Visual Affordances Research Articles

Reconciliation

Reconciliation

Preparatory activity for purposeful arm movements in the dorsomedial parietal area V6A: Beyond the online guidance of movement

Over the years, electrophysiological recordings in macaque monkeys performing visuomotor tasks brought about accumulating evidence for the expression of neuronal properties (e.g., selectivity in the visuospatial and somatosensory domains, encoding of visual affordances and motor cues) in the posterior parietal area V6A that characterize it as an ideal neural substrate for online control of prehension. Interestingly, neuroimaging studies suggested a role of putative human V6A also in action preparation; moreover, pre-movement population activity in monkey V6A has been recently shown to convey grip-related information for upcoming grasping. Here we directly test whether macaque V6A neurons encode preparatory signals that effectively differentiate between dissimilar actions before movement. We recorded the activity of single V6A neurons during execution of two visuomotor tasks requiring either reach-to-press or reach-to-grasp movements in different background conditions, and described the nature and temporal dynamics of V6A activity preceding movement execution. We found striking consistency in neural discharges measured during pre-movement and movement epochs, suggesting that the former is a preparatory activity exquisitely linked to the subsequent execution of particular motor actions. These findings strongly support a role of V6A beyond the online guidance of movement, with preparatory activity implementing suitable motor programs that subsequently support action execution.

Pre-service teachers’ experiences within modelling scenarios enriched by digital technologies

This paper presents issues related to the use of technology by secondary school pre-service mathematics teachers engaged in open mathematical modelling projects. Pre-service teachers developed these projects within a regular mathematics education course during the teacher education program at the university concerned. This environment, called a modelling scenario, is the context for our study, which is based on the analysis of projects produced by seven consecutive cohorts of pre-service teachers beginning in 2010. The research questions guiding our study seek to determine which technologies pre-service teachers chose, for which modelling purposes they chose them, and in which phases of the modelling process they were significantly used. During the modelling process, pre-service teachers used the Internet, spreadsheets, mathematical software and programming languages. The Internet, the most utilized technology, was used to find information or data, to select variables, or to formulate problems. The other three technologies significantly influenced the processes of mathematical solution and validation. The in-depth analysis of a single project shows an original use of visual affordances of technologies and a dialectical relationship between problem posing and technology use. The study enables us to conclude the necessity for coordinated action between mathematics educators and mathematicians to generate a deeper understanding of modelling as a pedagogical proposal and mathematical activity.

Dyslexia in SNS

The paradigm of neurodiversity provides a theoretical scaffold to challenge the idea of dyslexia as a deficit, by considering how difficulties related to literacy may reflect possible cognitive strengths and opportunities for learning. In this paper we adopt this perspective which associates dyslexia with strengths in visual, oral and three-dimensional thinking. Our goal is to understand if and how the multimodal affordances of SNS mediate participation and new literacies for dyslexic youth, and how these affordances interact with identity work. Seven young people struggling with literacy were interviewed about their use of SNS. Our results show that the visual affordances of SNS enable new forms of participation and expression, furthering our understanding of visual literacies. Nonetheless, despite the pervasive use of visual affordances to perform identity work, we also find that young people's learning differences are not always obviated but re-constructed, or even confronted in SNS.

A Partial Contour Similarity-Based Approach to Visual Affordances in Habile Agents

In a typical tool use task, we can view both the relationship between the agent and the tool and the relationship between the tool and the target in terms of affordances. One set of affordances relates to the ability of the agent to manipulate the tool, while a second set of affordances relates to the ability of the agent to manipulate the target by means of the tool. In both cases, effective tool use is facilitated by the coupling of one object to another: agent-to-tool-to-target. In this paper, we focus on the visual identification of such affordances via contour similarity. Objects with complementary contour segments can fit together, which suggests possible opportunities for effective interactions. We present a system for the identification and evaluation of partial contour-based matches and analyze the system’s behavior. We propose a set of sample tool-use scenarios as part of our analysis. We demonstrate the use of the system in providing guidance to an autonomous robotic agent performing tool selection tasks.

