Ecological psychology
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Ecological psychology is the scientific study of perception-action from a direct realist approach. Ecological psychology is a
Barker
Gibson
It is Gibson's emphasis that the foundation for perception is ambient, ecologically available information – as opposed to peripheral or internal sensations – that makes Gibson's perspective unique in perceptual science in particular and cognitive science in general.[3] The aphorism: "Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of" captures that idea.[4] Gibson's theory of perception is information-based rather than sensation-based and to that extent, an analysis of the environment (in terms of affordances), and the concomitant specificational information that the organism detects about such affordances, is central to the ecological approach to perception. Throughout the 1970s and up until his death in 1979, Gibson increased his focus on the environment through development of the theory of affordances - the real, perceivable opportunities for action in the environment, that are specified by ecological information.
Gibson rejected outright
His approach to perception has often been criticised and dismissed when compared to widely publicised advances made in the fields of neuroscience and visual perception by the computational and cognitive approaches.[5]
However, developments in cognition studies which consider the role of
Given that Gibson's tenet was that "perception is based on information, not on sensations", his work and that of his contemporaries today can be seen as crucial for keeping prominent the primary question of what is perceived (i.e., affordances, via information) – before questions of mechanism and material implementation are considered. Together with a contemporary emphasis on dynamical systems theory and complexity theory as a necessary methodology for investigating the structure of ecological information, the Gibsonian approach has maintained its relevance and applicability to the larger field of cognitive science.
See also
- Action-specific perception
- Ambient optic array
- Community psychology
- Conservation psychology
- Embodied cognition
- Environmental Design Research Association
- Evolutionary psychology
- Information ecology
- Situated cognition
- Urie Bronfenbrenner
References
- ^ Kieft, J.; Bendell, J (2021). "The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about climate influenced societal disruption and collapse: an introduction to psychological research". Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) Occasional Papers. 7: 1–39.
- ^ * Barker, R. G. (1968). Ecological psychology: Concepts and methods for studying the environment of human behavior. Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press.
- Barker, R. G. (1979). Influence of the frontier environment on behavior. In J. O. Steffen (Ed.), The American West (pp. 61-92). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Barker, R. G. (1987). Prospecting in environmental psychology. In D. Stokols & Altman (Eds.), Handbook of environmental psychology, Vol. 2. (pp. 1413-1432). New York: Wiley.
- Barker, R. G. & Associates. (1978). Habitats, environments, and human behavior. Studies in ecological psychology and eco-behavioral science from the Mid¬west Psychological Field Station, 1947-1972. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Barker, R. G. & Schoggen, P. (1973). Qualities of community life: Methods of measuring environment and behavior applied to an American and an English town. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Schoggen, P. (1989). Behavior settings: A revision and extension of Roger G.Barker's ecological psychology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- ^ Gibson, James J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Boston: Hughton Mifflin, p. 21.
- ^ Mace, W. M. (1977). James J. Gibson's strategy for perceiving: Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. In R. E. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
- ^ Bruce, V., Green, P. & Georgeson, M. (1996). Visual perception: Physiology, psychology and ecology (3rd ed.). LEA. p. 110.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Clark, A., (2008), Supersizing the Mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- ^ Clark, A. and D. Chalmers, (1998), "The Extended Mind." in Analysis, 58(1): 10-23.
- ^ Noë, A., Out of Our Heads (2009) and Action In Perception (MIT Press, 2004)
External links
- Viridis Graduate Institute
- Ecological Psychology Information
- International Society for Ecological Psychology
- Centre for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action
- Teaching Psychology for Sustainability
- Direct Perception; An early classic and a good introduction to the theoretical background and available research (circa 1980) on ecological psychology and direct perception; by Claire Michaels and Claudia Carello.
- Ecological Psychology in Context
- YouTube channel PERCEIVINGACTING A collection of video and audio resources in ecological psychology, direct perception, coordination, and related topics.
- Environmental Psychologist and Wellbeing Consultant