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Psychology Press & Routledge Classic Editions
The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception
This is a book about how we the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do.
The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision -- and what this book is about.
The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision -- and what this book is about.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
James J. Gibson
10 books43 followersJames Jerome Gibson is one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, best known for his work on visual perception. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and his first major work was The Perception of the Visual World (1950) in which he rejected behaviorism for a view based on his own experimental work.
In his later works, including The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979), Gibson became more philosophical and criticized cognitivism in the same way he had attacked behaviorism before, arguing strongly in favor of direct perception and direct realism, as opposed to cognitivist indirect realism. He termed his new approach "ecological psychology".
Gibson’s legacy is increasingly influential on many contemporary movements in psychology, particularly those considered to be post-cognitivist.
In his later works, including The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979), Gibson became more philosophical and criticized cognitivism in the same way he had attacked behaviorism before, arguing strongly in favor of direct perception and direct realism, as opposed to cognitivist indirect realism. He termed his new approach "ecological psychology".
Gibson’s legacy is increasingly influential on many contemporary movements in psychology, particularly those considered to be post-cognitivist.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
October 19, 2020
I want to start with the argument that a large part of the reason we read books is that that it gives us an opportunity to see into the minds of people and therefore to see that they don’t necessarily think in the same ways we do. And I know, that is supposed to be always true, no matter who we read, but you know, often when I read books I think – yeah, I could have written that. I couldn’t say that about this book. The point is that there are a few times when I read a book that I know my brain and this other person’s brain simply don’t function in anything like the same way. And getting to see that is a large part of the pleasure of reading their book.
Mostly I feel like this when the writer reminds me of Aristotle. Don’t get me wrong – there is part of me that would love to think like Aristotle. And I love to watch that style of thinking unfold in all its elegance, in its ordered, clear, concise and devastatingly logical structure – it is like watching one of David Hockney’s iPad art drawings suddenly appear – I can like it all I like, but I also know I’ll never be able to replicate one of those drawings myself. The joy of appreciation for what I’m seeing is simply not born out of an anticipation of ever being able to give it all a go myself.
In this book Gibson is seeking to understand how we see. And he had a good reason for trying to understand that. He was teaching pilots how to land planes, something their visual perception systems hadn’t evolved to do or make sense of, and so he needed to create simulators that would allow them to ‘experience’ the visual aspects of landing a plane and therefore be able to practice that skill in a safe way, but also in a way that would ‘show’ them what that experience actually ‘looked’ like.
The problem is that we have been trained by Western visual artistic traditions to think of seeing as ultimately like seeing the world as if it was a painting – that is to see the world as if we only had one eye and that eye was forced to squint through a knot-hole in a wooden fence. We think we see whole images, in much the same way that paintings work, and paintings work by recreating the perception of a three-dimensional image as if you were stuck at a fixed focal point in that three-dimensional world. Not that that, in itself, isn’t an incredibly interesting and impressive thing to achieve. It is just that that isn’t how our visual system works virtually all of the time.
The first thing to notice about our visual system is that we don’t see the world from a fixed vantage point, but rather that we are constantly in motion. Our eyes are rarely at a fixed location – well, other than when we are in ‘screen time’ mode. When we observe the world we don’t just observe it with a fixed lens, but rather with our entire bodies. If we can’t make something out on first glance, we can move toward or away from it, we can shift our head to the right, jump up and down and so on. But it isn’t just that we can move our body to give our eyes a better vantage-point that explains Gibson’s point here. Instead, the fact that we move through space is one of the most important ways in which we get to understand space at all – to see it. Our moving bodies is what makes visual perception what it is – moving is not an accidental feature of our visual system, but the core to understanding how we see. When we move the stuff that is furthest from us stays fixed, the things closer to us moves in relation to this fixed background. Such changes mean that what we see is occluding edges appearing and disappearing and this slow appearance and disappearance of things from view gives us a means to understand our position within an environment – and this is part of the reason why Gibson refers to his model of visual perception as being ‘ecological’. Our eyes aren’t what we see with in this environment – our visual perception system here is our entire body – because it is only our eyes in motion that allows us to perceive the world.
The other reason this is an ‘ecological’ model is because Gibson sees our visual perception as being interested in understanding the ‘affordances’ of the environment we find ourselves in. Affordance is the word he uses for the potential uses of the various objects we find in an environment, and it is these uses (can I walk on this? Can I use it to hit something? To throw at my attacker? And so on) that help us to understand how the brain constructs visual perception not just as a window onto the world, but to engage with (live within) the environments we find ourselves within.
There is far too much information in this book for someone like me who, let’s be honest, is never going to need to understand the workings of the human visual perception system in anything like the detail that this book provides. But this isn’t the real pleasure of reading this book, rather it is like reading Aristotle. The way we are lead through this discussion, the way each element of the argument builds on the last, making clear that how we think we see and how we actually see the world are different is a devastating tour through the logical development of an argument, but also how reason can be used to help us ‘see again’ beyond our preferred metaphors and understandings. Reading this book is a worthwhile exercise whether you are interested in understanding how we see or not. That is, visual perception is nearly (if not quite) a bit beside the point here. What this book does is provide a breathtaking example of precise and logical reasoning being allowed to unfold – and it is devastating to watch.
Mostly I feel like this when the writer reminds me of Aristotle. Don’t get me wrong – there is part of me that would love to think like Aristotle. And I love to watch that style of thinking unfold in all its elegance, in its ordered, clear, concise and devastatingly logical structure – it is like watching one of David Hockney’s iPad art drawings suddenly appear – I can like it all I like, but I also know I’ll never be able to replicate one of those drawings myself. The joy of appreciation for what I’m seeing is simply not born out of an anticipation of ever being able to give it all a go myself.
