Neutral affordances: Task conflict in the affordances task

Task conflict emerges when a stimulus triggers two or more competing tasks. To date, task conflict has been studied mainly using the color-word Stroop task. We hypothesized that task conflict also emerges in the affordances task between the goal-directed relevant task (e.g., classifying manipulable objects such as cups and pots), and the automatic, stimulus-driven, irrelevant task afforded by these objects (e.g., grasping their handles). Thus, we expected task conflict to manifest in both congruent and incongruent trials, separately from the well-known affordances response conflict that manifests in incongruent trials between responding with the right vs. the left hand. To this end, we aimed to identify a neutral condition for the affordances task. In Experiment 1, participants performed an affordances task that included images of manipulable objects and houses. While manipulable objects evoke automatic grasping tendencies, house images were hypothesized to serve as neutral, conflict-free stimuli. House images yielded shorter reaction time (RT) than incongruent trials, indicating that they may serve as neutral stimuli for the task. House images also yielded shorter RT than congruent trials, suggesting that task conflict manifests in congruent (as well as in incongruent) affordances trials. In Experiment 2 we manipulated cognitive control in the affordance task by creating low-control and high-control blocks. While both congruent and incongruent trials were impacted by this manipulation of cognitive control, neutral trials remained unaffected. These findings indicate that the affordances task involves conflicts at both the task level and the level of response, and can be used as a supplementary, non-linguistic measure of task conflict and the activation of task control.

Perception of maximum distance jumpable remains accurate after an intense physical exercise and during recovery

Earlier studies have revealed that changes in action capabilities due to fatigue or wearing a backpack have an effect on the perception of distance in meters or steepness in angles. Although these findings are interesting by themselves, they leave us uninformed about whether the accuracy of affordance perception is affected by fatigue. Are people still capable of accurately perceiving the maximum distance jumpable after an intense physical exercise? In the present experiment, this question is addressed. We found that after maximal exertion in a squatting task, the actual maximum jumping distance significantly decreased, but recovered quickly. Interestingly, on average, the participants accurately perceived their maximum jumping distance both before and after the squatting task. Apparently, the accuracy of the affordance perception remains intact after an intense physical exercise. The implications of this finding are discussed.

Digital affordances: how entrepreneurs access support in online communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has caused significant and unforeseen problems for entrepreneurs. While entrepreneurs would normally seek social support to help deal with these issues, due to social distancing, physical networks are often not available. Consequently, entrepreneurs must turn to alternative support sources, such as online communities, raising the question of how support is created in such spaces. Drawing on an affordance perspective, we investigate how entrepreneurs interact with online communities and base our qualitative analysis on conversation data (76,365 posts) from an online community of entrepreneurs on Reddit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings draw out four affordances that online communities offer to entrepreneurs (resolving problems, reframing problems, reflecting on situations, refocusing thinking and efforts), resulting in a framework of entrepreneurial support creation in online communities. Thus, our study contributes to debates around (1) entrepreneurs' support during COVID-19 and (2) digital affordances in the entrepreneurship context.

The road towards understanding embodied decisions

Most current decision-making research focuses on classical economic scenarios, where choice offers are prespecified and where action dynamics play no role in the decision. However, our brains evolved to deal with different choice situations: "embodied decisions". As examples of embodied decisions, consider a lion that has to decide which gazelle to chase in the savannah or a person who has to select the next stone to jump on when crossing a river. Embodied decision settings raise novel questions, such as how people select from time-varying choice options and how they track the most relevant choice attributes; but they have long remained challenging to study empirically. Here, we summarize recent progress in the study of embodied decisions in sports analytics and experimental psychology. Furthermore, we introduce a formal methodology to identify the relevant dimensions of embodied choices (present and future affordances) and to map them into the attributes of classical economic decisions (probabilities and utilities), hence aligning them. Studying embodied decisions will greatly expand our understanding of what decision-making is.

