Application of Affordance Theory to the Forensic Investigation of a Personal Injury

Abstract

Early research on human perception of their environment by Gibson and colleagues revealed that observers are able to directly perceive objects in the context of their functional utility. As observers move about their environment, they are able to perceive visual, acoustic, and haptic changes that allow them to gather information about possible actions in their environment. This direct perception affordance theory has crucial relevance to the forensic analysis of personal injuries, including falls from heights. In the present case, a worker stepped through a suspended ceiling and suffered significant injuries as a result. We describe our application of the affordance theory to the analysis of this incident. Our analysis included determining the features of the environment that were perceivable to the plaintiff and how the presence of these features could have affected his ability to detect the undesirable fall-through affordance. The usefulness of the affordance theory in the context of forensic human factors is discussed.