| | I see the need but will they have rights?
At what level of comprehension will these life forums become human if at all and will the United Nations guarantee them life and liberty and the pursuit of happines afforded to the higher order of the mammalian species?
Affordance can refer to either of two related but distinct concepts. The term is used in the fields of perceptual psychology, cognitive psychology, environmental psychology, industrial design, human–computer interaction, interaction design and artificial intelligence.
Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article "The Theory of Affordances," then explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception in 1979. He defined affordances as referring to all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable, and independent of the individual's ability to recognize those possibilities, but always in relation to the animal. This means that action possibilities are dependent on the capabilities of the actor. For instance, a set of steps with risers four feet high does not afford the act of climbing, if the actor is a crawling infant. So affordances must be measured always in relation to the relevant actor(s).
In 1988, Donald Norman used the term affordance in the context of Human–Machine Interaction, popularizing it within the fields of HCI and interaction design. Later (see Norman, 1999) he had to admit he was not talking about "normal" affordance at all: in The Design of Everyday Things he was actually referring to perceived affordance. This distinction makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of the actor, but their goals, plans, values, beliefs and past experience. If an actor steps into a room with an armchair and a softball, Gibson's definition of affordance allows that the actor may toss the recliner and sit on the softball, because that is objectively possible. Norman's definition of (perceived) affordance captures the likelihood that the actor will sit on the recliner and toss the softball, because of their experience with them in the past. Effectively, Norman's affordance "suggest" how an object can be interacted with.
Norman's definition makes the concept of affordance relational, rather than subjective or objective. This he deemed an "ecological approach," which is related to systems-theoretic approaches in the natural and social sciences. On the other hand, the concept of perceived affordance (a la Norman) is much more pertinent to practical design problems from a human factors approach.
Perceptual psychologists can ask, "What is it about this object that makes people want to use it this way?" The object must talk to us with some sort of language. If we can understand this language, then designers can make tools that explain their own functions, and even tools that recommend themselves for some uses and discourage other uses.
Ecological cognition using neuroimaging studies suggests that when an actor either objectively or subjectively perceives an affordance, they will develop a plan to act on that affordance and will act on that plan unless they experience cognitive dissonance. Dissonance can lead to the actor using an object in a way other than the way it suggests through its affordance.
Norman's adaptation of the meaning of affordance has caused many people to also use the verb "afford", which the noun was derived from, in a new way that is not consistent with its dictionary definition. Rather than "to provide" or "to make available", designers and those in the field of HCI often use it as meaning "to suggest" or "to invite".
While the term "affordance" is a noun, it is not a "thing"—it is essentially an attribute of a thing. Therefore one would not refer to the "affordances of a web page" when speaking of navigation or behavioral elements like links and buttons. One refers to the links and buttons as elements which have either poor or excellent affordance. They either look like they will work or behave, or they don't. For instance, designers have recently taken to removing the underlining of linked text in content areas. They may even have gone so far as to change the default link colors to something more "neutral" or chromatically consistent with the color scheme of the web page. This actually creates poor affordance for the links, which need to stand out and be quite obviously links if they are to have good perceived affordance. An excellent way to test affordance is to print a web page off on a black and white printer and then ask someone unfamiliar with the page to highlight or circle all those elements they believe will do something when moused-over and clicked.
If they are afforded the rights and can't prevail then the question is what to do with them are they chattel and do they qualify for social services and should the owner be made to pay property tax on it and at what rate what is the value of chattel of that nature?
If it be deemed to be a direct threat to society shall it be put down after the first life taking or life threathning incident without trial?
(Edited by Silas Geronimo Sconiers on 2/21, 2:24pm)
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Whatever is considered "X" in certain social circles is of no importance in a factual debate based on reality. (That's opposed to, say, in an emotional debate based on appeals to opinion.) I have declared no debate finished, I have merely said that you are making meaningless noises which do not constitute a debate. In this social circle, meaningless noises are considered below contempt. 