Using task dynamics to quantify the affordances of throwing for long distance and accuracy.

Abstract

In 2 experiments, the current study explored how affordances structure throwing for long distance and accuracy. In Experiment 1, 10 expert throwers (from baseball, softball, and cricket) threw regulation tennis balls to hit a vertically oriented 4 ft ϫ 4 ft target placed at each of 9 locations (3 distances ϫ 3 heights). We measured their release parameters (angle, speed, and height) and showed that they scaled their throws in response to changes in the target's location. We then simulated the projectile motion of the ball and identified a continuous subspace of release parameters that produce hits to each target location. Each subspace describes the affordance of our target to be hit by a tennis ball moving in a projectile motion to the relevant location. The simulated affordance spaces showed how the release parameter combinations required for hits changed with changes in the target location. The experts tracked these changes in their performance and were successful in hitting the targets. We next tested unusual (horizontal) targets that generated correspondingly different affordance subspaces to determine whether the experts would track the affordance to generate successful hits. Do the experts perceive the affordance? They do. In Experiment 2, 5 cricketers threw to hit either vertically or horizontally oriented targets and successfully hit both, exhibiting release parameters located within the requisite affordance subspaces. We advocate a task dynamical approach to the study of affordances as properties of objects and events in the context of tasks as the future of research in this area.

A Dynamical Analysis of the Suitability of Prehistoric Spheroids from the Cave of Hearths as Thrown Projectiles

“…The analysis presented here is a proof-of-concept for applying the tools and concepts of the task dynamical approach to affordances 30 to studying the functions of prehistoric artefacts. We limited our analysis in a variety of ways in order to simplify and enable the simulations, but these limits are not limits on the approach itself.…”

“…He proposed that organisms can perceive the affordances of our environments and use that perception to produce functional behaviour that complements the opportunity for action the affordance describes. Since the idea was first proposed, there has been a great deal of research demonstrating that people do, indeed, perceive the affordances of their environments and use these to coordinate and control their behaviour 30 .…”

Interface Theory vs Gibson: An Ontological Defense of the Ecological Approach

“…Perceiving-acting organisms, in turn, do not need to carve the world up the way physicists do; instead, they must learn to pick out properties like affordances because those are the ones required to coordinate and control their behavior. But even though affordances are not properties predicted by a theory of physics, they are still physically real properties and can be described as such, using the language of DST (see Wilson et al, 2016aWilson et al, , 2016bWilson et al, , 2018 for a detailed description of this research programme in the context of long-distance throwing). Just as biology and chemistry do not reduce neatly to physics, neither does psychology, and we must take this seriously.…”

Interface Theory vs Gibson: An Ontological Defence of the Ecological Approach

“…Perceiving-acting organisms, in turn, do not need to carve the world up the way physicists do; instead, they must learn to pick out properties like affordances because those are the ones required to coordinate and control their behaviour. But even though affordances are not properties predicted by a theory of physics, they are still physically real properties and can be described as such, using the language of DST (see Wilson et al, 2016aWilson et al, , 2016b and 2018 for a detailed description of this research programme in the context of long distance throwing). Just as biology and chemistry do not reduce neatly to physics, neither does psychology, and we must take this seriously.…”