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Previous research on affordance perception has shown that elite athletes can relate the environmental features to their motor abilities to detect the opportunities for action. In playing badminton doubles, experienced players can often anticipate whether a flick serve will go out-of-bounds or not. A field study was performed to examine if such an ability was associated with a developed affordance perception. Twenty-two players with and without badminton playing experience were asked to play a receiver on court to judge without looking back whether a flick serve was out-of-bounds in both standing and retreating conditions. Forty flick serves were randomly delivered to either inner or outer rear corner of the receiver's box and land adjacent to the back service line. Each player's ability to reach high and retreat backward with a racquet was assessed on court. The results showed that predictions were better in the inner direction than the outer direction, but experienced players were more sensitive and conservative overall. Playing experience appeared to be a consistent predictor for judgment accuracy. In identifying the affordance information that could have been utilized by players for accurate predictions, only experienced players demonstrated the ability to utilize both body-scaled and action-scaled affordances effectively and reliably for better predictions in both standing and retreating conditions. • At least one year of playing experience is needed for successful anticipation of the out-of-bounds of flick serves. • Successful anticipation may require the player to perceive multiple affordances. • Only the experienced were able to utilize both body-scaled and action-scaled affordances reliably for better anticipations. • A dynamical utilization of subordinate affordances for perception of superordinate affordance is seen for the experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the representation of Bly Manor across different adaptations of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898). The focus is on adaptations that emphasize Bly as an intricate space that limits the possibilities of actions that the main characters have. The theory of affordance states that places “afford” different uses of the space. Locked inside a place with uneasily determined affordances and clearly established rules, the main characters of these adaptations experience how different intersections of identities are afforded differently within the stately home. The paper traces the intertextual conversation through adaptations such as Jack Clayton’s film The Innocents (1961), the readaptation of James’s premise in Ruth Ware’s novel The Turn of the Key (2019), before ending with the intertextual and temporal dimensions of haunted space in Mike Flanagan’s streaming miniseries The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020). These iterations of the story showcase the voyeuristic elements of Bly as the characters are repeatedly watched by those who have come before them. At the same time, they show the ongoing appeal of James’s story as its legacy continues into the twenty-first century.

Using human tools can significantly benefit robots in many application domains. Such ability would allow robots to solve problems that they were unable to without tools. However, robot tool use is a challenging task. Tool use was initially considered to be the ability that distinguishes human beings from other animals. We identify three skills required for robot tool use: perception, manipulation, and high-level cognition skills. While both general manipulation tasks and tool use tasks require the same level of perception accuracy, there are unique manipulation and cognition challenges in robot tool use. In this survey, we first define robot tool use. The definition highlighted the skills required for robot tool use. The skills coincide with an affordance model which defined a three-way relation between actions, objects, and effects. We also compile a taxonomy of robot tool use with insights from animal tool use literature. Our definition and taxonomy lay a theoretical foundation for future robot tool use studies and also serve as practical guidelines for robot tool use applications. We first categorize tool use based on the context of the task. The contexts are highly similar for the same task (e.g., cutting) in non-causal tool use, while the contexts for causal tool use are diverse. We further categorize causal tool use based on the task complexity suggested in animal tool use studies into single-manipulation tool use and multiple-manipulation tool use. Single-manipulation tool use are sub-categorized based on tool features and prior experiences of tool use. This type of tool may be considered as building blocks of causal tool use. Multiple-manipulation tool use combines these building blocks in different ways. The different combinations categorize multiple-manipulation tool use. Moreover, we identify different skills required in each sub-type in the taxonomy. We then review previous studies on robot tool use based on the taxonomy and describe how the relations are learned in these studies. We conclude with a discussion of the current applications of robot tool use and open questions to address future robot tool use.

The existence of a dining room is now rarely found in some residences. Some people who do not have a dining room will be forced to use a room to carry out eating activities. In comparison, other people use the dining room to do other activities. It shows that the existence of space reflects the behaviour of the occupants in living. This study will compare community activities with residential conditions with a dining room and those without a dining room. This study aims to reveal the differences and activities most often carried out in the two conditions. Then all these activities will be classified based on the theory of affordance. This research method uses a sequential mixed-method approach by distributing online questionnaires. The data collected were analyzed using principal component analysis and analysis of the mean latent variables to find the most dominant variable. Based on the study results, the most dominant activity carried out in residential areas that have a dining room is only eating activities. Meanwhile, residential areas that do not have a dining room include learning, working, relaxing and household activities.

