The ecological approach to perception: the place of perceptual content

The kind of perceptual systems that human beings possess enables each of us to respond in highly adaptive deliberate ways that take into account the suitability of particular behaviors to what we are aware of ourself as experiencing perceptually here and now. In deciding what to do next under the perceived circumstances, content is the dimension of perceptual experience that we consult. For perceptual content is how whatever the perceiver is now having perceptual experience of is given in or taken by the respective perceptual experience. Perceptual content includes presentational content, which is all the ways that what you are perceptually experiencing may be appearing to you, and intentional content, which is all the ways that your stream of perceptual experience may take to be that of which you have perceptual awareness in the environment or self. Therefore, perceptual content must be distinguished from the intentional object of perceptual awareness, which is that property, event, or entity of which you have perceptual awareness. Gibson proposed that there is no perceptual content independent of the particular intentional objects that one perceptually apprehends, which are always part of the ecological environment. This externalization of perceptual content was due, no doubt, to Gibson's conception of perceptually apprehending anything at all as not mediated by awareness of anything else, such as something immanent in perceptual experience itself. However, perceptual content need not be, theoretically, a replacement for what the perceiver has perceptual awareness of. During straightforward perceiving, the perceiver does not have awareness of perceptual content but of parts of the ecological environment including the perceiver. Perceptual content is how the external intentional object perspectivally appears from moment to moment and how it is perceptually taken to be, veridically or not. Perceptual taking of an ecological property is always in one or another of the latter's instantiations, and perceptual taking of an ecological entity or event is always with properties. The perceptual intentional object's appearing in a particular manner is distinct from perceptually taking the intentional object. For example, an ecological property may be taken quite veridically yet through a flow of varying appearance. And even when the property appears in a constant way, perceptual awareness may take it differently from one moment to the next. For example, a perceiver may have visual awareness of a surface without noticing the surface's color-texture, though the color-texture may appear to the perceiver throughout looking at the surface, before and after he or she stops noticing the color-texture.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

An ecological approach to learning

This paper introduces a special journal issue devoted to the study of learning in ecological and developmental contexts. In the past, the dominant approach to the study of learning has depended upon the choice of arbitrary problems, stimuli, and responses to guarantee the generality of principles discovered in the laboratory. Recently, though, there has been considerable interest in integrating an ecological (functional) account of learning with the strengths of the classic laboratory approach. One form of integration is to use the technology of the laboratory to look for the operation of general learning laws in ecological problems. The approach favored here is to treat learning as a biological phenomenon by first placing it within a functional system of behavior, and then by analyzing where and how learning modifies the operation of that system. Because the results of such analyses are defined with respect to functioning systems rather than procedural paradigms, the ecological approach readily makes contact with issues in evolution, development, and physiology, an ability not completely shared by the classic general-process approach. Concerns about laboratory versus field, function versus mechanism, generality of results, and adaptive “storytelling” can be resolved or further clarified by the present approach. The papers in this issue represent a cross-section of research stemming from an ecological approach to learning, and provide specific analyses of how learning modifies and is expressed in functional systems of behavior.     

An ecological approach to disjunctivism

In this paper I claim that perceptual discriminatory skills rely on a suitable type of environment as an enabling condition for their exercise. This is because of the constitutive connection between environment and perceptual discriminatory skills, inasmuch as such connection is construed from an ecological approach. The exercise of a discriminatory skill yields knowledge of affordances of objects, properties, or events in the surrounding environment. This is practical knowledge in the first-person perspective. An organism learns to perceive an object by becoming sensitized to its affordances. I call this position ecological disjunctivism. A corollary of this position is that a case of perception and its corresponding case of hallucination—which is similar to the former only in some respects—are different in nature. I show then how the distinguishability problem is addressed by ecological disjunctivism.

     

An ecological approach to cognitive enhancement: Complex motor training

Cognitive training has received a lot of attention recently, yielding findings that can be conflicting and controversial. In this paper, we present a novel approach to cognitive training based on complex motor activities. In a randomized controlled design, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: aerobic exercise, working memory training or designed sport — an intervention specifically tailored to include both physical and cognitive demands. After training for eight weeks, the designed sport group showed the largest gains in all cognitive measures, illustrating the efficacy of complex motor activities to enhance cognition. Designed sport training also revealed impressive health benefits, namely decreased heart rate and blood pressure. In this period of skepticism over the efficacy of computerized cognitive training, we discuss the potential of ecological interventions targeting both cognition and physical fitness, and propose some possible applications.     