In this book Gibson is seeking to understand how we see. And he had a good reason for trying to understand that. He was teaching pilots how to land planes, something their visual perception systems hadn’t evolved to do or make sense of, and so he needed to create simulators that would allow them to ‘experience’ the visual aspects of landing a plane and therefore be able to practice that skill in a safe way, but also in a way that would ‘show’ them what that experience actually ‘looked’ like.
The problem is that we have been trained by Western visual artistic traditions to think of seeing as ultimately like seeing the world as if it was a painting – that is to see the world as if we only had one eye and that eye was forced to squint through a knot-hole in a wooden fence. We think we see whole images, in much the same way that paintings work, and paintings work by recreating the perception of a three-dimensional image as if you were stuck at a fixed focal point in that three-dimensional world. Not that that, in itself, isn’t an incredibly interesting and impressive thing to achieve. It is just that that isn’t how our visual system works virtually all of the time.
The first thing to notice about our visual system is that we don’t see the world from a fixed vantage point, but rather that we are constantly in motion. Our eyes are rarely at a fixed location – well, other than when we are in ‘screen time’ mode. When we observe the world we don’t just observe it with a fixed lens, but rather with our entire bodies. If we can’t make something out on first glance, we can move toward or away from it, we can shift our head to the right, jump up and down and so on. But it isn’t just that we can move our body to give our eyes a better vantage-point that explains Gibson’s point here. Instead, the fact that we move through space is one of the most important ways in which we get to understand space at all – to see it. Our moving bodies is what makes visual perception what it is – moving is not an accidental feature of our visual system, but the core to understanding how we see. When we move the stuff that is furthest from us stays fixed, the things closer to us moves in relation to this fixed background. Such changes mean that what we see is occluding edges appearing and disappearing and this slow appearance and disappearance of things from view gives us a means to understand our position within an environment – and this is part of the reason why Gibson refers to his model of visual perception as being ‘ecological’. Our eyes aren’t what we see with in this environment – our visual perception system here is our entire body – because it is only our eyes in motion that allows us to perceive the world.
The other reason this is an ‘ecological’ model is because Gibson sees our visual perception as being interested in understanding the ‘affordances’ of the environment we find ourselves in. Affordance is the word he uses for the potential uses of the various objects we find in an environment, and it is these uses (can I walk on this? Can I use it to hit something? To throw at my attacker? And so on) that help us to understand how the brain constructs visual perception not just as a window onto the world, but to engage with (live within) the environments we find ourselves within.
There is far too much information in this book for someone like me who, let’s be honest, is never going to need to understand the workings of the human visual perception system in anything like the detail that this book provides. But this isn’t the real pleasure of reading this book, rather it is like reading Aristotle. The way we are lead through this discussion, the way each element of the argument builds on the last, making clear that how we think we see and how we actually see the world are different is a devastating tour through the logical development of an argument, but also how reason can be used to help us ‘see again’ beyond our preferred metaphors and understandings. Reading this book is a worthwhile exercise whether you are interested in understanding how we see or not. That is, visual perception is nearly (if not quite) a bit beside the point here. What this book does is provide a breathtaking example of precise and logical reasoning being allowed to unfold – and it is devastating to watch.
September 22, 2021
(Review from my first read)
I consider this book a must-read for anyone interested in the nature of perception. Gibson introduces his theory of ecological affordances and establishes the field of Gibsonian ecological psychology in this book. He theorizes that visual perception consists of affordances, which are opportunities for action that are constituted by the interaction between an animal’s sensorimotor and bodily skills and the material or physical possibilities offered by the environment. His theory entails significances that objects and environmental structures manifest are immediately perceived, rather than inferred or arrived at through some other cognitive process.
Advice for potential readers in approaching this book: Gibson, as a psychologist, is highly readable. However, as a psychologist, many chapters are devoted to small empirical details, some of which are overly speculative and outdated. His overall theory, beyond these small details, remains highly accurate and fruitful for future adaptation and research, however. So, I would recommend that the really essential chapters of this books are the Introduction, "8. The Theory of Affordances," "3. The Meaningful Environment," and "4. The Relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information." Other chapters I found theoretically rich are "6. Events and the Information for Perceiving Events," "7. The Optical Information for Self-Perception," and "12. The Theory of Information Pickup and its Consequences".
As a summary of his core theory: Gibson argues that the detail and richness of perceptual experience is not the product of cognitive processes inside the brain. Instead, causal events in the mind-independent environment do much of the “work” in providing potential sensory detail, and an animal simply “samples” these elaborately structured details. Environmental structures and objects have exterior surfaces that reflect light waves, sound waves, and other types of oscillations that occur in transmission mediums, and determine diffraction patterns. Gibson calls these diffraction patterns that fill an animal’s ecological niche an ambient array. There are optic arrays, sonic arrays, and so on.
The textures, sizes, sturdiness, and other compositional features of object surfaces diffract oscillation waves in different manners. The layout of object surfaces in an environmental situation also diffract oscillation waves. There are invariant correspondences between ambient array patterns and types of object surfaces or layouts. Animals are equipped with bodily skills that enable them to “sample” ambient arrays (e.g. visual system accesses arrays of light waves) and directly perceive the particular objects, their unique compositional qualities, and their layout in the environment which determine the patterns in the ambient arrays. These skills are result of an animal species’ evolutionary adaptation in accordance to features of its relevant ecological niche.