This article examines the specifics and perspectives of the information and communication universe theory for the analysis of the mass media. The aim is to explain the application of the concept of affordance in the context of media theory. The term was introduced by psychologist James J. Gibson to describe the specific inviting nature of objects and events, which, through affordances, suggest an algorithm for subsequent actions. From this point of view, the information and communication universe makes it possible to use it for some important purposes for the subjects of communication. However, the quality and options for implementing the possibilities of affordance depend on the goals, interests and skills of the subject who is trying to work with this affordance. To use an analogy, the same axe could invite some people to chop wood for an old lady, and others to use it as a weapon against her in order to seize her pension benefits. The thesis on the functional usefulness of the category information and communication universe for the analysis of processes in the media system is put forward. Traditional ideas about the specifics of the production and consumption of texts are corrected. The author analyzes the affordances of the Internet as a subsystem of the information and communication universe. It helps to explain the radical differences in the assessment of network digital technologies by representatives of different research schools. The article outlines further prospects for the identification and use of hidden affordances.

Despite the incremental improvement and inclusion of immersive technologies in entertainment, training simulation, fine art, inclusive design, academia, and education; Virtual Reality (VR) still faces issues regarding its ability to compete with films and animation in visual storytelling without merging into the realm of video games. In 2015, Pixar’s Ed Catmull warned moviemakers that Virtual Reality is “not storytelling” and argued that the linear aspect of narratives poses an obstacle that cannot be overcome with VR. In contrast, Catmull argued that VR has immense application in games. However, VR creators have been pushing the boundaries and possibilities of delivering narratives in virtual spaces. In 2019, the VR experience “Gloomy Eyes” was presented at the Sundance festivals featuring a 30-minute story split between 3 episodes. The simulation is structured to provide its audience with some degrees of freedom while guiding them intuitively through the virtual space. In 2021, Blue Zoo also released a VR project titled “The Beast” featuring a cyclist powering up a snow-covered mountain. The short film was entirely created in Quill VR with the intention of being treated like a theatrical play rather than a film. While the creators of “The Beast” have explicitly mentioned the influence of theatre, “Gloomy Eyes” draws its visual language from similar theatrical roots. This paper argues that VR has been mistakenly compared to film and animation when it should be associated with theatre. The audience of both are not passive as they are during the screening of a film or animation. The space and the medium demands participation through their presence in the same space with the actors/characters. Theatre presents a promising candidate for extracting criteria that could be used to develop a visual language for VR. This research aims to formulate a framework for developing a VR visual language through comparison between character-driven narratives in VR such as “Gloomy Eyes” and “The Beast”. The comparative study establishes overlapping criteria and characteristics found in the structure, literacy, sound, and delivery format of narratives in a theatrical performance. These criteria are then outlined and discussed, drawing from affordance theory and discussions on aural and visual attention in theatre, to form a holistic view in approaching VR literacy.

Nel comprendere i molteplici rapporti tra “disegno” e “interior design” ci si rende conto della natura tecno-estetologica della disciplina del disegno. Qui proponiamo di farlo alla luce di due nozioni che riteniamo coestensive: quella psicologica di “affordance” (James Gibson) e quella filosofica di “atmosfera” (Tonino Griffero) che – secondo una certa definizione neuropsicologica di “coscienza” e di “sentimento” (Antonio Damasio) – evidenziano praticamente il “che cosa”, il che “quasi cosa” e il che “non-cosa” si può raffigurare a fini descrittivi e prescrittivi quando si studia o si progetta – disegnandolo – un artefatto ambientale. La domanda cruciale è: “come si raffigurano le atmosfere?”. Questione che, di solito, si ritiene pertinente a poetiche individuali, non analizzabili in termini strutturali e morfologici. Invece, muovendo dalla constatazione che si danno anche atmosfere convenzionali, proponiamo alcuni lineamenti di un metodo di analisi di queste categorizzazioni culturali, un metodo fondato sullo sviluppo dall’assiologia dei modi di valorizzazione spaziale data da Jean-Marie Floch trent’anni fa, seppur rivedendo la disciplina alla luce di acquisizioni più recenti in campo semiotico e secondo le prospettive aperte dalle tecniche informatiche del Deep Learning.

