action-scaled affordances

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Action-scaled affordances are possibilities defined relative to what an organism can dynamically do, including its strength, balance, coordination, skill and current condition. RB2 distinguishes these capacities from body dimensions alone and links them to effectivities. The proposed entry retains changes in real capacity while distinguishing them from changes in perceived difficulty or experimentally induced judgment.

Explanation

The stair example explains why two similarly proportioned bodies may have different possibilities: muscle power, flexibility and balance affect whether stepping succeeds. Effectivities name the organism’s side of this relation, including energy, learned skill and tool extensions. An environmental offering is consequently indexed to an actual kind of capable body.

Current load and fatigue can alter action conditions, but the backpack hill-perception illustration is explicitly qualified. RB2 reports its later attribution to experimental demand rather than perception. The entry retains that correction instead of using the example as established proof that effort necessarily changes visual steepness.

Infant transitions from crawling to walking and adult vehicle learning show that judgments must be retuned as action organization changes. These are related developmental and learned cases, not one measurement scale for every ability. Available opportunities, successful detection and actual execution therefore remain distinguishable within the ecological account.

Scope and attribution

Retain the explicit correction to the backpack example and avoid a universal effort–perception law.

AB — The Actual Book

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 94, 95; Notes: 242.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Dynamic effectivities qualify geometry, and the backpack demonstration retains its demand-effect correction.

Occurrence locators: 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Dynamic capabilities qualify geometric fit; the backpack example retains the source’s demand-effect correction.