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REVIEW article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1283168

Reaching conceptual stability by re-articulating empirical and theoretical work on affordances

Provisionally accepted
Roman Malo Roman Malo 1,2,3*Yannick Prié Yannick Prié 1,2,4*
  • 1 Université de Nantes, Nantes, France
  • 2 UMR6004 Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique à Nantes (LS2N), Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France
  • 3 Faculté de Psychologie, Université de Nantes, Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France
  • 4 École Polytechnique de l'Université de Nantes, Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Theoretical developments on affordances have multiplied, leading to a lack of stability for this concept and potential loss of scientific validity. Yet the concept should not be abandoned as it is at the heart of post-cognitive theories and reused in several fields of research. Empirical work could have helped reaching a consensus for these researchers, but it remains scarce, hardly catches up with theory, and cannot play its role in scientific development, as it lacks articulation with theoretical work. That is why re-articulating theoretical and empirical work on affordances seems a necessity in order to draw a more productive path for the concept to move further towards its promises. To achieve such a goal, we need to focus on empirical work. This can be done by considering recent theoretical proposals, and designing associated empirical methodologies. The requirements and the framework we are proposing constitute a step in this direction.

    Keywords: affordances, direct perception, Gibson, Ecological psycholgy, affordances (ecological psychology)

    Received: 28 Aug 2023; Accepted: 12 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Malo and Prié. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Roman Malo, Université de Nantes, Nantes, France
    Yannick Prié, Université de Nantes, Nantes, France

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