The influence of skill and task complexity on perception of nested affordances

This study investigated how skill level and task complexity influence the calibration of perception–action and particularly how close an individual acts relative to his or her maximal action capabilities. Complexity was manipulated between two (Touch, Grasp) and more than two (Removing, Moving Up) nested affordance conditions. For all conditions, we examined whether advanced climbers had greater maximal action capabilities than intermediate climbers or whether they better scaled their action (i.e., acted nearer to their maximal action capabilities) or both. Eleven intermediate and 11 advanced male climbers were first asked to estimate the maximum distance that they could reach a climbing hold. The hold was moved along a slide and fixed once requested by the participant; subsequently, the distance to the starting hold was measured. After each estimation, the participant was required to execute the climbing action. After four estimation-action trials in each of the four conditions, the maximal action capability (i.e., actual maximal reaching distance) was determined. Advanced climbers demonstrated greater actual maximal reaching distances than intermediate climbers for all conditions, but they only estimated greater maximal reaching distances for the more complex conditions, which featured more than two nested affordances. When estimated maximal reaching distances were scaled to actual maximal reaching distances, advanced climbers did not differ from intermediate climbers for any condition, and there were no differences between conditions. Our findings indicate that expertise was a function of greater action capabilities, but not due to the accuracy of calibration.

The dispositional basis of human prosociality

Individual differences in prosocial behavior have been consistently observed in a variety of contexts. Here, we summarize and critically discuss recent developments in two research agendas on the dispositional basis of human prosociality: a personality approach, proposing a variety of trait concepts and corresponding measures to predict prosocial behavior in different situations; and a behavioral consistency approach, testing for consistency in prosocial behaviors and its underlying latent disposition(s) across situations. Drawing on different properties of situations (so-called situational affordances), we outline a theoretical framework that can help integrate these so far hardly connected research agendas. We also point out limitations of prior research, such as a lack of theory, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them.

Metastable attunement and real-life skilled behavior

In everyday situations, and particularly in some sport and working contexts, humans face an inherently unpredictable and uncertain environment. All sorts of unpredictable and unexpected things happen but typically people are able to skillfully adapt. In this paper, we address two key questions in cognitive science. First, how is an agent able to bring its previously learned skill to bear on a novel situation? Second, how can an agent be both sensitive to the particularity of a given situation, while remaining flexibly poised for many other possibilities for action? We will argue that both the sensitivity to novel situations and the sensitivity to a multiplicity of action possibilities are enabled by the property of skilled agency that we will call metastable attunement. We characterize a skilled agent's flexible interactions with a dynamically changing environment in terms of metastable dynamics in agent-environment systems. What we find in metastability is the realization of two competing tendencies: the tendency of the agent to express their intrinsic dynamics and the tendency to search for new possibilities. Metastably attuned agents are ready to engage with a multiplicity of affordances, allowing for a balance between stability and flexibility. On the one hand, agents are able to exploit affordances they are attuned to, while at the same time being ready to flexibly explore for other affordances. Metastable attunement allows agents to smoothly transition between these possible configurations so as to adapt their behaviour to what the particular situation requires. We go on to describe the role metastability plays in learning of new skills, and in skilful behaviour more generally. Finally, drawing upon work in art, architecture and sports science, we develop a number of perspectives on how to investigate metastable attunement in real life situations.

It's not all about the likes: Social media affordances with nighttime, problematic, and adverse use as predictors of adolescent sleep indicators

OBJECTIVES

Adolescents are the most prominent users of social media, and their exposure to different contents, platforms, and types of use continues to develop. At the same time, sleep deprivation is on the rise, which may contribute to worsened health. Therefore, this cross-sectional study set out to examine the relationships among several social media affordances, habits of use, and sleep indicators in adolescents.

METHODS

Students ages 12-18 from a high school on Long Island, New York (N = 410) participated in an anonymous online survey focusing on various aspects of social media use as well as major sleep indicators (sleep displacement, presleep arousal, sleep quality, fatigue).

RESULTS

Snapchat was the only platform to predict a worsened sleep indicator (later bedtime) and it correlated with problematic, adverse, and nighttime use, possibly due to closer relationships among users. More viewing of posts of sports, friends, and family predicted better sleep. Additionally, nighttime social media use, problematic social media use, and adverse social media use each predicted at least one worsened sleep indicator in a hierarchical regression model.

CONCLUSIONS

Although some implications were positive, results provided insight into the cons of social media use. This study provides evidence that in order to understand the role of social media in the sleep-wake process, one must look at the specific affordances each platform provides and the different nighttime, problematic, and adverse habits of use that can arise. Documenting the variety of media use behaviors, however, introduces a considerable multiple testing threat to this research area.