How we function in social reality is determined by various types of cognitive schemas. These concern people, social events and other phenomena. According to the concept offered by various postpositivist currents, including postmodernism, poststructuralism and critical theory, such schemata cannot be objective. The most important element of postmodern considerations is the discovery of the arbitrary nature of modernity. This means rejecting the Enlightenment belief in progress. Innovation, understood as modernity resulting from human reason, is illusory in the postmodern perspective. Innovation consists precisely in a rejection of the myth of the existence of some absolute, objective truths that constitute the social order. The world is textual, made up of many alternative narratives. Definitions, including legal definitions, are socially constructed. They arise from specific social conditions, at a particular stage of development of a particular group. The assumption made by postmodernists is that language, including professional language – such as the language of law or legal language – is neither neutral nor transparent. The innovative power of this language lies in its use of narratives that influence the functioning of social groups of varying degrees of complexity. It is therefore necessary, adopting a postmodern interpretation, to look at the text of legal language in a similar way as we look at other texts. That is, to see in the narrativity of this language structural similarities with other texts that constitute social reality.

This article aims to examine the theoretical question of sensory and narrative regimes put into operation by the experience of webcomics. Starting from a critique of the precept according to which changes in supports cause a necessary change in reading regimes, a more adequate status to the notion of modality is recovered here—in its application to the narrative structures and perceptual dynamics of the comic book experience. Identifying a hypothetical community between printed or digital materialities of comics, this article concludes that their narrative and sensory modalities are not reduced to such media profiles, but to something that modal versions of narratology designate as “modality” (in Genette)—or that aspects of visual psychology define by the idea of perceptual “affordances” (in Gibson).

Visual attention is essential to performing functional tasks such as reaching out and picking up a cup of coffee from the table. To what extent is attention in individuals diagnosed with ADHD affected during such tasks? What factors influence attention in functional tasks that relate to goal-directed behaviour (i.e. affordances) is largely unknown. Researchers have used the cognitive mechanism of inhibition of return to investigate how attention works. Pragmatic inhibition of return occurs when the affordances, or pragmatic features, of the object are presented repeatedly as both cue and target stimuli, and suppress processing of similar information in the future to facilitate identification of novel stimuli. In the present study, pragmatic inhibition of return was examined by using “preferred” and “non-preferred” stimuli in the Posner cueing task in order to determine whether the stimulus with a more salient or obvious affordance would show a greater inhibition of return effect. The preferred stimuli were a soccer ball being kicked and a tennis ball being hit with a racket. The non-preferred stimuli were a soccer ball being hit by a racket and a tennis ball being kicked with the foot. Both the ADHD group and the control group exhibited inhibition of return, but the ADHD group was affected at later time delays following a cue stimulus. This suggests that the difference between ADHD and normal controls is a consequence of straightforward temporal delay, and not necessarily related to differences in the nature of attentional processing.

Many apps require consumers to evaluate products by swiping them to the right or left. This work explores whether product orientation affects the product evaluations communicated by swiping movements, compared with those made by pressing onscreen buttons. Building on stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) theory, which suggests that irrelevant product display features can activate certain behavioral responses when the product display and the behavioral response share a common dimension, this study predicts that the horizontal direction (left to right or right to left) cued by a product’s orientation should facilitate a swipe movement in the congruent direction. Five studies indicate that when people use swiping movements to evaluate objects, their evaluations are influenced by the object’s orientation, whereas evaluations conveyed through button presses reveal no orientation effect. The orientation effect for swiping responses also disappears when the objects contain a direction cue that is incongruent with their orientation, and when only one directional swipe movement is defined as a valid response option. Moreover, the effect holds for subjective evaluations but is eliminated for objective judgments, when these involve no time pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In real-life competitive situations, athletes are required to continuously make decisions about how and when to invest their available energy resources. This study attempted to identify how different competitive environments invite elite short-track speed skaters to modify their pacing behavior during head-to-head competition. Methods: Lap times of elite 500-, 1000- and 1500-m short-track speed skating competitions between 2011 and 2016 (N = 34,095 races) were collected. Log-transformed lap and finishing times were analyzed with mixed linear models. The fixed effects in the model were sex, season, stage of competition, start position, competition importance, event number per tournament, number of competitors per race, altitude, and time qualification. The random effects of the model were athlete identity and the residual (within-athlete race-to-race variation). Separate analyses were performed for each event. Results: Several competitive environments, such as the number of competitors in a race (a higher number of competitors evoked most likely a faster initial pace; coefficient of variation [CV] = 1.9–9.3%), the stage of competition (likely to