Situated anticipation

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Affordances; Anticipation; Architecture; Ecological psychology; Enaction; Making; Situated cognition; Skilled intentionality.

Fig. 1

Six situations occurring as the making of an art installation unfolded. The aim of the art installation was to explore what a world without chairs could look like. a A tilted wooden plank being explored by the architects for its use in supporting the feet while standing. b Exploring a carpet for supporting the back and using to support a laptop to type. c Images, drawings and other paperwork being filed and checked. d Carpet being cut with a small pair of scissors. e Models that afforded comparing different design features. f Drawings on paper that specify the dimensions of a model. g A wooden beam being aligned to the room where the installation was being built. h The installation ‘Breaking Habits’ on the day of the opening, consisting of carpets suspended in the air by steel wires

Fig. 2

An activity as it unfolds into action. This view was inspired by Ingold (, p. 69, p. 84; 2013), Shotter (1983) and Schatzski (2012). As the line unfolds, it decreases in width to stress an activity’s increasing determinacy. From left to right, the multitude of possible ways in which materials can be coordinated and the activity can continue makes way for the one actual way in which material has been coordinated and the activity has unfolded. At the left-hand side, looking onward (i.e. to the right) the line indicates an activity, while starting from the right-hand side looking back on the line, it indicates a determined action and a certain way of coordinating materials (see Shotter 1983). We return to the material aspect and invitational character of the unfolding process (the arrows pointing right and left respectively) below in Sect. 4

Fig. 3

Three situations occurring during the exploration of different carpets. a A thin, single sheet of carpet suspended by lashing straps in a metal frame is being explored for the support it offers. Notice that the fabric is collapsing at the (left) fold as the person leans on it. b Rolls of dual-layered carpet being touched and compared by one of the architects in a store. c Back in the warehouse, a new sheet of carpet is suspended in the metal frame and the architect exerts force on it to explore how it holds up

Fig. 4

Small-scale actions/materials intertwining as they form a larger scale activity/affordance unfolding. The single larger scale activity can be viewed as a line similar to the six smaller lines that constitute its unfolding. Although in this figure the decrease in width is less pronounced than in Fig. 2, the larger scale activity does decrease in width, to stress the larger scale activity’s increasing determinacy. Again, from left to right, the multitude of possible ways in which materials and people can be coordinated with, and the activity can continue, makes way for the one actual way in which material has been coordinated and the activity has unfolded on this scale. At the left-hand side, looking onward, the lines indicate an activity—or an affordance inviting enactment, while starting from the right-hand side looking back on the line, the lines indicate materials having been used in action—an enacted affordance

Fig. 5

Small-scale actions/materials intertwining as they form a larger and larger scales activity/affordance unfolding. In this sketch three scales of activity can be discerned: single lines intertwine to form a strand of activity (such as the one depicted in Fig. 4), such strands in turn intertwine to form a larger scale unfolding process—consisting of the figure as a whole. At all these scales, the process is constrained by its own history, represented by their decreasing width. The number of scales depicted is however chosen for ease of presentation (indeed, this figure can be taken as the process visible when “zooming out” to the temporal context of the activity depictured in Fig. 2, but also as the process seen when “zooming in” on that figure further). From left to right, the multitude of possible ways in which materials and people can be coordinated with, and the activity can continue, makes way for the one actual way in which material has been coordinated and the activity has unfolded on this scale. At the left-hand side, looking onward, the lines indicate an activity—or an affordance inviting enactment, while starting from the right-hand side looking back on the line, the lines indicate materials having been used in action—an enacted affordance. In this section it will become clear that the activities within this process need not be performed by the same individual

Fig. 6

Actions/affordances intertwining as they unfold into the large-scale activity of making an architectural installation. The unfolding situations introduced in Fig. 1 have now been added to the figure to indicate their relation to the larger-scale process. The content of the photographs a–h are discussed in the text. Notice that the selected situations a–h are themselves part of situations consisting of unfolding actions/affordances that could be unpacked in same manner, resulting in a figure similar to Figs. 4 or 5 yet again