Perceiving Affordances for Aperture Passage in an Environment–Person–Person System

ABSTRACT

The authors investigated the perception of affordances for aperture passage in an environment–person–person (E–P–P) system, which comprised an adult perceiver and a child as a companion. Perceivers were 8 large and 8 small female undergraduates and were companioned with 1 large and 1 small girl. The perceivers perceptually judged the minimum aperture width for the E–P–P system, and then the adult–child dyads (a pair of people) actually walked through to determine the system's actual minimum aperture width. Results demonstrated that perceivers precisely judged the action capabilities of an E–P–P system on the basis of the body-scaled information of each adult–child dyad. The findings extended the previous concept of affordances for an environment-person system to affordances for an E–P–P system.

Keywords:

• affordances
• aperture passage
• body-scaled information
• environment–person–person (E–P–P) system

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preparation of the article was supported by the Taiwan National Science Council (NSC 96–2413-H-017–008). The authors thank Yen-Lin Kao and Ting-Ting Chang who helped with data collection.