Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory

The Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory at the University of Minnesota is part of the School of Kinesiology, in the College of Education and Human Development.

Research on relations between perception and action is relatively recent in the behavioral sciences, and APAL is a leader in quantitative research in this area. Our focus is on the integration of perception and action in the context of meaningful behaviors. In APAL, our research straddles the boundary between basic and applied science: Our research on “basic” issues commonly has implications for applications, such as clinical practice, or the design and use of human-machine systems. Similarly, our research on “applied” issues commonly has implications for general theories of perception-action.

APAL scientists collaborate with researchers from diverse disciplines (Kinesiology, Psychology, Engineering, Computer Science), and from many countries (France, Japan, England, Taiwan, Brazil, China, Australia, and Korea).