Gibson also argues that animal behavior is determined by ecological affordances. Affordances are the opportunities for action inherent in the perception of environmental structures, from the perspective of an animal. For any given animal, the objects that populate its perceptual world are not mere physical structures but necessarily meaningful affordances that express potentialities for action. Animals don’t need to engage in voluntary or complex sensory or cognitive processes in order to figure out how to act in the world; affordances, which are immediately perceived, guide an organism’s behavior.
Objects can be affordances because the particular texture and other compositional features of their surfaces determine the diffraction patterns in the ambient array. The invariant correspondences between compositional feature types and diffraction patterns afford an animal to learn to immediately perceive the compositional features via detection of diffraction patterns. Gibson hypothesizes that because perceptual systems are capable of picking up on these invariant correspondences, they are also capable of picking up on more highly complex invariant correspondences, or “invariant combinations,” such as those between particular emotional effects, functions in sociocultural practices or any number of opportunities of action, and the diffraction patterns determined by particular surface compositional features of objects. Gibson implies that there is a sort of classical conditioning learning process animals undergo in order to gain the embodied skills that can access these more complex invariant combinations and amount to direct perception of the usefulness and significances of objects.
Affordances are neither mind-independent properties of the environment nor properties projected by an organism’s sensory or perceptual systems. Instead, they are the relations between particular aspects of an organism and aspects of its environment. Any mind-independent, material environment has infinite possible ways to be interacted on and manipulated. The particular animal at hand as finite skill sets, which determine the ways it can perceive its ecological niche and interact with it. Any affordance is possible because the material environment permits it, and the animal that perceives this affordance has the particular physiological capacities and learned skills that can access to environment in the relevant ways specified by the affordance.
_____
(Scattered thoughts from my second read)
Can we just say that there are two ways of defining perception: (1) as consisting in our five sensory modalities, and (2) as whatever (regardless of whether it’s in a sense-datum format) we apprehend, at a personal-level, in an automatic fashion? Only on (2) can we say that we "directly" perceive affordances. Otherwise, if we commit to (1), we could admit that there is subpersonal processing, the drawing of unconscious inferences, that is necessary for synthesizing the experience of affordances; and so when we consider the subpersonal level, and not only the phenomenological level, perception of afforadnces is not direct.
Gibson argues that our perceptual experience consists in both information about the invariant structures of objects and their visual appearances that vary in accordance with our movements in relation to them. The latter claim agrees with our traditional intuitions on what sorts of entities are admissible in perceptual experience: low-level sensory properties. But the former is more troubling. What exact form does the information about invariant structures of objects take on when we consciously encounter it in perception? Nanay might want to say this information is apprehended in the form of mental imagery, which is concurrent with visual appearances of the environment. But this isn’t our only option: perhaps we can think about encountering information that is disembodied of any visual format. But then in what form does this information occur in perception?
So Gibson admits into perception information that is generated by our sensitivity towards what is invariant—that which accounts for the systematic perspectival changes. We can thereby perceive these invariant structures. Given this commitment, what others kinds of information may also permitted for Gibson? Maybe there are embodied skills and internalized social norms that underpin and systematically govern which diverse meanings flow forward (Sartre's “nothingness” in Being and Nothingness); they are available in perceptual experience in an analogous way to invariant physical structures!
Alva Noe claims in Varieties of Presence that objects we could access given our skills show up, even if they're not physically visible. This specification of which feature of an object suffices for it's showing up perceptually is different from Gibson's. What we can access vs. what is invariant and accounting for the systematic changes. Given these different accounts of the conditions that an object needs to meet for it to show up in perception—do these apparently different accounts actually overlap? What are really the correct conditions to be identified—what kinds of objects are admissible in perception, and on what grounds?
I consider this book a must-read for anyone interested in the nature of perception. Gibson introduces his theory of ecological affordances and establishes the field of Gibsonian ecological psychology in this book. He theorizes that visual perception consists of affordances, which are opportunities for action that are constituted by the interaction between an animal’s sensorimotor and bodily skills and the material or physical possibilities offered by the environment. His theory entails significances that objects and environmental structures manifest are immediately perceived, rather than inferred or arrived at through some other cognitive process.
Advice for potential readers in approaching this book: Gibson, as a psychologist, is highly readable. However, as a psychologist, many chapters are devoted to small empirical details, some of which are overly speculative and outdated. His overall theory, beyond these small details, remains highly accurate and fruitful for future adaptation and research, however. So, I would recommend that the really essential chapters of this books are the Introduction, "8. The Theory of Affordances," "3. The Meaningful Environment," and "4. The Relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information." Other chapters I found theoretically rich are "6. Events and the Information for Perceiving Events," "7. The Optical Information for Self-Perception," and "12. The Theory of Information Pickup and its Consequences".
As a summary of his core theory: Gibson argues that the detail and richness of perceptual experience is not the product of cognitive processes inside the brain. Instead, causal events in the mind-independent environment do much of the “work” in providing potential sensory detail, and an animal simply “samples” these elaborately structured details. Environmental structures and objects have exterior surfaces that reflect light waves, sound waves, and other types of oscillations that occur in transmission mediums, and determine diffraction patterns. Gibson calls these diffraction patterns that fill an animal’s ecological niche an ambient array. There are optic arrays, sonic arrays, and so on.
The textures, sizes, sturdiness, and other compositional features of object surfaces diffract oscillation waves in different manners. The layout of object surfaces in an environmental situation also diffract oscillation waves. There are invariant correspondences between ambient array patterns and types of object surfaces or layouts. Animals are equipped with bodily skills that enable them to “sample” ambient arrays (e.g. visual system accesses arrays of light waves) and directly perceive the particular objects, their unique compositional qualities, and their layout in the environment which determine the patterns in the ambient arrays. These skills are result of an animal species’ evolutionary adaptation in accordance to features of its relevant ecological niche.
