Gibson's theory of affordance talks about how children learn by interacting with their environment and learning that to cause a reaction there has to be an action done.  Take for example a ball.  A child will learn very quickly that it affords to be rolled with a push (video: http://youtu.be/9X8CHkY2dew). To where if you pick the ball up it can be thrown (video: http://youtu.be/TVLmOiAdMDk) and find these activities very amusing.  I have watched many of my little cousins go through stages where they learn how to throw and catch a ball or push a toy car around or even to learn that something like a chair you sit in can also be used to stand on to get something off the counter.  They also learn that you can use some objects in multiple situations and in different ways.  Children learn these things by constantly interacting with the environment around them plus by seeing how others interact in the environments too.

Zozilla, etc.

According to Gibson and Gibson, affordances are opportunities for learning/action provided by a child's environment. New affordances are constantly being created as children experience new things.

Both of my examples of affordances center around my cousin Zoe, who is now five years old. The first involves puzzles, which afford putting together. Putting puzzles together demands object knowledge (i.e. which pieces fit together), differentiation (the pieces all have a different fraction of the whole image), and they require attention in order to reconstruct them correctly. Zoe is a busy child, and loves puzzles and games of all kinds. However,  she was bored when she had put all of her puzzles together so many times that they were no longer challenging. The task had lost its fun, and she was pretty vocal about it. Her mother's solution was to flip the puzzle upside down, so Zoe could reconstruct it based on the shapes of the pieces without the aid of the picture. It was a new way of completing the same task that required a new set of affordances, and Zoe's interest was rekindled once again.

The second example involves block towers. When Zoe was very young (somewhere between one and two at a guess), we would build towers with her blocks for hours. Or rather, I would build block towers and"Zozilla" would knock them down again and again.  She learned about the physical nature of the blocks, my towers, and her own physical abilities as she changed and un-did what I had created. Obviously, as she grew older, this game became less interesting and she moved on to new tasks and learning new affordances.

Prompt 10/14/13

Gibson’s theory of affordance basically states that perception drives action.    It is a child’s perception of an object that drives them to action.  A knob affords twisting, a button affords pushing, and a chord affords pulling.  Many of the toys manufactured today allow children to explore different aspects of these toys each time the perform one of these actions.  Once they have mastered one level they advance to the next level.

Gibsons theory on Affordance

We have a somewhat new baby boy in our family who is now two months old. For the last three weeks , every time I bring him home I will play with him and say "I lalalalalove you". He is fascinated with the la part of the phrase. My sister has raised seven kids, and multiple grandkids and she stresses the influence of saying this when they are first learning to talk or try to make sounds. He first laughed as a response to me saying this, but for the last two weeks he has been sticking his tongue out attempting to mimic me. I did this with both of my children and it does appear to greatly influence and capture their attention. I believe  the main emphasis in doing this is on visual perception as he is very intrigued by watching my tongue. I believe this would qualify as an affordance.

The attached clip would have to involve environmental affordances along with perception.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XnvDC6HiaBk

Response to post oct 14

The afforance I have observed is much like the baby ripping paper. My friends son found the snapping sound of a blanket to be hilarious. The baby found the blanket to be used in this way out of the ordinary there for funny. Many months have past since this he now no longer finds this funny because he has habituated to the blanket snap sound.

Gibson’s Affordances = A baby Hal 9000

Children are learning through interaction.  Baillargeon showed that children have an appropriate perception of the world and the physical rules that apply to it.  The Gibsons’ affordances states what an environment offers or provides for an organism; they are opportunities for action (Miller, p. 380).  As children develop new motor skills, they discover new affordances.  New affordances create new perceptions of the world.

My question for those interested in engaging, do affordances end during the infancy stage of our development or do we continue to create new affordances?

a few affordances

One affordance I have seen in young children is knotting or tying. A child can use this affordances with any string or rope. This affordance is something that helps the child get the feel of tying which in turn is how they learn how to tie a shoe.