User-Environment Interaction: The Usability Model for Universal Design Assessment

Universal Design (UD) aims to provide designed environments that allow users to fully participate in all kinds of activities. Especially, the design of Sport and Leisure buildings should support and encourage the participation of mobility and sensory impaired people in any physical and social activity. Yet, the variety of physical and social users' needs calls for different approaches to investigate, analyze and assess how the environment fulfills users' needs and expectations. This paper presents a new analytical model that: a) investigates how people with mobility, visual, and hearing impairments interact with specific architectural features; b) links the examined user-environment interaction with the user's personal assessment of the spatial experience. The study employs the literature review of the existing analytical models, which are based on the concept of user-environment interaction and framed around empirically deducted basic human needs. These models address the issue of user-environment fit by focusing on the identification of environmental barriers. Also, some of these models are too descriptive and cannot inform the practice in creative design processes. The proposed analytical model, which is built upon the theoretical concepts of affordances and usability, aims to develop a qualitative evaluation method for identifying environmental facilitators by linking the design of architectural characteristics with the influenced perception of users of the physical and social aspects of the built environment. The model consists of three groups of elements: (1) users' physical abilities; (2) architectural features and (3) usability criteria. The inter-relations of each element across the groups develop the narrating scenarios that can be investigated from the user's perspective. This new model does not only advance the understanding of the spatial experiences of persons with mobility and sensory impairments but also offers new insights for exploring UD solutions by identifying the architectural features that enlarge the spectrum of possible user-environment interactions.

The center cannot hold: Variations of frame width help to explain the "inward bias" in aesthetic preferences

Although most visual aesthetic preferences are likely driven by a mix of personal, historical, and cultural factors, there are exceptions: some may be driven by adaptive mechanisms of visual processing, and so may be relatively consistent across people, contexts, and time. An especially powerful example is the "inward bias": when a framed image contains a figure (e.g., a face in profile), people prefer arrangements in which the figure faces inward. Although the inward bias has been studied in many contexts, its underlying nature remains unclear. It may be a function of an image's center (as in the "affordance-space" account, in which people prefer to center the implied functional extensions of objects), or it may be a function of the frame's borders (as in the "looking-into-the-future" account, in which people dislike perspectives on scenes that won't allow them to witness predicted future actions). Here we directly contrast these possibilities using a simple novel manipulation. Observers placed a face (in profile) in a frame to maximize the image's aesthetic appeal, and across observers we varied the frame's aspect ratio. We observed a powerful inward bias, and across frame widths observers preferred an approximately constant positive ratio of space in front versus behind the face. This suggests that the inward bias is driven primarily not by the image's center, but by the frame's borders - and it is consistent with the possibility that certain regions of empty space are prioritized because they are where future actions are predicted to occur.

Adjectives Modulate Sensorimotor Activation Driven by Nouns

We performed three experiments to investigate whether adjectives can modulate the sensorimotor activation elicited by nouns. In Experiment 1, nouns of graspable objects were used as stimuli. Participants had to decide if each noun referred to a natural or artifact, by performing either a precision or a power reach-to-grasp movement. Response grasp could be compatible or incompatible with the grasp typically used to manipulate the objects to which the nouns referred. The results revealed faster reaction times (RTs) in compatible than in incompatible trials. In Experiment 2, the nouns were combined with adjectives expressing either disadvantageous information about object graspability (e.g., sharp) or information about object color (e.g., reddish). No difference in RTs between compatible and incompatible conditions was found when disadvantageous adjectives were used. Conversely, a compatibility effect occurred when color adjectives were combined with nouns referring to natural objects. Finally, in Experiment 3 the nouns were combined with adjectives expressing tactile or shape proprieties of the objects (e.g., long or smooth). Results revealed faster RTs in compatible than in incompatible condition for both noun categories. Taken together, our findings suggest that adjectives can shape the sensorimotor activation elicited by nouns of graspable objects, highlighting that language simulation goes beyond the single-word level.