Gibson also argues that animal behavior is determined by ecological affordances. Affordances are the opportunities for action inherent in the perception of environmental structures, from the perspective of an animal. For any given animal, the objects that populate its perceptual world are not mere physical structures but necessarily meaningful affordances that express potentialities for action. Animals don’t need to engage in voluntary or complex sensory or cognitive processes in order to figure out how to act in the world; affordances, which are immediately perceived, guide an organism’s behavior.
Objects can be affordances because the particular texture and other compositional features of their surfaces determine the diffraction patterns in the ambient array. The invariant correspondences between compositional feature types and diffraction patterns afford an animal to learn to immediately perceive the compositional features via detection of diffraction patterns. Gibson hypothesizes that because perceptual systems are capable of picking up on these invariant correspondences, they are also capable of picking up on more highly complex invariant correspondences, or “invariant combinations,” such as those between particular emotional effects, functions in sociocultural practices or any number of opportunities of action, and the diffraction patterns determined by particular surface compositional features of objects. Gibson implies that there is a sort of classical conditioning learning process animals undergo in order to gain the embodied skills that can access these more complex invariant combinations and amount to direct perception of the usefulness and significances of objects.
Affordances are neither mind-independent properties of the environment nor properties projected by an organism’s sensory or perceptual systems. Instead, they are the relations between particular aspects of an organism and aspects of its environment. Any mind-independent, material environment has infinite possible ways to be interacted on and manipulated. The particular animal at hand as finite skill sets, which determine the ways it can perceive its ecological niche and interact with it. Any affordance is possible because the material environment permits it, and the animal that perceives this affordance has the particular physiological capacities and learned skills that can access to environment in the relevant ways specified by the affordance.
_____
(Scattered thoughts from my second read)
Can we just say that there are two ways of defining perception: (1) as consisting in our five sensory modalities, and (2) as whatever (regardless of whether it’s in a sense-datum format) we apprehend, at a personal-level, in an automatic fashion? Only on (2) can we say that we "directly" perceive affordances. Otherwise, if we commit to (1), we could admit that there is subpersonal processing, the drawing of unconscious inferences, that is necessary for synthesizing the experience of affordances; and so when we consider the subpersonal level, and not only the phenomenological level, perception of afforadnces is not direct.
Gibson argues that our perceptual experience consists in both information about the invariant structures of objects and their visual appearances that vary in accordance with our movements in relation to them. The latter claim agrees with our traditional intuitions on what sorts of entities are admissible in perceptual experience: low-level sensory properties. But the former is more troubling. What exact form does the information about invariant structures of objects take on when we consciously encounter it in perception? Nanay might want to say this information is apprehended in the form of mental imagery, which is concurrent with visual appearances of the environment. But this isn’t our only option: perhaps we can think about encountering information that is disembodied of any visual format. But then in what form does this information occur in perception?
So Gibson admits into perception information that is generated by our sensitivity towards what is invariant—that which accounts for the systematic perspectival changes. We can thereby perceive these invariant structures. Given this commitment, what others kinds of information may also permitted for Gibson? Maybe there are embodied skills and internalized social norms that underpin and systematically govern which diverse meanings flow forward (Sartre's “nothingness” in Being and Nothingness); they are available in perceptual experience in an analogous way to invariant physical structures!
Alva Noe claims in Varieties of Presence that objects we could access given our skills show up, even if they're not physically visible. This specification of which feature of an object suffices for it's showing up perceptually is different from Gibson's. What we can access vs. what is invariant and accounting for the systematic changes. Given these different accounts of the conditions that an object needs to meet for it to show up in perception—do these apparently different accounts actually overlap? What are really the correct conditions to be identified—what kinds of objects are admissible in perception, and on what grounds?
Read
August 11, 2015This was a fascinating read. Gibson walks you through a novel account of visual perception with rich, detailed explanations and a compelling narrative flow. I won't try to summarize the theory here, and while much of it is intuitively plausible I haven't engaged with the evidence or dug into the details nearly enough to have an opinion on its correctness, but some aspects I particularly appreciated:
* Gibson starts his framework on the level of analysis where the high level features of perception that we care about can be explained, rather than framing things in terms of physics.
* Gibson shows a strong handle on the problems of reifying abstractions, and uses that to drive many of the differences between his theory and the mainstream ones. For example, he drives home the point that planes, lines, and points are abstractions over surfaces and their relationships, and that we should not start by trying to reduce the latter to the former.
* Gibson neither shies away from philosophical approaches where appropriate nor substitutes philosophy for science.
* Gibson has engaged with the mainstream theories as an expert and clearly understands them well, using that understanding to inform his approach.
* The theory is radically different in many ways that, if nothing else, will help remind me that the current paradigms aren't the only way to consider these questions and that they oughtn't be taken for granted (even if they are in fact true and useful). In particular (and this applies to more than just perception), the book serves as an excellent example of the possibility of doing science outside of a reductionist framework.
* Gibson's framework has some really tantalizing possibilities for interesting integrations with my framework of concept formation and other abstract awareness.
