Affordances, aesthetics, and sustainability: on the relationship between materials, language and space in everyday object perception

Affordances, aesthetics, and sustainability: on the relationship between materials, language and space in everyday object perception | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Affordances, aesthetics, and sustainability: on the relationship between materials, language and space in everyday object perception Eduardo Naddei Grasso, Francesca Strappini, Anna M. Borghi, Claudia Scorolli This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4143401/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Everyday objects offer invitations to act (affordances). Most empirical work on affordances has focused on the shape and size of objects, neglecting the analysis of other visual properties, such as texture, investigated instead by designers. Texture perception depends on the type of material, which changes the familiarity, aesthetics, and action(s) an object offers. Here, we investigated the influence of aesthetics and material sustainability on affordance activation. We thus employed objects in materials. We re-adapted a well established paradigm in literature, showing objects with the same shape, made from sustainable and non-sustainable materials (namely, plastic vs. wood) with varying degrees of familiarity and pleasantness. The objects were positioned at a near or far distance, and followed by different kinds of verbs (observation, manipulation, function, interaction). Participants also completed the Pro-Environmental Behaviors Scale (PEBS), and rated the objects according to seven dimensions: pleasantness, familiarity, sustainability, hardness, heaviness, ownership, and sociality. Results showed greater facilitation with plastic objects compared to the wooden ones when presented in the near space and followed by function verbs. However, wooden objects had generally shorter response times (RTs), especially when followed by interaction verbs in the far space and by observation verbs in the near. Affordances might have been affected by various features that differentiate the two materials. No correlation between RTs and PEBS was found, though several significant interactions occurred. We argue that the material component may lead to different effects depending on the specific interplay that takes place within the object location and the linguistic elaboration, hypothesizing that beauty might have transversely modulated the responses. affordance materials aesthetics beauty sustainability pro-environmental behavior Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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