Another affordance I see in children is plunging. Plunging is a convex object fitting in a concave object. An example of this would be a set of building blocks, or A puzzle. This affordance not only helps a child learn shapes visually, but helps them perceive how the different shapes can fit together. This helps children get a perceptual feel of whether or not what they are trying to do will work or not.

The Principle of Mutual Exclusivity: Big Bird and The Tipping Point

I found the topic of the Principle of Mutual Exclusivity that we discussed yesterday very intriguing. I realized, I had encountered this phenomenon before. Bear with me.

I read a book called The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcom Gladwell.  In one chapter, it talks about the power of "Stickiness", why some things catch on, and others do not. One example Gladwell gives is about a particular Sesame Street episode that was less than a hit with children. The following paragraph describes Episode 3683:

Big Bird welcomes the viewer and is greeted by a post woman with a package for him. She reveals her name is Emagene and that this is her first visit to the neighborhood. Big Bird wonders how she knew who he was and she claims it’s because his name and his likeness are one in the same. Big Bird then notes how Oscar, Snuffy and Celina all have regular names and not just descriptions. He then walks away upset, so Snuffy obeys the best friend conduct and goes to see what’s wrong. Snuffy tries to cheer Big Bird up by offering one of his names (“Aloysius” and “Snuffy”), but Big Bird declines. He then suggests Big Bird get a new name, which he thinks is a great idea! Snuffy then tries to stop calling him “Bird” as a nickname. Big Bird’s plan to get a new name is to have each of them ask everyone for names they like. When Snuffy leaves, Ruthie arrives. Big Bird asks her for some names, so she sings a fast-paced song, jam-packed with dozens of names. Big Bird then asks her to sing it again, but spelling the names so he can write them down. Ruthie promptly faints. Big Bird has finally settled on a name he likes: Roy. He asks Snuffy to join him in telling everyone his new name. Snuffy, however, still has a hard time replacing the name in his memory. Snuffy leaves Roy so he can practice some more remembering his name. As all of Roy’s friends pass by, they call him by his new name. But, being called “Roy” doesn’t make him feel happier. Snuffy comes back, having mastered calling him Roy. Roy begins to sob, missing his old name, even if it wasn’t like a regular name. Snuffy struggles adjusting to another new name. Snuffy’s got the hang of calling Big Bird by his regular name again. Miles passes by, surprised that Big Bird has changed his name again, but is happy that he’s changed his mind. He calls over Ruthie and Celina, who are relieved too. http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_3683

This excerpt from "The Tipping Point", is a fantastic explanation of the Principle of Mutual Exclusivity as we discussed it in class. I think the book explained both the principle and its connection to popular culture brilliantly.  

The show sounds like it should be a winner, right?

Wrong. The Roy show was tested by the Sesame Street research staff and the numbers were very disappointing. The first segment involving Snuffy and Big Bird did well. As you would expect, the viewers were curious. Then things began to fall apart. By the second of the street scenes, attention dropped to 80 percent. By the third, 78 percent. By the fourth 40 percent, then 50, then 20. Alter viewing the show, the kids were quizzed on what they had seen. "We asked very specific questions and were looking for clear answers," Rosemary Truglio, SesameStreet's research head said. "What was the show about? Sixty percent knew. What did Big Bird want to do? Fifty three percent knew. What was Big Bird's new name? Twenty percent knew. How did Big Bird feel at the end? Fifty percent knew." By comparison, another of the shows tested by Sesame Street at the very same time recorded 90 percent plus correct answers on the postshow quiz. The show simply wasn't making any impression. It wasn't sticking.