A GIS of affordances: Movement and visibility at a planned colonial town in highland Peru

Archaeological GIS is moving towards increasingly detailed, embodied, multidimensional simulations and analyses of human experience in the past. Most of the emerging GIS research synthesizing spatial modeling and subject-centered approaches has been concerned with practices and perceptions of landscape. This paper tightens the analytical focus to the more intimate scale of a single settlement, combining models of movement and visual experience within a planned colonial town in highland Peru. Such a rendering is important, since controlling movement and visual experience were central to the colonial project that built this and other such towns in the Viceroyalty of Peru. This study centers on an exceptionally well-preserved, relict planned colonial town in highland Peru to investigate affordances of movement and visibility within it. Several GIS-based simulations and analytical techniques are brought together, including drone-based high resolution three dimensional modeling, spatial network analysis, walking models, and cumulative viewshed analysis, to simulate aggregate visual experience as people moved through the town. The results are suggestive of how the layout of the town specifically routed transit to facilitate the visual prominence of the church and original Inka plaza of the reducción, as well as the prominence of indigenous elite households. Both continuities and discontinuities of movement and visual experience relative to Inkaic and Spanish colonial spaces are evident. By extension, this paper also provides a pathway for quantitative and reproducible modeling of site-scale movement and visual affordances as dimensions of subject and community formation in other global contexts.

Modalities of opposition: Control and resistance via visual materiality

This article examines how the material, and specifically visual, aspects of organizing contribute to understanding control and resistance issues in organizations. Whereas the role of visuality in workplace power relations has been acknowledged, the processes by which specific visual affordances contribute to power contests are not well understood. We argue that the diverse affordances of visual images offer opportunities for both control and resistance, where control is exerted via the normalizing and objectifying feature of visuality, while resistance draws on bricolage and juxtaposition to subvert dominant management discourses. Based on an ethnographic study of an industrial print company, we show how the diverse uses of visuality create a field for negotiating organizational tensions. We draw conclusions for the study of visual affordances as a tool for control and resistance struggles in organizations.

Visual Information Priming in Internet of Things: Focusing on the interface of smart refrigerator

Internet of Things (IoT) supports an environment where users are able to interact and get information by sharing visual informational cues. The purpose of this study was to investigate what effect was made on the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use and selfefficacy about use of smart refrigerator when visual information related to the food and function is provided in advance in the interface. A data was collected from a between-subjects experiment (N = 26) with an independent variable (priming visual information vs. non-priming). According to the experiment results, users who were primed about the visual cues perceived higher usefulness (PU), ease of use (PEoU), intention to use (IU), and self-efficacy (SE) toward the fridge compared to the users in a non-primed group. The study proposes theoretical and practical implications for designing food-related smart home appliances’ interface and visual affordances.

Design Considerations for the Implementation of Artificial Fluids as Blood Substitutes for Educational and Training Use in the Forensic Sciences

ABSTRACTStrengthening education and training in the forensic sciences requires the implementation of new and innovative technologies into existing teaching strategies. Scientific research in the design and use of artificial substitutes can offer new and advantageous contributions to such initiatives. This article describes the relevant considerations and advantages to designing a forensic blood substitute for use in forensic education and training facilities. BPA training materials must ensure safety, reliability, feasibility, and value added. Each of these considerations is addressed with a particular focus on the educational benefits (value added) that a forensic blood substitute can offer. In particular, the visual affordances of the material designed for this study will be highlighted in terms of its educational benefits to the training of scientists.

The Allure of Privacy or the Desire for Self-Expression? Identifying Users' Gratifications for Ephemeral, Photograph-Based Communication.