most likely, a slower initial pace was demonstrated in finals; CV = −1.4% to 2.0%), the possibility of time qualification (most likely a faster initial pace; CV = 2.6–5.0%), and competition importance (most likely faster races at the Olympics; CV = 1.3–3.5%), altered the pacing decisions of elite skaters in 1000- and 1500-m events. Stage of competition and start position affected 500-m pacing behavior. Conclusions: As demonstrated in this study, different competitive environments evoked modifications in pacing behavior, in particular in the initial phase of the race, emphasizing the importance of athlete–environment interactions, especially during head-to-head competitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been an increase in research on Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ identity worldwide, limited attention has been drawn to CFL teachers’ positioning and affordances to interpret their identity construction in an overseas context. To fill the gap, this study investigated seven novice CFL teachers’ identity construction as Chinese language teachers in primary schools in New Zealand from positioning and affordance perspectives. Retrospective semi-structured interviews were adopted to understand how the novice CFL teachers were positioned, how they positioned themselves, and what affordances they perceived to be influential to their Chinese language teacher identity construction. The findings showed that the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction was subject to the social, institutional, and individual levels of being positioned, self-positioning, and affordances. Specifically, (1) consistent self-positioning at the social, institutional, and individual levels could largely determine the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction; (2) inconsistency of identities between being positioned and self-positioning at the social, institutional, and individual levels might weaken the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction; (3) affordances as opportunities at the social, institutional, and individual levels could strengthen the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction, whereas affordances as challenges could not. The study concluded with implications and limitations to inform future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception-action coupling, the ability to 'read and react' to the environment, is essential for military personnel to operate within complex and unpredictable environments. Exposure to military operational stressors (e.g., caloric restriction, sleep loss, physical exertion), including around-the-clock operations, may compromise perception-action coupling, thereby impacting performance and safety. We examined the combined effects of simulated military operational stress (SMOS) and time-of-day on perception-action coupling. Fifty-seven active duty and reservist military personnel (45 M; 26.4 ± 5.6 years) completed a 5-day SMOS protocol that included two consecutive days of caloric restriction, and sleep restriction, and disruption. Participants completed a tablet-based perception-action coupling task (PACT) that involves perceiving whether virtual balls fit through virtual apertures. Familiarization occurred on day 0. Eight trials across day 1 (18:00, 22:00), 2 (04:00, 18:00, 22:00) and 3 (04:00, 18:00, 22:00) were analyzed. Mixed models were run to examine the interactive and main effects of day, and time-of-day on PACT response speed and accuracy outcomes. PACT response speed and accuracy outcomes improved at 18:00 and 22:00, whereas performance at 04:00 deteriorated across days. Perception-action coupling performance was resilient to SMOS, except in the early morning when the circadian drive for sleep is high, and the effects of sleep loss are more prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a social phenomenology of naturalism. Starting from Stefan Bargheer's Moral entanglements (2018), it argues that to understand the transformations of naturalist practices, we have to focus both on the shifting typifications of activity and their organizational moorings, but also on the experiential affordances of practice. Drawing on the work of Schutz and Merleau-Ponty, I focus on the transformation of animals from background into figure, the peculiar province of meaning that naturalist practice entails, as well as the experience of "play" that Bargheer highlights. Doing so, I argue that the affordances of experience are a constitutive aspect of any historical account of practice: that a phenomenological approach is crucial not only for the micro-sociology of interaction and experience, but for understanding larger historical processes and transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the self-perceived effectiveness of a nested EFL learning model designed to create an affordance-rich learning ecology to help EFL learners realize the co-evolution of vocabulary knowledge and communicative competence. Adopting an action research approach, this study examined the predicament college students encountered under the CLT paradigm in the Chinese context, and the learning difficulties were identified. A nested EFL learning model was designed to address the issue by creating an effective learning environment in which micro, meso and exo systems interacted with each other to provide multi-mode usage events for the EFL learners' language development. Quantitative data was collected from two online surveys (N=91) and analyzed with IBM SPSS 26, and qualitative data was elicited from students' reflective accounts. The results revealed that the model positively affected students' language development regarding their vocabulary acquisition, listening and speaking proficiency. Other benefits derived from the learning experience outside the classroom, represented by an innovative WeCo (We Connect) reports project based on WeChat, are reflected in students' growing self-confidence as EFL learners and their awakening consciousness to learn English by using the language. Some constructive suggestions were proposed to improve the model. The design in this study provides a solution to the learning difficulties perplexing most EFL learners. It sheds light on how teacher-guided self-regulated English learning beyond the classroom can be augmented by modern technologies to develop communicative competence