* Gibson's approach is profoundly empirical. Not only is the exposition replete with references to existing research, it also makes explicit numerous explicit conclusions about what kinds of experiments should be fruitful and what kinds of evidence we ought to see. The theory is not just a reframing of existing theories with the same ultimate results. I don't know if Gibson is right, but I know I can check
That being said, I did have some concerns. Primarily, the framework presented radically diverges from how I've learned and thought about perception, and as a result even with the detailed descriptions and caveats and contrasts with traditional ideas I had a hard time fully integrating the ideas and getting a sense of the larger structure. This is of course unfair, and probably not something that could be done any better in a single book, but still detracted for me. I think the only real solution here is to dive into the literature that he built his ideas from and try to see how I could build them myself, as unfortunately Gibson died shortly after publication and I've heard some very mixed things about those who came after. I also found the degree of his dismissiveness of those who accept the mainstream theories (in fairness, including his former self) both much stronger than was justified by his presentation and indicative of a potential failure to take into account the ways in which those theories might inform his, even if they're wrong.
* Gibson starts his framework on the level of analysis where the high level features of perception that we care about can be explained, rather than framing things in terms of physics.
* Gibson shows a strong handle on the problems of reifying abstractions, and uses that to drive many of the differences between his theory and the mainstream ones. For example, he drives home the point that planes, lines, and points are abstractions over surfaces and their relationships, and that we should not start by trying to reduce the latter to the former.
* Gibson neither shies away from philosophical approaches where appropriate nor substitutes philosophy for science.
* Gibson has engaged with the mainstream theories as an expert and clearly understands them well, using that understanding to inform his approach.
* The theory is radically different in many ways that, if nothing else, will help remind me that the current paradigms aren't the only way to consider these questions and that they oughtn't be taken for granted (even if they are in fact true and useful). In particular (and this applies to more than just perception), the book serves as an excellent example of the possibility of doing science outside of a reductionist framework.
* Gibson's framework has some really tantalizing possibilities for interesting integrations with my framework of concept formation and other abstract awareness.
* Gibson's approach is profoundly empirical. Not only is the exposition replete with references to existing research, it also makes explicit numerous explicit conclusions about what kinds of experiments should be fruitful and what kinds of evidence we ought to see. The theory is not just a reframing of existing theories with the same ultimate results. I don't know if Gibson is right, but I know I can check
That being said, I did have some concerns. Primarily, the framework presented radically diverges from how I've learned and thought about perception, and as a result even with the detailed descriptions and caveats and contrasts with traditional ideas I had a hard time fully integrating the ideas and getting a sense of the larger structure. This is of course unfair, and probably not something that could be done any better in a single book, but still detracted for me. I think the only real solution here is to dive into the literature that he built his ideas from and try to see how I could build them myself, as unfortunately Gibson died shortly after publication and I've heard some very mixed things about those who came after. I also found the degree of his dismissiveness of those who accept the mainstream theories (in fairness, including his former self) both much stronger than was justified by his presentation and indicative of a potential failure to take into account the ways in which those theories might inform his, even if they're wrong.
March 8, 2008
Dense stuff. The radicality of his thesis gets lost a bit in its common-sense logic. Basically, he is arguing against a laboratory-based model of "the eye being stimulated." In its place he proposes an experience-based theory of perception -- i.e. not seeing but looking. Well, that at least is the best way for me to sum it up in one sentence; it's complicated.
Interesting, but not exactly beach reading (it took me a LOOONG time to get through this one, stopping several times to read other books).
Interesting, but not exactly beach reading (it took me a LOOONG time to get through this one, stopping several times to read other books).
March 30, 2021
One of the basic referents of my own scientific career and also one of the most widely influential books of the 20th century. James J. Gibson's book is still fresh, and still gaining in importance, as the world of science slowly shifts towards his way of thinking about the world. Essentially, he saw action not as a separate event of process, but as a mutually grounded function within both person/organism/agent and the environment. A must read for any scientist, indeed, any person interested in the workings of the world.
August 9, 2024
Oh boy, what a ride.
January 6, 2018
Many sections in this book read like unedited research notes, not suitable for publication in book form - but don't let that distract you. The ecological approach to visual perception was a radically novel proposal 40 years ago, and many of the concepts it introduced are still of great relevance today. The embodied cognition programme in psychology owes a great deal to it, and the affordance-centric approach to perception is a common idea in modern robotics.
Some of the main idea in this book are that 1) vision is a perceptual system that cannot be understood in terms of the eyes to the exclusion of the motor system whereby visual perceivers explore their environment, and 2) that the two-dimensional pattern of light that falls on the retina at any time (the so-called "retinal image", which is not really an image in the sense that it can't be looked at) is not remotely like that which is perceived at that time. The essence of Gibson's "direct perception" thesis, at least in the form I'm most comfortable accepting, is that percepts have more structural features in common with the objects in the world they are supposed to be percepts of, than with the raw sensory data (in the case of vision, the retinal signal) by means of which they are perceived.
(Another idea that I found interesting is that of the "occluding edge" - a visual edge that indicate that one surface is partially hidden by another - because the progressive accretion or deletion of one texture, contrasted with the preservation of the other, provides key information for determining which surface is hiding the other.)
Some of the main idea in this book are that 1) vision is a perceptual system that cannot be understood in terms of the eyes to the exclusion of the motor system whereby visual perceivers explore their environment, and 2) that the two-dimensional pattern of light that falls on the retina at any time (the so-called "retinal image", which is not really an image in the sense that it can't be looked at) is not remotely like that which is perceived at that time. The essence of Gibson's "direct perception" thesis, at least in the form I'm most comfortable accepting, is that percepts have more structural features in common with the objects in the world they are supposed to be percepts of, than with the raw sensory data (in the case of vision, the retinal signal) by means of which they are perceived.
(Another idea that I found interesting is that of the "occluding edge" - a visual edge that indicate that one surface is partially hidden by another - because the progressive accretion or deletion of one texture, contrasted with the preservation of the other, provides key information for determining which surface is hiding the other.)