Pragmatism,enactivism, and ecological psychology: towards a unified approach to post-cognitivism

This paper argues that it is possible to combine enactivism and ecological psychology in a single post-cognitivist research framework if we highlight the common pragmatist assumptions of both approaches. These pragmatist assumptions or starting points are shared by ecological psychology and the enactive approach independently of being historically related to pragmatism, and they are based on the idea of organic coordination, which states that the evolution and development of the cognitive abilities of an organism are explained by appealing to the history of interactions of that organism with its environment. It is argued that the idea of behavioral or organic coordination within the enactive approach gives rise to the sensorimotor abilities of the organism, while the ecological approach emphasizes the coordination at a higher-level between organism and environment through the agent’s exploratory behavior for perceiving affordances. As such, these two different processes of organic coordination can be integrated in a post-cognitivist research framework, which will be based on two levels of analysis: the subpersonal one (the neural dynamics of the sensorimotor contingencies and the emergence of enactive agency) and the personal one (the dynamics that emerges from the organism-environment interaction in ecological terms). If this proposal is on the right track, this may be a promising first step for offering a systematized and consistent post-cognitivist approach to cognition that retain the full potential of both enactivism and ecological psychology.

     

The intergenerational cycle of teenage motherhood: an ecological approach

OBJECTIVE: Daughters of teenage mothers have increased risk for teenage childbearing, perpetuating intergenerational cycles. Using Ecological Systems Theory, this study prospectively examined risk factors for teenage childbearing among a national sample of adolescent girls. DESIGN: Data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Participants (N = 1,430) were recruited in early adolescence and interviewed yearly for 6 years. Survival analysis was used to examine the rate of childbirth across the teenage years by maternal age at first birth. Hierarchical Cox regression was used to identify multivariate predictors of teenage childbearing and to test whether risk factors differed between daughters of teenage versus older mothers. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: Age at first childbirth was based on cumulative information collected at yearly interviews. RESULTS: Daughters of teenage mothers were 66% more likely to become teenage mothers, after accounting for other risks. Individual (school performance), family (maternal education, marital status, number of children), peer (dating history), and environmental (race, enrichment) factors predicted teenage childbearing. Risks unique to daughters of teenage mothers were deviant peer norms, low parental monitoring, Hispanic race, and poverty. CONCLUSION: Results support multidimensional approaches to pregnancy prevention, and targeted interventions addressing unique risk factors among daughters of teenage mothers.     

An ecological approach to embodiment and cognition

The purpose of this article is to explore the relation between embodiment and cognition from an ecological point of view, which has been given little attention in current studies on embodiment. To begin with, two basic meanings of embodiment are distinguished: the state of being embodied and the act of embodying. This article gives more attention to embodying than to being embodied. Next, the ecological framework to investigate embodiment are presented, with focusing on affordances, tool use, and the body. On this view, it is argued that tools extend action and perception capabilities, which implies that the boundary of the body can be extended beyond the surface of the skin. Then, the empirical studies on perception of affordances, on limb proprioception, and on tool use are outlined. These studies support the idea that the boundary of the body can shift. Finally, the boundary of the body is discussed in reference to perception–action systems, suggesting that research on embodiment should pay more attention to the dynamic nature of the body.     

The role of representative design in an ecological approach to cognition

Egon Brunswik argued that psychological processes are adapted to environmental properties. He proposed the method of representative design to capture these processes and advocated that psychology be a science of organism-environment relations. Representative design involves randomly sampling stimuli from the environment or creating stimuli in which environmental properties are preserved. This departs from systematic design. The authors review the development of representative design, examine its use in judgment and decision-making research, and demonstrate the effect of design on research findings. They suggest that some of the practical difficulties associated with representative design may be overcome with modern technologies. The importance of representative design in psychology and the implications of this method for ecological approaches to cognition are discussed.     

