Perceived affordances for human biomechanics at work

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A sample of workers, exposed to identical job tasks and physical loading, dissociate over time into a group who report disabling soft tissue injury and a group who do not. The critical characteristics that determine group membership are not clearly understood. Longitudinal studies have identified various physiological, biomechanical, and psychophysical factors that contribute to increased injury risk, typically constructed in a multi-factorial model. However, the specific factors and levels are equivocal and contradictory between studies, and a neuropsychological basis for these behavioural differences is undetermined. Gibson's pioneering work in ecological psychology provides a robust model for the relationship between context and action, in the theory of affordances. Systematic exploration of behaviour in activities of daily living has revealed strong associations between features of the environment and motor ability or task-relevant anthropometrics of participants. While work activities have previously been examined through general psychophysical methods (eg. Snook tables for acceptable task limits), empirical studies of occupational tasks within an affordance theory paradigm present an important next step for developing practical and effective soft tissue injury risk controls.