March 30, 2021
When you have a hammer, everything's a nail.
July 29, 2022
Essentially an elaboration on Heideggers ideas of embodiment, ready-at-hand etc - without giving any credit. Explains the world in terms of how it is experienced for various organisms, contrary to the abstract "world" of physics. Overly pedagogical. Can skip a lot and get the gist of it.
In terms of 'meta-worldviews' though, ecological ontology is definitely where it's at, compared to physicalist ontology.
In terms of 'meta-worldviews' though, ecological ontology is definitely where it's at, compared to physicalist ontology.
Currently reading
April 26, 2022perception is not a passive impression, a tracing of the world, like a death mask, onto the brain
perception is a mobilisation, a coming and going, active, shifting, bodily, preemptive of thought and representation
the knowledge of nonthought in the curve of reaching, the flick of the eyes combined with the neck and legs tilting locomoting along a ground whose arc meets the sky in an infinity line
—
it's, unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), a very ocularcentric lifeworld that gibson paints. there are beautiful passages here about luminous affordances, but i would love to read a blind scholar's response to this work
perception is a mobilisation, a coming and going, active, shifting, bodily, preemptive of thought and representation
the knowledge of nonthought in the curve of reaching, the flick of the eyes combined with the neck and legs tilting locomoting along a ground whose arc meets the sky in an infinity line
—
But the other person has a surface that reflects light, and the information to specify what he or she is, invites, promises, threatens, or does can be found in the light.
it's, unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), a very ocularcentric lifeworld that gibson paints. there are beautiful passages here about luminous affordances, but i would love to read a blind scholar's response to this work
October 6, 2024
I liked how radical this idea was from Gibson.
So, I found some essential keywords here, such as Snapshots, Affordances, Evolve and Survival, Ambient Optic Array & Movement, Loop of Information and Perception, Disappear and Reappear of Memory, Invariant Structure, and Conscious and Unconsciousness.
(Spoiler Alert)
At the beginning of the book, Gibson openly expresses his disagreement with Kurt Koffka, a Gestalt Psychologist, 's idea about perception. Koffka argued that perception resulted from some complex brain processes, whereas Gibson disagreed. He believed that it could be perceived directly. Our eyes are enough for us to understand what we are just seeing. But to explain it, he started from the environment itself, the foundation of everything instead of the eye and brain.
Gibson asked us to think and see things differently. He said, we don’t live in a flat world of pictures but are surrounded by surfaces, textures, and objects, but all of that also has meaning to us called Affordances. Think about a chair. It’s not only about the texture, shape, and color. It affords sitting. And Gibson said we perceive that directly. It’s not a complex mental calculation we learned, the information is RIGHT THERE. We don't learn that the chair is for sitting, we simply see it and know.
Things got more interesting when Gibson said that this all connected to movement. Not just about the light hitting our eyes in this moment, it’s about how the light changes as we move through the world. For example, if we look at a tree and walk closer to it, the more we see things that we didn't see in the previous position. Hidden leaves, shadows, and other textures come into view, all this information. Distance, texture, and many more. He called this an Ambient Optic Array
Every single second, every move, we gain new information. So our brain receives that as DATA. and that data is used by our brain to update our knowledge to understand the next thing that will come to us. Even understanding our bodies is a result of the loop of information and perceptions we get. Just like a baby, newborns learn everything from scratch.
Then he starts talking about invariant structures. He said that even though the information we receive through our eyes keeps changing as we move, there is still an underlying pattern that keeps stable. That's how we make sense of it, and understand it as the same object. For example, we see a door. When we walk up to it, it looks different, but these small things (invariant structures) keep it the same, for example, the proportions of the door (length and width) remain the same. Even though the door looks different from various angles, some essential things stay consistent for our brain to understand. (Ratio) So we understand that the door is still the same but when we move, it just gets closer.
But how does it all come together? I mean the invariant, affordances, and everything that has been mentioned, how does it connect?
This is what's interesting about Gibson's book because he shows us the connections. Invariant is the key to perceive affordances. We understand and perceive not because of conscious reasoning but because our brain has elements that evolve along these structures. The world is speaking the language of possibilities and we are wired to be fluent in it. Like... How do you know how to speak? bruhh, you just knew, right?
Well, yeah that's a wrap. Sorry for the messy writing, this is my first time reviewing here.
So, I found some essential keywords here, such as Snapshots, Affordances, Evolve and Survival, Ambient Optic Array & Movement, Loop of Information and Perception, Disappear and Reappear of Memory, Invariant Structure, and Conscious and Unconsciousness.
(Spoiler Alert)
At the beginning of the book, Gibson openly expresses his disagreement with Kurt Koffka, a Gestalt Psychologist, 's idea about perception. Koffka argued that perception resulted from some complex brain processes, whereas Gibson disagreed. He believed that it could be perceived directly. Our eyes are enough for us to understand what we are just seeing. But to explain it, he started from the environment itself, the foundation of everything instead of the eye and brain.
Gibson asked us to think and see things differently. He said, we don’t live in a flat world of pictures but are surrounded by surfaces, textures, and objects, but all of that also has meaning to us called Affordances. Think about a chair. It’s not only about the texture, shape, and color. It affords sitting. And Gibson said we perceive that directly. It’s not a complex mental calculation we learned, the information is RIGHT THERE. We don't learn that the chair is for sitting, we simply see it and know.
