ON THE ECOLOGICAL RELEVANCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

B jörkman , M. On the ecological relevance of psychological research. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 ,145–157.—It is argued that lack of ecological relevance is due to ( a ) the 'organismic bias' of theories, where the ecological aspects have not been sufficiently considered, (b) the emphasis on methodological criteria which have lead researches to deal with problems of little ecological relevance, and (c) the fact that conceptions of the real world have not been made sufficiently explicit. Rather than being representative, theories should be biased towards those aspects which are important in the real world. The lens model illustrates how ecological notions have been formalised into a model. Lens model experiments can contribute to valid knowledge about cognitive inference in various ecological contexts.