Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology

by Robert Shaw (Editor), John D. Bransford (Editor)

Originally published in 1977, the chapters in this volume derive from a conference on Perceiving, Acting and Knowing held by the Center for Research in Human Learning at the University of Minnesota in 1973. The volume was intended to appeal, not just to the specialist or the novice, but to anyone sufficiently interested in psychology to have obtained a sense of its history at the time. Through these essays the authors express a collective attitude that a careful scrutiny of the fundamental tenets of contemporary psychology may be needed. In some essays specific faults in the foundations of an area are discussed, and suggestions are made for remedying them. In other essays the authors flirt with more radical solutions, namely, beginning from new foundations altogether. Although the authors do not present a monolithic viewpoint, a careful reading of all their essays under one cover reveals a glimpse of a new framework by which theory and research may be guided.

Genres: Psychology

492 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of research papers from the 1970s.

I picked this up mostly because I wanted to read James J. Gibson's "Theory of Affordances" paper (chapter 3 of the book) which is still of interest to AI/Robotics people like me. Gibson went on to write a lot more papers and an entire book about Affordances but this particular paper makes a very concise summary of his theory. I recommend it if you're interested in that sort of thing.

I read the rest of the book as well, just for fun. Some of the papers were still interesting, some where too outdated by newer research to be interesting, and at least one, Visual Attention and Sensibility (Chapter 6), just seemed a bit silly to me - the author of that proposes a "factual" method of criticizing abstract paintings. But I gather the author went on to write several more papers in this field, so who knows.

This book is probably not of interest to general readers but worthwhile for the chapter by Gibson if you have an interest in psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, or robotics.