The concept of affordance is relatively easy to define, but has proved to be remarkably difficult to engineer. This paradox has sparked numerous debates as to its true nature. The discussion presented here begins with a review of the use of the term from which emerges evidence for a two-fold classification—simple affordance and complex affordance. Simple affordance corresponds to Gibson’s origi...

In this paper, we propose a new concept for intelligence called Artifact Intelligence that can be another approach to realize intelligent robots. Artifact intelligence means intelligence for artifacts that fits its embodiment, i.e., structures and functions of artifacts. Artifact intelligence differs from natural intelligence in terms of intentionality and automated objects in autonomy. In orde...

This paper presents the findings from a case study to investigate how undergraduate students used the output from a teamwork support tool. In designing this sort of software tool usability is considered, but analysis of the findings from this research suggests that the affordance of any support tools should also be considered, because without adequate signposting, the perceived affordance may n...

Big Data as pervasive, disruptive, and innovation-driven technology are now a hot topic in academic and business fields. In particular, the healthcare industry is one of those most exposed to the organizational changes produced by the Big Data and Born Digital Data phenomena. Healthcare organizations have to adapt their organizations to manage an ever increasing amount of data affecting their a...

In this article, I argue that affordances are properties of the animal–environment system, that is, that they are emergent properties that do not inhere in either the environment or the animal. I critique and review the formal definition of affordance offered by Turvey (1992). Turvey defined affordances as properties of the environment; I discuss some consequences of this and argue that Turvey’...

The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast existing theoretical approaches to understanding the visual guidance of action and to introduce a new approach. The focus is on tasks, such as steering, braking, and intercepting, that are (more or less) continuously guided on the basis of visual information. The prominent approach, information-based control, captures important aspects of beh...

Today’s mobile artificial agents, such as mobile robots, are based on an object-oriented paradigm. They partition their environment into various objects and act in relation to individual properties of these objects. Such perception and acting is insufficient for goal-directed behavior in dynamic environments, which requires action-relevant information in the form of affordances. Affordances des...