accompanied by the growth of productive vocabulary knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open e-Government scholarship is meant to address the twin dimensions of openness: greater transparent access to data and more inclusive participation in design. Extant research, however, rarely addresses the inclusive design of e-Government, which is the focus of our research. We focus on broad desire for inclusive e-Government design by analyzing data from three countries – United Kingdom, Lebanon, and Qatar – involving (a) a qualitative survey of users seeking their input on e-Government design improvements and (b) interviews with service providers to elicit their views on inclusive e-Government design. Our findings highlight that inclusion may begin with seeking design input only; however, once the process is triggered, it can lead to what we call a landscape of inclusive e-Government design. More importantly, our paper contributes to the literature by elaborating the granular underpinnings of this landscape encompassing an emergent mechanism of inclusive e-Government design that consists of the following three components: (i) the enabling social inclusion affordances; (ii) the supporting processes; and (iii) the enabling organizational capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on the "weapons effect" indicates that simply seeing a weapon can prime aggressive thoughts and appraisals and increase aggressive behavior. But how and why does this happen? I begin by discussing prevailing explanations of the weapons effect and propose that these accounts tend to be over-intellectualistic insofar as they downplay or overlook the important role played by affectivity. In my view, insights from the fields of situated affectivity and enactivism help us to understand how cognitive and affective processes jointly contribute to the weapons effect. Insofar as the presence of weapons alters subject's bodily-affective orientation and thereby brings about embodied mindshaping, it changes the way they engage with and understand their surroundings. To understand the weapons effect, we will need to examine the constitutive interdependency of appraisal and affectivity and the way in which they jointly motivate action. My proposed account emphasizes the role of affectivity in affordance perception and the way in which subjects gauge the meaning of an object according to its action-possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal control has a considerable impact on individual perception of the indoor climate. This paper's objective is to shed more light on the perception of personal control at office workplaces by analysing: 1) the impact of perceived control on perception of indoor climate, 2) the effect of office type and season on level of control perceived, 3) objectively available adaptive opportunities; 4) subjective perception of their availability; 5) occupants' desire for certain adaptive opportunities; 6) how often and which controls were exercised; and 7) reasons for not exercising available adaptive opportunities. New variables were introduced: i) consistency of perception of controls and ii) conformity to expectation of controls, and their correlation with the level of personal control perceived hypothesised. A longitudinal survey was carried out in three office buildings (two mixed‐mode, one free‐running) in the hot‐summer Mediterranean climate of Amman, Jordan during four seasons. Indoor climate perception correlates positively with perceived control. Office type affects level of perceived control but not season. Most frequent stated reason for not exercising available adaptive opportunities was 'no need to change'. In this study, perceived control is not correlated with consistency of perception of controls but correlated with conformity to expectation of controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese outbound tourist shopping was a prominent phenomenon in many destinations worldwide before the COVID-19 pandemic, but smartphone usage in it had rarely been addressed. This study draws upon social practice theory and the theory of affordances to examine how Chinese tourists use smartphones during their shopping process in Australia. Based on a combination of participant observations and semi-structured interviews, the study argues that Chinese outbound tourists use smartphones not only to improve their shopping competences but also to regulate the meaning making of their shopping practices. Further, these links are made through the actualized affordances of smartphones including, among others, looking for products based on stored images, accessing product information in Chinese, and communicating with others at home on shopping for them. This study unravels the entanglement of smartphones, Chinese outbound tourists and their shopping practices, and provides directions for maximizing the value of smartphones in shopping-related tourism management and marketing, especially to the Chinese market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordance refers to a series of interaction possibilities provided by objects in the environment, and describes the connection process between environmental attributes and individuals. Among them, visual affordance research is to use visual data such as images and videos to explore the possibility of visual subjects interacting with the environment or objects, involving scene recognition, action recognition, object detection, and other related fields. Visual affordance can be widely used in robotics, scene understanding, and other fields. Based on a large number of literature reviews, the visual affordance is classified and expounded according to three aspects: functional affordance, behavioral affordance, and social affordance. And for each type of affordability detection method, it is discussed in detail according to traditional machine learning methods and deep learning methods. At the same time, the current typical visual affordance datasets are summarized and analyzed, the application direction of visual affordance and possible future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual attention is essential to performing functional tasks such as reaching out and picking up a cup of coffee from the table. To what extent is attention in individuals diagnosed with ADHD affected during such tasks? What factors influence