Attuning the World: Ambient Smart Environments for Autistic Fields of Affordances

Autism spectrum disorder is a condition characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication, repetitive patterns of behaviour, and hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input. Affordance-based Skilled Intentionality that combines ecological-enactive views of cognition with Free Energy and Predictive Processing was proposed as the framework from which to view autism integrally. Skilled Intentionality distinguishes between a landscape of affordances and a field of affordances. The ecological-enactive approach shows that autistic differences in their field of affordances stem from aberrant precision estimation. Autistics over-rely on the precision afforded by the environment - a stable econiche they build. It is argued that autistics have a narrow field, with shallow temporal depth and great intensity and affective salience of the affordances that do come up in the field. I will build on the ecological-enactive account of autism to suggest that one therapeutic way to shape the autistic field of affordances is through the use of Ambient Smart Environments (ASEs). The understanding of ASEs as a meta-affordance that intervenes on the user's field of affordances was put forward recently. Taking the cue from autistic lived experience while supporting the niche construction style of autistics, ASEs could help minimise environmental uncertainty.