Temporary messaging programs continue to rise in popularity, due in large part to the perceived privacy that they afford. However, recent controversies have revealed that messages shared on ephemeral messaging services are persistent and potentially retrieval, thus undermining the privacy they are assumed to provide. Given this paradox, why are temporary messaging services so popular? Does the allure of privacy still motivate the use of temporary messaging programs? Or, if privacy is no longer afforded by ephemeral messaging, what other psychological gratifications do these applications fulfill that might account for their continued use? Informed by the Modality-Agency-Interactivity-Navigability (MAIN) model and the uses and gratifications tradition, the current study conducted qualitative interviews to identify the gratifications that individuals derive from the popular ephemeral messaging application, Snapchat. Study results show that the visual affordances of ephemeral messaging have legitimized photographic communication, providing self-expression and relational gratifications that are unfulfilled by text-based applications. By comparison, users report low levels of trust in the privacy affordances of ephemeral messaging, and instead projecting negative effects of temporary messaging on other users rather than self. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Impaired Communication Between the Dorsal and Ventral Stream: Indications from Apraxia

Patients with apraxia perform poorly when demonstrating how an object is used, particularly when pantomiming the action. However, these patients are able to accurately identify, and to pick up and move objects, demonstrating intact ventral and dorsal stream visuomotor processing. Appropriate object manipulation for skilled use is thought to rely on integration of known and visible object properties associated with “ventro-dorsal” stream neural processes. In apraxia, it has been suggested that stored object knowledge from the ventral stream may be less readily available to incorporate into the action plan, leading to an over-reliance on the objects’ visual affordances in object-directed motor behavior. The current study examined grasping performance in left hemisphere stroke patients with (N = 3) and without (N = 9) apraxia, and in age-matched healthy control participants (N = 14), where participants repeatedly grasped novel cylindrical objects of varying weight distribution. Across two conditions, object weight distribution was indicated by either a memory-associated cue (object color) or visual-spatial cue (visible dot over the weighted end). Participants were required to incorporate object-weight associations to effectively grasp and balance each object. Control groups appropriately adjusted their grasp according to each object’s weight distribution across each condition, whereas throughout the task two of the three apraxic patients performed poorly on both the memory-associated and visual-spatial cue conditions. A third apraxic patient seemed to compensate for these difficulties but still performed differently to control groups. Patients with apraxia performed normally on the neutral control condition when grasping the evenly weighted version. The pattern of behavior in apraxic patients suggests impaired integration of visible and known object properties attributed to the ventro-dorsal stream: in learning to grasp the weighted object accurately, apraxic patients applied neither pure knowledge-based information (the memory-associated condition) nor higher-level information given in the visual-spatial cue condition. Disruption to ventro-dorsal stream predicts that apraxic patients will have difficulty learning to manipulate new objects on the basis of information other than low-level visual cues such as shape and size.

Images of Workplace Politics: Control and Resistance via Visual Materiality

The current paper examines how the material, and specifically visual, aspects of organizing contribute to understanding control and resistance issues in organizations. While the role of visuality in workplace power relations has been acknowledged, the processes by which specific visual affordances can contribute to power contests are not well understood. We argue that visuality offers both opportunities for control and resistance, where control is exerted via the normalizing and objectifying feature of visuality, whereas resistance is promoted through its ironic and humoristic use, which draws on bricolage and juxtaposition to subvert dominant images. Based on an ethnographic study of an industrial print company, we show how the diverse uses of visuality create a field for negotiating underlying organizational tensions. We draw conclusions for the study of power and materiality in organizations.

Object processing for action across childhood

Human adults process and select the opportunities for action in their environment rapidly, efficiently, and effortlessly. While several studies have revealed substantial improvements in object recognition skills, motor abilities, and control over the motor system during late childhood, surprisingly little is known about how object processing for action develops during this period. This study addresses this issue by investigating how the ability to ignore actions potentiated by a familiar utensil develops between ages 6 and 10 years. It is the first study to demonstrate that (1) the mechanisms that transform a graspable visual stimulus into an object-appropriate motor response are in place by the sixth year of life and (2) graspable features of an object can facilitate and interfere with manual responses in an adult-like manner by this age. The results suggest that there may be distinct developmental trajectories for the ability to ignore motor responses triggered by visual affordances and the stimulus response compatibility effects typically assessed with Simon tasks.

