Discovering affordances

I am reading the book The Body Has a Mind of Its Own by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee.  On pages 106 and 107, they talk about the theory of affordances by James Jerome Gibson.  "Affordances make possible and facilitate certain actions. So, handles afford grasping. Stairs afford stepping. Knobs afford turning. Doors afford passage. Hammers afford smashing."(p. 106).  Since children do not have so many preconceived notions about objects, children apprehend affordances differently than adults. 

By way of example, I want to look at one child's play at an apparatus that I call the large wooden tray. It is a wide tray that connects two sensory tables.  It acts as a counter on which the children can carry out their operations.  It is set up at a slight angle so that any water that spills onto the tray is directed into the blue table.   

A quick look at the tray and all the objects on the tray raises lots of possibilities for affordances such as pourability and fillability.

Instead of trying to name all those easily perceived affordances---that would be the adult thing to do---let me show you some astounding affordances that one child discovers as she plays with a funnel. 

In the video below, the child uses a funnel is an unconventional way.  She turns it upside down and proceeds to push it into the bowl of purple water and pull it out of the bowl of purple water like a plunger.  In other words, she discovers that the funnel has plungeability.


funnel plunger from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

In addition, she also discovers that force with which she plunges can vary depending on how she holds the plunger.  Grabbing the funnel around the neck instead of the bowl affords more splashability.

The plungeability quickly changes when the child nonchalantly places her index finger over the funnel's hole. 


Creating a vacuum from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

By placing her finger over the hole, she creates a vacuum.  Now when she tries to take the funnel out of the bowl, the pressure differential creates resistance so it is not as easy to pull the funnel out of the bowl.  A careful look shows that the resistance is due to the newly created funnel-vacuum pulling water up out of the bowl.   And when the child tries to push the funnel back into the water, she again experiences resistance.  That resistance is also due to the newly created funnel-vacuum displacing water in the bowl under the funnel.  As she pushes the funnel down into the water, the funnel wants to drift making it harder to push the funnel to the bottom of the bowl.  With her actions, she discovers that the funnel has vacuum-createability and all that entails.

This all happened in the span of 15 seconds.  Below is the original video showing the transformations in affordances in real time.


Creating a vacuum with a funnel from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.


What is so fascinating about this episode is that it is not planned.  Rather it emerges spontaneously.

It just so happens that this child is not done finding new affordances for the funnel.  In the video below, she has figured out a new affordance for this upside down funnel: she can use it to transport water from her bowl into another container.   


Funnel scoop from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

As adults, we already know the affordances of a funnel, right?   It is used right side up as a tool to transfer a liquid from one container to another with a minimal amount of spillage. Oh, but look at the multiple and unlikely affordances this child has discovered for a funnel, an upside down funnel.  In her hands, it has plungeabiltiy, splashability, vacuum-createability, scoopability and ???

For adults, the process of perceiving affordances is often static.  Through our vast experience with living in the world, we already have preconceived notions of the affordances for any given object.  However, for children, perceiving affordances is dynamic.  In children's hands, many unlikely affordances emerge in the process of discovery that is both spontaneous and unpredictable.