Gibson began his 1979 book on visual perception with a thorough investigation of the environment organisms inhabit, rather than the more typical starting point of the anatomy of the eye. The rationale is simple: Gibson understood that to comprehend why the anatomy of the eye is the way it is, we must first understand what qualities it has evolved to detect. The classic explanations state that the eye functions like a camera, with a lens that focuses light (probably an image) upside-down onto a pixelated retina, has a wide range of resolutions, and has a significant blind area.
After using this poor-quality image as the foundation for visual perception, the analysis looked at the internal (representational) structures that are now necessary to enrich the image and make it capable of supporting the rich phenomenology of visual experience. Gibson's first effective action was acknowledging that the analysis does not begin with the eye. Eyes evolved due to selection pressure to allow access to environmental information that may support behavior and guide action.
This approach offers an innovative understanding of what is perceived, how it is perceived, and by whom. Perceivers must first and foremost perceive to engage with their surroundings adaptively. Therefore, the ecological theory assumes that perception is largely accurate. Additionally, it is predicted that humans frequently see affordances rather than the discrete structural features that have been previously investigated. It is through the dynamic, multimodal information in events that these affordances are seen. This is necessary because affordances are frequently complex qualities not directly related to the static stimulus pieces given by perceivers in conventional research paradigms.
The major claims of Gibson's ecological approach to perception are−
The environment is perceived directly, without the use of representations or images;
Perception is unaffected by any memory, schema, or other cognitive structure;
Information is present "worldwide";
Perception is the extraction of invariants from an optic array;
Perceiving resembles resonance more than "processing";
Relevant features that represent an animal's interests and needs are among the characteristics of the environment that are immediately observed;
Perception does not include computing; and
Surfaces can be perceived visually, both hidden and not hidden.
The concept of invariant environmental features is the foundation of Gibson's approach. According to Gibson, an invariant is "non-change that endures during change" and "lawful change in the array." The following are five of the significant invariants−
Increasing density of optical texture − As a viewer walks along the gradient, texture gradients do not change. Since equal amounts of texture indicate equivalent amounts of terrain, this consistency of texture aids in defining the scale of space. It also aids in determining how big objects appear because their bases cover equal texture units.
Flow patterns of gradients − Environment textures flow as an observer moves. The gradient moves in all directions when a person is walking straight ahead, except for the spot they are traveling toward, which remains constant because it is in the center of the optical flow pattern. As a result, maintaining the unchanging (invariant) center of the optical flow pattern focused on the intended location allows a person to stay on course as they travel toward an entity.
Structure common to two successive views − As a person moves around the surroundings or scans it by eye movements, the views seen at successive times overlap. Even if the sight changes, the person can still experience it as a coherent, continuous whole thanks to this overlap.
Non-disruption of edges that are covering or uncovering − Surfaces in the environment are observed to move relative to one another as the observer's point of observation changes. The surfaces being covered (the components vanish from view) or uncovered are gradually disrupted by this movement, known in ancient perception literature as motion parallax. Gibson claims that the non-disruption of the surface that is covering or uncovering defines it and that this non-disruption is invariant.
Affordances are "what the animal's environment delivers, what it supplies or furnishes." A ledge, for instance, provides a place to sit, air for breathing, and water for drinking and bathing. As a result, affordances are objects' meanings for observers, and these meanings generally do not change.
Gibson's analysis of the environment identifies two key facts −
Rather than light itself, light's structure serves as the foundation for perception. The Ganzfeld experiments provide the most compelling evidence, showing how an observer might be exposed to copious amounts of light in a completely homogeneous light field and still perceive nothing. An observer in a whiteout during a blizzard is in this situation; there is much light energy but no structure. Therefore nothing is perceived, frequently with deadly results. However, light that has come into contact with a surface has a structure that reflects that contact and can convey information about the surface. The major goal of ecological psychology research is to determine the components of this structured light, which Gibson refers to as the optic array.
Living things are constantly moving about their surroundings. More crucially, the alterations are not random, giving us access to a sample of the optic array that is constantly changing thanks to this motion. Instead, the array's structure will change gradually and in ways unique to the interaction between the organism and the ecological aspects of the environment that gave rise to the structure. These world attributes result in higher order relational structure in this optic flow, and these invariants, which are particular to the properties that created them, can survive the transformation. By describing information about affordances and occurrences, these invariant traits enable organisms to perceive ecologically significant aspects of the environment directly.
Gibson's approach will gain widespread acceptance once others have produced evidence. The complexity of the issue is at least partially to blame for the current lack of experimental backing for his approach: While it is true that visual perception involves more than just seeing stimuli in a lab, it is another thing to be able to conduct useful research in the complicated environment that exists outside. The application of his invariants by the visual perceptual system and the immediate perception occurrence may take time to demonstrate.
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