Situated anticipation

In cognitive science, long-term anticipation, such as when planning to do something next year, is typically seen as a form of 'higher' cognition, requiring a different account than the more basic activities that can be understood in terms of responsiveness to 'affordances,' i.e. to possibilities for action. Starting from architects that anticipate the possibility to make an architectural installation over the course of many months, in this paper we develop a process-based account of affordances that includes long-term anticipation within its scope. We present a framework in which situations and their affordances unfold, and can be thought of as continuing a history of practices into a current situational activity. In this activity affordances invite skilled participants to act further. Via these invitations one situation develops into the other; an unfolding process that sets up the conditions for its own continuation. Central to our process account of affordances is the idea that engaged individuals can be responsive to the direction of the process to which their actions contribute. Anticipation, at any temporal scale, is then part and parcel of keeping attuned to the movement of the unfolding situations to which an individual contributes. We concretize our account by returning to the example of anticipation observed in architectural practice. This account of anticipation opens the door to considering a wide array of human activities traditionally characterized as 'higher' cognition in terms of engaging with affordances.

Automatic coding of environmental distance for walking-related locomotion in the foot-related sensory-motor system: A TMS study on macro-affordances

We have recently described a facilitation effect for the execution of a walking-related action in response to distant objects/locations in the extrapersonal space. Based on the parallelism with the well-known effect of "micro-affordance", observed during the execution of functionally appropriate hand-related actions towards manipulable objects, we have referred to this effect in terms of "macro-affordance". Here we used transcranical magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate whether a foot-related region located in the human dorsal precuneate cortex plays a causal role in the generation and maintenance of such behavioral effect. This question was addressed by comparing the magnitude of the facilitation effect during an incidental go/no-go task, i.e. advantage for walking-related actions to pictures framing an environment from a far vs. near distance, during three different TMS conditions. The three TMS conditions were collected in all subjects in a randomized order and included stimulation of: i. a foot-related region in the anterior precuneus, ii. a control region in the middle intraparietal sulcus (mIPS), and iii. a sham condition. Enrollment in the TMS protocol was based on analysis of individual performance during a preliminary session conducted using a sham stimulation. TMS was administered at a low frequency range before the beginning of each condition. The results showed that stimulation of the foot-related region in the anterior precuneus produced a significant reduction of the walking-related facilitation effect as compared to both stimulation of the active-control region and the non-active sham stimulation. These findings suggest that the foot-related sensory-motor system directly participates in the process of extraction of the spatial features (i.e. distance) from an environmental scene that are useful for locomotion. More in general, these findings support an automatic coding of environmental affordance or "macro-affordances" in the walking-related sensory-motor system.

Predicting aperture crossing behavior from within-trial metrics of motor control reliability

Actors utilize intrinsically scaled information about their geometric and dynamic properties when perceiving their ability to pass through openings. Research about dynamic factors of affordance perception have shown that the reliability of a given movement, or the precision of one's motor control for that movement, increase the buffer space used when interacting with the environment. While previous work has assessed motor control reliability as a person-level variable (i.e., behavior is aggregated across many trials), the current study assessed how characteristics of motor control and movement reliability within a single trial impact real-time action strategies for passing through apertures. Participants walked 5 m and then passed through apertures of various widths while their motions were tracked. For each trial, we collected walking time-series data, then calculated the magnitude and complexity of the lateral sway. Assessing two behavioral measures of the buffer, we found that trial-level metrics of motor control reliability, in addition to the person-level metrics previously studied, significantly predicted the buffer on each trial. This study supports previous claims that actors pick up real-time information about their dynamic capabilities in order to perceive and act within their environment. Further, the study recommends that future affordance research consider trial-level movement data, including nonlinear analyses that inform the pattern and structure of motor control reliability.

Metric biases in body representation extend to objects

We typically misestimate the dimensions of our body e.g., we perceive our fingers as shorter, and our torso as more elongated, than they actually are. It stands to reason that those metric biases may also extend to objects that we interact with, to facilitate attunement with the environment. To explore this hypothesis, we compared the metric representations of seven objects and the subjects' own hand using the Line Length Judgment task, in six experiments involving 152 healthy subjects. We evaluated the size estimation errors made for each target (hand or previously observed objects) by asking subjects to compare the vertical or horizontal dimension of a specific target against the length of a vertical or horizontal line. As expected, we showed that the hand is misperceived in its dimensions. Interestingly, we found that metric biases are also present for daily-life objects, such as a mobile phone and a coffee mug, and are not affected by familiarity with the objects. In contrast, objects that are less likely to be manipulated, either because they are potentially harmful or disgusting, were differently represented. Furthermore, the propensity to interact with an object, rated by an independent sample of subjects, best predicted the pattern of metric biases associated with that object. Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that biases affecting the hand representation extend to objects that elicit action-oriented behavior, highlighting the importance of studying the body as integrated and active in the environment.