Things got more interesting when Gibson said that this all connected to movement. Not just about the light hitting our eyes in this moment, it’s about how the light changes as we move through the world. For example, if we look at a tree and walk closer to it, the more we see things that we didn't see in the previous position. Hidden leaves, shadows, and other textures come into view, all this information. Distance, texture, and many more. He called this an Ambient Optic Array
Every single second, every move, we gain new information. So our brain receives that as DATA. and that data is used by our brain to update our knowledge to understand the next thing that will come to us. Even understanding our bodies is a result of the loop of information and perceptions we get. Just like a baby, newborns learn everything from scratch.
Then he starts talking about invariant structures. He said that even though the information we receive through our eyes keeps changing as we move, there is still an underlying pattern that keeps stable. That's how we make sense of it, and understand it as the same object. For example, we see a door. When we walk up to it, it looks different, but these small things (invariant structures) keep it the same, for example, the proportions of the door (length and width) remain the same. Even though the door looks different from various angles, some essential things stay consistent for our brain to understand. (Ratio) So we understand that the door is still the same but when we move, it just gets closer.
But how does it all come together? I mean the invariant, affordances, and everything that has been mentioned, how does it connect?
This is what's interesting about Gibson's book because he shows us the connections. Invariant is the key to perceive affordances. We understand and perceive not because of conscious reasoning but because our brain has elements that evolve along these structures. The world is speaking the language of possibilities and we are wired to be fluent in it. Like... How do you know how to speak? bruhh, you just knew, right?
Well, yeah that's a wrap. Sorry for the messy writing, this is my first time reviewing here.
April 24, 2022
“An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception”, by James Gibson, challenges the common belief that we see with our brain. Gibson does not deny the fact that our eyes are connected to our brain and the optic nerves send signals to it. He dethrones the idea that our eyes work like cameras and send pictures to our brain to interpret. He argues that seeing is not a complex analysis done by our brain to interpret the light that penetrates our eyes. He first starts by detailing the basic component of vision, the optical array. According to Gibson, we see and understand the world by experiencing changes in the optical array and learning what a certain change in our optical array signifies from an early age. For example, a moving object will take up more and more space, in the optical array we see, if it is approaching. Gibson analyzes and responds to many previously conceived theories of visual perception and proposes how they are wrong by compared to his ecological approach. The ecological approach stipulates that we see with our eyes, on our head, with our head on our body, and our body on the ground, and our body can move to occupy different places of perception. Gibson backs all his claims with studies he and other professors conducted to prove that surfaces and solid angles are the components by which we recognize things in the environment. According to Gibson, the significance of affordance (what the environment offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill), can also experience through what our eyes as an organ sees and is not processed by our brain, like a machine, to understand. “An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception”, is a tremendously interesting book and it was astonishing to realize how our knowledge of visual perception has advanced.
November 17, 2019
In this book Gibson continues the development of his ecological approach to psychology. His emphasis remains on information and animal-environment interaction but quite refreshingly he is explicit about how his ideas evolved, including rejecting earlier formulations, explanations and assumptions. In this respect, the book is invaluable in reading Gibson. Some chapters are rather repetitive but not disturbingly so. In the end, the reader should have a much clearer view of how visual perception works in reality, beyond laboratory conditions and intriguing demostrations. One of the most modern elements of Gibson's approach is the debunking of geometry and other implementation mechanisms that detach us from true experience and distort our understanding of real phenomena. The chapters on pictures and moving pictures are excellent examples of the transparency one can achieve through this way of reasoning.
May 15, 2025
How we see the world is how we act in the world. While conventional theories trap perception inside the skull—a computer crafting representations from meaningless inputs—Gibson open the doors and invites us outside. The ecological approach reveals perception not as a passive reception of data but as a dance between organism and environment. The world isn't a puzzle to be solved but a landscape of affordances, opportunities for action. Sterile laboratory experiments with their static displays fail to encounter the information-rich environment that has always surrounded us. We are not detached observers but fully embodied participants. Gibson doesn't just change how we understand vision; he transforms how we see ourselves in the world—not as processors of information but as explorers of meaning.
June 9, 2025
Gibson takes aim at half of psychology and doesn’t miss. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception argues, at length, that we don’t see shapes — we see affordances. Chairs to sit on, doors to walk through, cliffs not to fall off. It’s radical, repetitive, and not particularly interested in your comfort.
The writing is blunt and unapologetic. He invents terms as needed, repeats himself constantly, and dismantles retinal image theory like it owes him money. But once it clicks, it’s hard to unsee. You start noticing the world the way Gibson wants you to: not as images, but as invitations to act.
Essential reading. Just don’t expect it to hold your hand.
The writing is blunt and unapologetic. He invents terms as needed, repeats himself constantly, and dismantles retinal image theory like it owes him money. But once it clicks, it’s hard to unsee. You start noticing the world the way Gibson wants you to: not as images, but as invitations to act.
Essential reading. Just don’t expect it to hold your hand.
November 15, 2023
I wonder what this guy would say today based on current research. Would assume he’d change a lot of what he wrote to form a more constructivist view, but the information here is honestly amazing. Love how he tries to bring in physics and psychology together. This is the first I’ve read about invariants and affordances, will be thinking about it for the rest of my life. Maybe it’s a little painful the details he gets down to, but it’s for the good of explaining the concepts as best as he can. Would recommend this book to just about anyone concerned with perception or phenomenology
March 21, 2020
Groundbreaking work. This is truly a classic in the fields of psychology and perception. He breaks down many of the accepted notions of visual perception (gestalt/sensory and stimulatory response) with thoughtful insights and experimental interpretations. I only wish that experimental validation of the theories had been presented, as well. Guess I'll have to go digging through citations...
