DESTINATION COMPATIBILITY, AFFORDANCES, AND CODING RULES - A REPLY

Proctor, Van Zandt, Lu, and Weeks (1993) argued that the invocation of affordances to explain stimulus-response (S-R) compatibilities in rea ction time is not needed because left-fight direction compatibility, f rom the coding rules approach, explains the apparent ''destination com patibility'' effect of Michaels (1988). In this reply, an experiment d emonstrates that destination compatibility can be shown even when cont radicted by relative left-right motion. The second half of the article addresses theoretical issues separating and joining these two approac hes. It is argued that the domain of the affordance approach in S-R co mpatibility is the guidance of action by information, whereas the doma in of coding rules is S-R incompatibility and noncompatibility, situat ions in which required responses are not afforded and rules must be in voked. The manipulation of rules can mimic some of the consequences of more fundamental perception-action couplings, but principles of the l atter sort are needed.