Cognitive, language and motor development of infants exposed to risk and protective factors

INTRODUCTION

Risk factors are biological or environmental characteristics increasing the likelihood of delays in child development. Meanwhile, protective factors are conditions that can minimize risks and favor the acquisition of skills. Infants with risk indicators for hearing loss (RIHL) tend to live in less stimulating environments which may lead to lower cognitive, language, and motor development.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the cognitive, language, and motor development of infants under the influence of risk and protective factors.

METHOD

A cross-sectional observational study in which 259 infants aged 8-10 months were assessed for cognitive, language, and motor development using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development - Third Edition (BSITD-III). The groups were formed according to the presence or absence of RIHL and the quality of the resources, being: SG-AE (Study Group with Adequate Environment), SG-IE (Study Group with Inadequate Environment), CG-AE (Compared Group with Adequate Environment)) and CG-IE (Compared Group with Inadequate Environment). Affordances were assessed using the questionnaire Affordances in the Home Environment for the Motor Development - Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS). The groups were compared using the Chi-square test or the Kruskal-Wallis test, followed by Dunn's multiple comparison test. The level of significance adopted was 5%.

RESULTS

Infants from the CG-AE performed better than the other groups in cognition and motor skills. The CG-AE language was statistically superior to the SG-IE. SG-IE showed the highest frequency of delays in all domains. CG-IE and SG-AE showed a similar frequency of delays. Adequate environment associated with the absence of RIHL (CG-AE) leads to better cognitive, language, and motor performances.

CONCLUSION

Biological and environmental risk factors have a similar impact on development, but the accumulation of both tends to increase the risks of developmental delay. The absence of RIHL and quality environments worked as protective factors and favored the acquisition of skills.

Movers and shakers of cognition: Hand movements, speech, task properties, and variability

Children move their hands to explore, learn and communicate about hands-on tasks. Their hand movements seem to be "learning" ahead of speech. Children shape their hand movements in accordance with spatial and temporal task properties, such as when they feel an object or simulate its movements. Their speech does not directly correspond to these spatial and temporal task properties, however. We aimed to understand whether and how hand movements' are leading cognitive development due to their ability to correspond to spatiotemporal task properties, while speech is unable to do so. We explored whether hand movements' and speech's variability changed with a change in spatiotemporal task properties, using two variability measures: Diversity indicates adaptation, while Complexity indicates flexibility to adapt. In two experiments, we asked children (4-7 years) to predict and explain about balance scale problems, whereby we either manipulated the length of the balance scale or the mass of the weights after half of the trials. In three out of four conditions, we found a change in Complexity for both hand movements and speech between first and second half of the task. In one of these conditions, we found a relation between the differences in Complexity and Diversity of hand movements and speech. Changes in spatiotemporal task properties thus often influenced both hand movements' and speech's flexibility, but there seem to be differences in how they did so. We provided many directions for future research, to further unravel the relations between hand movements, speech, task properties, variability, and cognitive development.

Enacting 'more-than-human' care: Clients' and counsellors' views on the multiple affordances of chatbots in alcohol and other drug counselling

Forms of artificial intelligence (AI), such as chatbots that provide automated online counselling, promise to revolutionise alcohol and other drug treatment. Although the replacement of human counsellors remains a speculative prospect, chatbots for ‘narrow AI’ tasks (e.g., assessment and referral) are increasingly being used to augment clinical practice. Little research has addressed the possibilities for care that chatbots may generate in the future, particularly in the context of alcohol and other drug counselling. To explore these issues, we draw on the concept of technological ‘affordances’ and identify the range of possibilities for care that emerging chatbot interventions may afford and foreclose depending on the contexts in which they are implemented. Our analysis is based on qualitative data from interviews with clients (n=20) and focus group discussions with counsellors (n=8) conducted as part of a larger study of an Australian online alcohol and other drug counselling service. Both clients and counsellors expressed a concern that chatbot interventions lacked a ‘human’ element, which they valued in empathic care encounters. Most clients reported that they would share less information with a chatbot than a human counsellor, and they viewed this as constraining care. However, clients and counsellors suggested that the use of narrow AI might afford possibilities for performing discrete tasks, such as screening, triage or referral. In the context of what we refer to as ‘more-than-human’ care, our findings reveal complex views about the types of affordances that chatbots may produce and foreclose in online care encounters. We conclude by discussing implications for the potential ‘addiction futures’ and care trajectories that AI technologies offer, focussing on how they might inform alcohol and other drug policy, and the design of digital healthcare.