September 27, 2024
It is a dated book, to say the least and it ridden with opininated contents. Still gives some foundational ideas into visual cognitive psychology but I would highly recommend looking into new studies in this field
to-read-per
February 17, 2020Recommend by Jordan Peterson in his 3017 Maps of Meaning Lecture 06, posted 2/21/17. Peterson thinks Gibson’s fundamental conclusion is wrong, but that the whole book is brilliant!
Want to read
June 30, 20211000)
June 10, 2022
Es una genialidad. El cap de los affordances está tremendamente sobrevalorado.
April 1, 2019
We cannot change it. Why has man changed the shapes and substances of his environment? To change what it affords him. He has made more available what benefits him and less pressing what injures him. In making life easier for himself, of course, he has made life harder for most of the other animals. We all fit into the substructures of the environment in our various ways, for we were all, in fact, formed by them. We were created by the world we live in.
Gibson said that if what we perceived were the entities of physics and mathematics, meaning would have to be imposed on them. But if what we perceived are the entities of environment science, their meaning can be discovered. He has conceived "the theory of affordances". He has described the environment as the surfaces that separate substances from the medium in which the animals live. But he has also described what the environment affords animals, mentioning the terrain, shelters, water, fire, objects, tool, other animals, and human displays. The import question is how do we go from surfaces to affordance? A radical hypothesis implies that the values and meanings of things in the environment can be directly perceived, moreover, it would explain the sense in which values and meaning are external to the perceiver.
The advantage to the theory of perception to be derived from a study of this affordance is apparent at every step. We may in our perception-action coupling space conceive quadratic forms like those of the conics, follow Joachimsthal's equation, in connection with maximization and minimization problem in motor control, and observed that if we adopt the fertile method of investigation introduced by Joachimsthal, an equilibrium equation of locomotion and manipulation arose in connection with the determination of existence of quadratic function.
Gibson said that if what we perceived were the entities of physics and mathematics, meaning would have to be imposed on them. But if what we perceived are the entities of environment science, their meaning can be discovered. He has conceived "the theory of affordances". He has described the environment as the surfaces that separate substances from the medium in which the animals live. But he has also described what the environment affords animals, mentioning the terrain, shelters, water, fire, objects, tool, other animals, and human displays. The import question is how do we go from surfaces to affordance? A radical hypothesis implies that the values and meanings of things in the environment can be directly perceived, moreover, it would explain the sense in which values and meaning are external to the perceiver.
The advantage to the theory of perception to be derived from a study of this affordance is apparent at every step. We may in our perception-action coupling space conceive quadratic forms like those of the conics, follow Joachimsthal's equation, in connection with maximization and minimization problem in motor control, and observed that if we adopt the fertile method of investigation introduced by Joachimsthal, an equilibrium equation of locomotion and manipulation arose in connection with the determination of existence of quadratic function.
May 27, 2012
Pick up a hammer. How did you know which end to pick up? It's not necessarily experience or intelligence; toddlers do the same with their toy tools, as well as chimpanzees in laboratory experiments. And how do you know what it's possible to do with the hammer? Again, it's not necessarily experience or intelligence; some animals as simple as wasps use small pebbles to hammer down the earth.
James Gibson, a vision psychologist, develops a theory in this book about how people (and other animals) can determine what it's possible to do, based on his concept of affordance. He writes,
The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.
Gibson's concept of affordance has a natural appeal, and it has been adopted (or adapted) in many fields, from user interaction design to robotics. (Though its scientific underpinnings still remain in dispute. Many dismiss the idea because a plausible visual or cognitive mechanism for identifying affordances has not yet been identified, but others, especially in the subfield of ecological psychology, still pursue the idea with new theories and experiments.) It's sometimes a bit frustrating, in that so many details are missing, but it's a worthwhile read.
James Gibson, a vision psychologist, develops a theory in this book about how people (and other animals) can determine what it's possible to do, based on his concept of affordance. He writes,
The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.
Gibson's concept of affordance has a natural appeal, and it has been adopted (or adapted) in many fields, from user interaction design to robotics. (Though its scientific underpinnings still remain in dispute. Many dismiss the idea because a plausible visual or cognitive mechanism for identifying affordances has not yet been identified, but others, especially in the subfield of ecological psychology, still pursue the idea with new theories and experiments.) It's sometimes a bit frustrating, in that so many details are missing, but it's a worthwhile read.
December 8, 2015
The legend never dies. Here's a little snippet, a footnote that gestures toward the tenor of Gibson's writing:
Ever since someone peeled off the back of the excised eye of a slaughtered ox and, holding it up in front of a scene, observed a tiny, coloured, inverted image of the scene on the transparent retina, we have been tempted to draw a false conclusion. We think of the image as something to be seen, a picture on a screen. You can see it if you take out the ox’s eye, so why shouldn’t the ox see it? The fallacy ought to be evident.An iconoclast, and a pace-setter for neurobiological and psychological researchers after him.
March 27, 2010
A very dense argument about our notion of perception and how we see the world. I was especially interested in Gibson's explanation of "Affordance Theory" which is relevant to some of my current research.
March 21, 2007
J.J. reset the standard with this classic. If you want to know how we do what we do in our visual environment, give it a read.
to-resume
May 25, 2017Gibson thinks psychology has developed a little physics envy as it tries to become a legit science. In the process, it has lost its intuitions about the basic settings in which perception happens.
The first portion of the book is just Gibson trying to put words to our intuitive understanding of our environments, as opposed to a physicist's understanding. This is dry stuff.
The first portion of the book is just Gibson trying to put words to our intuitive understanding of our environments, as opposed to a physicist's understanding. This is dry stuff.
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