attention in functional tasks that relate to goal-directed behaviour (i.e. affordances) is largely unknown. Researchers have used the cognitive mechanism of inhibition of return to investigate how attention works. Pragmatic inhibition of return occurs when the affordances, or pragmatic features, of the object are presented repeatedly as both cue and target stimuli, and suppress processing of similar information in the future to facilitate identification of novel stimuli. In the present study, pragmatic inhibition of return was examined by using “preferred” and “non-preferred” stimuli in the Posner cueing task in order to determine whether the stimulus with a more salient or obvious affordance would show a greater inhibition of return effect. The preferred stimuli were a soccer ball being kicked and a tennis ball being hit with a racket. The non-preferred stimuli were a soccer ball being hit by a racket and a tennis ball being kicked with the foot. Both the ADHD group and the control group exhibited inhibition of return, but the ADHD group was affected at later time delays following a cue stimulus. This suggests that the difference between ADHD and normal controls is a consequence of straightforward temporal delay, and not necessarily related to differences in the nature of attentional processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of affordances has become central in information systems literature. However, existing perspectives fall short in providing details on the relational aspect of affordances, which can influence actors' perception of them. To increase granularity and specificity in this regard, researchers have suggested that it be supplemented with other concepts or theories. In this article, we argue that the Heideggerian concepts of 'familiarity' and 'referential totality' are well suited for increasing our understanding of the relational aspects of affordances in information systems research. To explore this idea, we conducted a case study of a project concerning the development of a digital twin (i.e., digital representation of a physical asset) in the Norwegian grid sector. We found that users' familiarity with the digital twin totality enabled them to perceive digital twin affordances, and that without this familiarity, affordances remained latent for the users. Through our study, we offer a nuanced perspective on the relational aspect of affordance perception, contributing to affordance theory in that regard. Further, we contribute to practice and information systems research by providing valuable insights into how digital twins are understood and applied in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fencing for the blind and visually impaired is an emerging sub-discipline of fencing that creates unusual conditions for meaning-making through interaction between embodied endowments and worldly affordances. With the rules of fencing slightly adjusted to the needs of the blindfolded participants – regardless of their sightedness – the discipline requires the fencers to engage in a duel by relying on other than visual cues. This article explores what an autoethnographic account of experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired brings to debates on the embodied, and specifically sensory difference. The discussion of these experiences intersects with debates on affect, affordance, and habit, with all three having important roles in related semiotic processes. Presented vignettes draw upon the author's lived experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired and are analyzed as part of a mixed-method autoethnographic study, accompanied by sensory methodologies, with a focus on an inquiry beyond the visual. The vignettes elucidate how we make sense of our surroundings through a complex engagement with the ecology of sensory and affective processes. In addition to exploring the role of affective and pre-conceptual aspects of our experiences, the article seeks to understand how semiosis occurs through both exposure to as well as the active pursuit of specific environmental signs available to us. The article also derives from biosemiotics to examine the complex relationship between meaning-making processes and habits. Finally, the autoethnographic account provides an insight into how we habituate the world and our embodied differences and thus enable meaning-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Chinese classical opera is caught in a stranglehold, promoted as a key art form in China's assertion of its global presence but declared untranslatable by gatekeepers distrustful of Western appropriative translation practices, and concerned to safeguard the form as the unique expression of Chinese identity. There is a parallel here with Spanish Golden Age theatre, which has struggled against the tag of an untranslatability rooted in the inviolability of its polymetric form and obsession with a seemingly arcane honour code. By acknowledging the tensions that exist between practitioners and gatekeepers of these two theatrical forms, this article examines translation as an ecology of affordance spaces that extends Chinese classical opera and Spanish Golden Age theatre into new performance practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kahneman's theory of two systems assumes that human decision making in Economy is based on two cognitive systems, one that is automatic, intuitive and mostly unconscious, and one that is reflexive, rational and fully conscious. The authors consider Kahneman's approach incomplete and limited in accounting for the creativity of embodied agents grasping the opportunities afforded by physical and social environments. This limitation leads us to argue for the existence of a third system in decision making in Economy, the creative intuition based on direct perception of affordances, addressing not only the dispositions and goals of agents but also the social and environmental responsibility of corporations and governments. The authors argue that the third decision‐making system the authors propose implies a concept of intuition that is different from the type of association process discussed by Morewedge and Kahneman [2] and gives an example of the third system operation, the Bolsa Família in Brazil, and finding new options for the funding of similar programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]