Perceptual breakdown during a global pandemic: introducing phenomenological insights for digital mental health purposes

Online therapy sessions and other forms of digital mental health services (DMH) have seen a sharp spike in new users since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having little access to their social networks and support systems, people have had to turn to digital tools and spaces to cope with their experiences of anxiety and loss. With no clear end to the pandemic in sight, many of us are likely to remain reliant upon DMH for the foreseeable future. As such, it is important to articulate some of the specific ways in which the pandemic is affecting our self and world-relation, such that we can identify how DMH services are best able to accommodate some of the newly emerging needs of their users. In this paper I will identify a specific type of loss brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and present it as an important concept for DMH. I refer to this loss as loss of perceptual world-familiarity. Loss of perceptual world-familiarity entails a breakdown in the ongoing effortless responsiveness to our perceptual environment that characterizes much of our everyday lives. To cash this out I will turn to insights from the phenomenological tradition. Initially, my project is descriptive. I aim to bring out how loss of perceptual world-familiarity is a distinctive form of loss that is deeply pervasive yet easily overlooked-hence the relevance of explicating it for DMH purposes. But I will also venture into the space of the normative, offering some reasons for seeing perceptual world-familiarity as a component of well-being. I conclude the paper with a discussion of how loss of perceptual world-familiarity affects the therapeutic setting now that most if not all therapeutic interactions have transitioned to online spaces and I explore the potential to augment these spaces with social interaction technologies. Throughout, my discussion aims to do justice to the reality that perceptual world-familiarity is not an evenly distributed phenomenon, that factors like disability, gender and race affect its robustness, and that this ought to be reckoned with when seeking to incorporate the phenomenon into or mitigate it through DMH services.

Variability of enriched environment does not enhance the enrichment effect on food neophobia in rats (Rattus norvegicus)

Many studies report differences between animals raised in an enriched environment and those living in standard conditions. Animals reared in enriched conditions demonstrate better memory and learning abilities, increased activity, reduced level of anxiety, etc. However, there is a shortage of studies investigating the impact of environmental variability on animal behaviour, and few studies on this topic focus on animals with different initial anxiety levels. This study was conducted on laboratory rats. Prior to the experiment, the rats were kept in three types of rearing conditions: an enriched stable environment; an enriched variable environment; and in standard laboratory conditions. The environment was enriched by providing a cognitively and physically stimulating living space. The variability of the environment involved altering the arrangement of the enriching objects on a daily basis. The level of reaction to food novelty was measured with a food neophobia test. The study demonstrates that an enriched environment has a significant impact on reducing food neophobia. However, our findings suggest that the variability of the environment is not necessary and does not enhance the positive impact of enrichment on these aspects of behaviour.

Calibration of perception fails to transfer between functionally similar affordances

Prior work shows that the calibration of perception and action transfers between actions depending on their functional similarity: Practising (and thus calibrating perception of) one affordance will also calibrate perception for an affordance with a similar function but not for an affordance with a disparate function. We tested this hypothesis by measuring whether calibration transferred between two affordances for passing through openings: squeezing sideways through doorways without becoming stuck and fitting sideways through doorways while avoiding collision. Participants wore a backpack to alter affordances for passage and create a need for perceptual recalibration. Calibration failed to transfer between the two actions (e.g., practising squeezing through doorways calibrated perception of squeezing but not fitting). Differences between squeezing and fitting affordances that might have required different information for perception and recalibration are explored to understand why calibration did not transfer. In light of these results, we propose a revised hypothesis-calibration transfers between affordances on the basis of both functional and informational similarity.

The serendipitous impact of COVID-19 pandemic: A rare opportunity for research and practice

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The Covid-19 pandemic is a rare opportunity to examine some fundamental aspects of IM and IS research and practice.

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There are at least three areas where the pandemic has impacted practice: information management, work practices and design of technologies.

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The IS discipline has appropriate methods and theories to study the design of technologies and social interactions.

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Concepts such as “social distancing” that has emerged in the pandemic need to be studied through philosophical premises.

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The IM practices that emerge after the pandemic is over, will be shaped by how well we seize the opportunity to learn from the pandemic.

