. This article addresses the problem that formal design processes have resulted in gaps between what users want and what professionals design for, and hence the need for spatial analysis. Traces in the physical environment that were consequences of user behaviors were documented. Case studies of the architectural design studios in three universities in Kenya were used. Observation of physical traces was used as a research technique. The study noted that the observed traces were indicators of use of the environment for prescribed activities, significant bad design, alteration of space, space abandonment, space abuse, and afforded appropriate and inappropriate activities and behaviors. The article discusses how the foregoing indicators can be used to improve the built environment. [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]