From intrapsychic to ecological theories in social psychology: Outlines of a functional theory approach

Social psychology is facing a major developmental task, which is not primarily one of achieving larger data samples and stricter significance testing. What is needed, rather, is an improvement in logic of science and powerful theorizing. The starting point of this article is a critical appraisal that the intrapsychic concepts (motives, attitudes, and explicit and implicit goals) that are the major focus of social–psychological theories lack in explanatory power because they are too close to the effects (actions, judgments, and decisions) they are intended to explain. To overcome this apparent weakness (compared with neuroscience or genetics), it is proposed that more powerful theories should relate social cognition and behavior to more distant variables in the environment. A functional analysis reveals that intrapsychic processes are multiply predetermined by extrapsychic, environmental constraints. The theoretical value and fertility of the proposed ecological functionalism are illustrated with reference to three areas of empirical research: sampling approaches to understanding biases in judgment and decision making; strategic influences on priming effects within a functional analysis of adaptive behavior; and the impact of verbal and symbolic communication constraints on the construction of attributions, stereotypes, and culture. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The ecological approach to perceiving as a foundation for understanding the development of knowing in infancy

The ecological thesis of direct realism is used as a framework for examining the development of knowing in human infancy. When information for perceiving is defined ecologically (i.e., relative to the situational context and to the physical dimensions, capabilities, and needs of the perceiver), knowing need not be construed as the act of using representations to give meaning to acts or percepts. Knowing, alternatively, is the act of noticing affordances, situation and perceiverspecific meanings of objects, according to their value to the perceiver for achieving specific goals. Changes with development in infant sensorimotor functioning may, in this view, be explained by a process of increasing economy in noticing potentially available affordances, rather than a process of constructing a representational system for making present something not present. Studies of three infant skills widely attributed to the onset of representation are examined with regard to this ecological thesis. Results indicate that the noticing of affordances is critically involved in each of these skills.     

Transformative professional learning: an ecological approach to agency through critical reflection

Within the global economy, education leverages social and economic improvement. Teachers are positioned as drivers and agents of compliance within change processes. Addressing this concern, we investigate intern teacher agency, as transformative professional learning, that occurs through a process of critical reflection. Critical reflection is conceived as an important element of teacher agency within the current political milieu. This article addresses the role of critical reflection in school-based intern teacher professional learning (PL). It is argued that intern teacher agency is inherent in transformative PL characterized through partnerships, which provide scope for decision-making and critical reflection.     

Generation of a pictorial code

In Experiments I and II direct measures were obtained of the time required to convert a picture or a sentence to a report of visualization or to a simple drawing, latencies were faster for pictures than for sentences and were affected by the surface form of the sentence. In Experiment Ill, Ss matched pictures or sentences against a test picture under conditions of simultaneous or successive presentation. “Yes” and “No” response times were affected by sentence form under both conditions, although the difference between sentence-picture and picture-picture comparisons was virtually eliminated under the successive condition. In Experiment IV, Ss held a sentence or picture in memory over a 1,500-msec interval at the end of which a test picture or an instruction to draw the design was presented. Construction latencies were shorter in response to pictures than sentences, and there were effects of sentence form on verification time. Some implications of these results are discussed.     

The origins of pictorial competence

Pictorial competence , which refers to the many factors involved in perceiving, interpreting, understanding, and using pictures, develops gradually over the first few years of life. Although experience is not required for accurate perception of pictures, it is necessary for understanding the nature of pictures. Infants initially respond to depicted objects as if they were real objects, and toddlers are remarkably insensitive to picture orientation. Only gradually do young children figure out the nature of pictures and how they are used.     

Implicit memory for new associations: The pictorial influence

A series of experiments was conducted in order to show that implicit memory for new associations is not always dependent on semantic integrative processing during study. The material used in these experiments differed from traditional studies that employed pairs of unrelated words. Instead, targets (words in Exps. 1 and 2 and pictures in Exps. 3 and 4) were encoded in the context of an unrelated picture. The implicit tests used were word-stem completion (Exps. 1, 2, and 3) and picture-fragment identification (Exp. 4). The explicit test was word-stem cued recall (Exps. 1, 2, and 3) and picture-fragment cued recall (Exp 4). For implicit tests, context effects were not obtained using words as targets with a non-integrative semantic-elaboration encoding task (Exp. 1). When an integrative semantic-elaboration encoding task was used, a standard context effect emerged (Exp. 2) for implicit memory. Importantly, with pictures as targets, context effects appeared without integrative semantic encoding (Exps. 3 and 4). However, context effects were obtained for all conditions of cued recall. Results are discussed with regard to the concept of unitization.