Why did the show fail? The problem, at root, is with the premise of the show the essential joke that Big Bird doesn't want to be known as a big bird. That's the kind of wordplay that a preschooler simply doesn't understand. Preschoolers make a number of assumptions about words and their meaning as they acquire language, one of the most important of which is what the psychologist Ellen Markman calls the principle of mutual exclusivity. Simply put, this means that small children have difficulty believing that any one object can have two different names. The natural assumption of children, Markman argues, is that if an object or person is given a second label, then that label must refer to some secondary property or attribute of that object. You can see how useful this assumption is to a child faced with the extraordinary task of assigning a word to everything in the world. A child who learns the word elephant knows, with absolute certainty, that it is something different from a dog. Each new word makes the child's knowledge or the world more precise. Without mutual exclusivity, by contrast, if a child thought that elephant could simply be another label for dog, then each new word would make the world seem more complicated. Mutual exclusivity also helps the child think clearly. "Suppose," Markman writes, "a child who already knows 'apple' and 'red' hears someone refer to an apple as 'round.' By mutual exclusivity, the child can eliminate the object (apple) and its color (red) as the meaning of 'round' and can try to analyze the object for some other property to label."

What this means, though, is that children are going to have trouble with objects that have two names, or objects that change names. A child has difficulty with, say, the idea that an oak is both an oak and a tree; he or she may well assume that in that case "tree" is a word for collection of oaks.

The idea, then, that Big Bird no longer wants to be called Big Bird but instead wants to be called Roy is almost guaranteed to befuddle a preschooler. How can someone with one name decide to have another name? Big Bird is saying that Big Bird is merely a descriptive name of the type of animal he is, and that he wants a particular name. He doesn't want to be a tree. He wants to be an oak. But three- and four-year-olds don't understand that a tree can also be an oak. To the extent that they understand what is going on at all, they probably think that Big Bird is trying to change into something else into some other kind of animal, or some other collection of animals. And how could he do that?

http://readr.ru/malcolm-gladwell-the-tipping-point.html?page=13

     

Response to prompt of Oct 14th

The studies conducted that demonstrated infants' ability to perceive rigidity of an object versus fluidity were interesting.  Infants were shown a rubber disk in a rigid movement, rotation, elevation, etc, and showed little interest in a new rigid movement a short time later.  However when the same object was shown in a fluid manner, compression of the rubber disk, they showed a much longer habituation period.  Thus showing infants can perceive differences in fluid objects and rigid objects.  Especially when the object was shown to be rigid and changed to fluid.  
The video showing a baby Micah's reaction to tearing paper was an excellent example of a babies perception to objects changing.  His fascination with the paper would've lasted until he habituated to it, basically until he'd had all he fun he could with the piece of paper.  However the introduction of tearing was a brand new concept and provided entertainment for him (and me!).

Climbing toddlers

Baby Laughing..

So Gibson's theory basically says perception drives action. That the idea of an object's possibilities for actions are just as important as the actual actions. This video (aside from making me laugh out loud) defined the definition. That, what the baby perceives paper's use as, outside the typical purpose of paper (in the standard sense) is just as important as the actual paper's use. His perception that the sound of tearing paper is hilarious drives him to try and do it for himself.

Baby Laughing Hysterically at Ripping Paper (Original)

Daily "Affordances" from Gibson

Gibson's "Affordance" Theory refers the action possibilities of an object. The perception of a given object drives action. Some examples of daily affordances among infants and young children are buttons (afford pushing), handles (afford grasping), and toys (afford playing).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h01bKZVrVy4

Prompt for October 14th

Gibson and Gibson provided quite a few ideas for how infants (economically) perceive their world. To apply their theory, give some (2+) examples of affordances (or other developmental trends described by Gibson) that you have encountered in infants and young children.  If you are having trouble thinking of examples, YouTube has many channels dedicated to kids learning and interacting with their world (and you can insert the videos directly into your post).

Traditions

In the idea of going through the formula vs breast feeding, I think that they were doing the right thing in the campaigns, the adds. I think they did it in the wrong way, what they should have done is made it under the terms of "public Announcement". Making it a public announcement should have made it less in your face with advertising  and would have had a higher chance of avoiding the whole campaign of of the "OH GOD NOT MY INCOME!" too much was lost in that.

 So to avoid going on about the backstabbing money mongers. I am in support of the natural method then the formula because of the health risks. My mind set on this subject is based on traditions. If it worked for centuries it should still work today.