In this opinion paper, I argue that the Covid-19 pandemic, as tragic and disastrous as it undoubtedly is, has also given us a rare opportunity to deeply examine the research and practice of information management in particular and information systems in general. To cope with the pandemic, we have retreated to the digital world and drastically changed the way we work. Yet these very practices can well shape the way we work in the post-pandemic world. Moreover, the pandemic is also a sharp lens through which we can study deep-rooted theoretical issues that otherwise would not have surfaced, or at least remained in the background. My call to the research community is to seize this rare opportunity.

From spatial navigation via visual construction to episodic memory and imagination

This hybrid of review and personal essay argues that models of visual construction are essential to extend spatial navigation models to models that link episodic memory and imagination. The starting point is the TAM-WG model, combining the Taxon Affordance Model and the World Graph model of spatial navigation. The key here is to reject approaches in which memory is restricted to unanalyzed views from familiar places, and their later recall. Instead, we will seek mechanisms for imagining truly novel scenes and episodes. We thus introduce a specific variant of schema theory and VISIONS, a cooperative computation model of visual scene understanding in which a scene is represented by an assemblage of schema instances with links to lower-level "patches" of relevant visual data. We sketch a new conceptual framework for future modeling, Visual Integration of Diverse Multi-Modal Aspects, by extending VISIONS from static scenes to episodes combining agents, actions and objects and assess its relevance to both navigation and episodic memory. We can then analyze imagination as a constructive process that combines aspects of memories of prior episodes along with other schemas and adjusts them into a coherent whole which, through expectations associated with diverse episodes and schemas, may yield the linkage of episodes that constitutes a dream or a narrative. The result is IBSEN, a conceptual model of Imagination in Brain Systems for Episodes and Navigation. The essay closes by analyzing other papers in this Special Issue to assess to what extent their results relate to the research proposed here.

To step or to spring: the influence of state anxiety on perceptual judgements and executed action

Emotional state, in particular anxiety, has been shown to constrain perceptual judgement of action capabilities. However, whether anxiety also constrains actual behaviour is unknown. The current study, therefore, aimed to determine whether state anxiety constrained firstly perceptual judgements of action capabilities and secondly actual behaviour. To do this, we asked participants to make perceptual judgements and perform action behaviours in relation to crossing ground-based apertures representing puddles. State anxiety was measured in 30 participants using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The critical ratio of aperture size relative to leg length at which participants' behaviour choice would switch between a step and a spring was calculated. In a perceptual judgement task, participants judged the ratio at which they would choose to switch. In a subsequent executed action task, the ratio at which they actually switched was measured. Perceptual critical ratio could be predicted via state anxiety and age, while action critical ratio was not predicted by either. Therefore, this study has demonstrated that state anxiety and age both constrain perceptual judgement of action capabilities, as shown in previous studies. However, this does not seem to result in a change in emergent behaviour. This highlights the importance of measuring emergent behaviour rather than inferring it from perceptual judgements even when they are couched in terms of action.

Committed to STEM? Examining Factors that Predict Occupational Commitment among Asian and White Female Students Completing STEM U.S. Postsecondary Programs

Although it is well known that women have relatively high rates of attrition from STEM occupations in the United States, there is limited empirical research on the views and experiences of female STEM degree-earners that may underlie their commitment to their chosen fields. Utilizing survey data from 229 women completing STEM degrees at two U.S. universities, the present study examines how perceptions of occupational affordances and interactions with others in the field predict their occupational STEM commitment. Additionally, the study employs an intersectional lens to consider whether the patterns of association are different for Asian women and White women. Multivariate regression analyses reveal that although communal goal affordances do not significantly predict women's occupational STEM commitment, agentic goal affordances are a strong predictor of such commitment. Regarding experiences with others in the field, results reveal that classmate interactions are not associated with STEM commitment, whereas positive faculty interactions do significantly predict such commitment. However, further analyses reveal racial differences in these patterns because agentic goal affordances are much weaker predictors of occupational STEM commitment for Asian women than for White women, and results indicate that faculty interactions are significant predictors of STEM commitment only for White women. Thus, our results strongly suggest that the theoretical models of motivation and support that underlie much of the discussion around women in STEM do not similarly apply to women from all racial backgrounds and that more research is needed that considers how both gender and race simultaneously shape STEM engagement and persistence.