Object Representation in Infants' Coordination of Manipulative Force

This study examined infants' use of object knowledge for scaling the manipulative force of object‐directed actions. Infants 9, 12, and 15 months of age were outfitted with motion‐analysis sensors on their arms and then presented with stimulus objects to examine individually over a series of familiarization trials. Two stimulus objects were used in the familiarization phase, and were identical in size, shape, and material, but different in color and weight. Following familiarization, two test objects that had been hidden from view were presented. The test objects were identical in appearance to the familiarization objects, but their color‐weight correspondence was reversed. Infants' actions on the test objects revealed selective, differential preparation for the specific weights experienced during familiarization. Because the objects were equivalent in their visual affordances for action, the differential preparation and coordination of manipulative force was based on knowledge acquired during the familiarization phase. Infants are capable of utilizing object representations to coordinate manipulative force in object‐directed actions.

S-R correspondence effects of irrelevant visual affordance: Time course and specificity of response activation

It has been suggested that representations for action, elicited by an object's visual affordance, serve to potentiate motor components (such as a specific hand) to respond to the most afforded action. In three experiments, participants performed speeded left-right button press responses to an imperative target superimposed onto a prime image of an object suggesting a visual affordance oriented to left or right visual space. The time course of response activation was measured by varying the onset time between the prime and target. Long-lasting and gradually developing correspondence effects were found between the suggested affordance of the prime and the side of response, with little effect of response modality (hands uncrossed, hands crossed, or foot response). We conclude that visual affordances can evoke an abstract spatial response code, potentiating a wide variety of lateralized responses corresponding with the affordance.

The role of conceptual knowledge in object use evidence from semantic dementia.

It has been reported that patients with semantic dementia function well in everyday life and sometimes show striking preservation of the ability to use objects, even those specific objects for which the patient has degraded conceptual information. To explore this phenomenon in nine cases of semantic dementia, we designed a set of semantic tests regarding 20 everyday objects and compared performance on these with the patients' ability to demonstrate the correct use of the same items. We also administered a test of mechanical problem solving utilizing novel tools, on which the patients had completely normal ability. All but the mildest affected patient showed significant deficits of naming and on the visually based semantic matching tasks. Object use was markedly impaired and, most importantly, correlated strongly with naming and semantic knowledge. In a small number of instances, there was appropriate use of an object for which the patient's knowledge on the semantic matching tasks was no better than chance; but this typically applied to objects with a rather obvious relationship between appearance and use, or was achieved by trial and error. The results suggest that object use is heavily dependent upon object-specific conceptual knowledge, supplemented to some degree by a combination of visual affordances and mechanical problem solving.

From visual affordances in monkey parietal cortex to hippocampo-parietal interactions underlying rat navigation.

This paper explores the hypothesis that various subregions (but by no means all) of the posterior parietal cortex are specialized to process visual information to extract a variety of affordances for behaviour. Two biologically based models of regions of the posterior parietal cortex of the monkey are introduced. The model of the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) emphasizes its roles in dynamic remapping of the representation of targets during a double saccade task, and in combining stored, updated input with current visual input. The model of the anterior intraparietal area (AIP) addresses parietal-premotor interactions involved in grasping, and analyses the interaction between the AIP and premotor area F5. The model represents the role of other intraparietal areas working in concert with the inferotemporal cortex as well as with corollary discharge from F5 to provide and augment the affordance information in the AIP, and suggests how various constraints may resolve the action opportunities provided by multiple affordances. Finally, a systems-level model of hippocampo parietal interactions underlying rat navigation is developed, motivated by the monkey data used in developing the above two models as well as by data on neurones in the posterior parietal cortex of the monkey that are sensitive to visual motion. The formal similarity between dynamic remapping (primate saccades) and path integration (rat navigation) is noted, and certain available data on rat posterior parietal cortex in terms of affordances for locomotion are explained. The utility of further modelling, linking the World Graph model of cognitive maps for motivated behaviour with hippocampal-parietal interactions involved in navigation, is also suggested. These models demonstrate that posterior parietal cortex is not only itself a network of interacting subsystems, but functions through cooperative computation with many other brain regions.