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The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems
... When a point of observation displaces relative to the environment so as to sample successive ambient arrays, the optical structure at the point of observation changes systematically. These changes resulting from locomotion define optical flow (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1986. In the limiting case, displacement of the point of observation occurs parallel to an uncluttered and level ground plane that recedes to a pure horizon to meet a cloudless sky. ...
... The resultant optical effect is the instantaneous change in the optical positions of environmental texture elements induced exclusively by the moving point of observation. Because each instantaneous change involves a magnitude and a direction, the pattern of changes across all optical positions defines an instantaneous vector field or flow field (Gibson, 1950(Gibson, ,1966(Gibson, , 1986. Such an idealized optical transformation has been referred to as the canonical flow field (R. Warren, 1990). ...
... In a layout of facing surfaces, the scatter-reflected light bounces from surface to surface endlessly, resulting in multiple reflection or reverberation. Indeed, the multiple reverberation of light is the basis of the rich structure of an optic array (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1982a. The scattered light, nonetheless, travels along a straight path, simply being reflected by the tiny facets of the surface, and hence, still subjected to the laws of reflection. ...
Five experiments examined circular heading perception with optical flows that departed from the canonical form. Noncanonicity was achieved through nonrigidity of the environment (Experiments 1 and 2), oscillations of the point of observation (Experiment 3), and the bending of light (Experiments 4 and 5). In Experiments 1 and 2, perception was impaired more by nonrigidity of the ground plane than by nonrigidity of the medium. In Experiment 3, perception was unimpaired by noncanonical flows induced by the bounce and sway of observer locomotion. In Experiments 4 and 5, perception was not impaired when light paths were distorted by a spherical projection, but perception was impaired when they were distorted by a sine function. Results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that the information for perceiving heading is the ordinal pattern of optical flow.
... As an observer moves throughout the visual environment, there is a corresponding transformation of the projected texture of the environment. Gibson (1966) called this transformation optic flow, and he noted that it provides the observer with information about the layout of the scene, the location of objects, and the observer's movement relative to those objects. As described by Koenderink (1986), the optic flow field can be decomposed into four components: a pure rotation (curl), a uniform translation (lamellar flow), a pure divergence (radial expansion or contraction), and deformation (see Figure 1). ...
... If the same pattern of motion were present in the visual periphery, motion of an object passing the observer would be specified. The radial flow of scene texture resulting from an observer's movement through the environment is important for specifying the direction of heading (the path of motion) of an observer (Gibson, 1966) and for specifying the approach of objects relative to the observer (Lee, 1976). As with lamellar flow, the location in the visual field of the radial flow pattern specifies the location of the approaching object. ...
... Thresholds in the slower radial flow case were significantly lower than the faster radial flow case for the most central eccentricities, suggesting that a larger percentage of neurons tuned to the slower speed or that neurons tuned to a slower speed may be more sensitive. Lower thresholds for slower radial flow fields is important functionally, as well, because points closest to the focus of expansion (FOE; Gibson, 1966) move at the slowest velocity and FOE of the radial flow field is particularly important for the detection of heading. ...
Forty observers participated in a study examining the effect of age on the detection of motion in central and peripheral vision. Detection of lamellar (Experiment 1) and radial flow (Experiment 2) was measured for 20 younger observers and 20 older observers (10 men and 10 women in each group). Motion thresholds were measured for angles of 0°, 10°, 20°, and 40° off fovea. The results indicated significant differences between older and younger adults for both motion types. The effect of age was mediated by the gender of the observer as well as the retinal eccentricity of the display. Older women showed higher thresholds for lamellar flow at fovea, consistent with previous findings. The findings suggest that age-related changes in visual information processing are affected by changes in the temporal characteristics of the motion processing system. A model is proposed in which 2 different streams of processing are used for the recovery and use of motion information.
... .. those who have endorsed the use of optical flow 1 When the environment is cluttered and there are true, nonnegligible, occluding edges, the revealing and concealing of surfaces accompanying a change in position of observation results in increments and decrements of optical texture. As Gibson (1966Gibson ( , 1986 repeatedly underscored, these disturbances do not constitute a flow or transformation because units of the array do not map from preceding to successive arrays. The invariants specific to environmental layout are not invariants under projective transformations (see Todd, 1985b). ...
... For animals with frontal eyes, such as humans, only some portion of the ambient optic array enters the eye. Only by rotating the eyes and the head can the animal sample all the optical structure ambient to a point of observation (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1982(Gibson, , 1986. As the eye scans across the ambient array, the field of view (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1986, a bounded sample of the whole sphere of optical structure ambient to a position of observation, sweeps over the ambient array with progressive gain and loss at its leading and trailing edges. ...
... Only by rotating the eyes and the head can the animal sample all the optical structure ambient to a point of observation (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1982(Gibson, , 1986. As the eye scans across the ambient array, the field of view (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1986, a bounded sample of the whole sphere of optical structure ambient to a position of observation, sweeps over the ambient array with progressive gain and loss at its leading and trailing edges. The ambient array, however, remains invariant (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1986. ...
N.-G. Kim, R. Growney, and M. T. Turvey (1996) demonstrated the nonnecessity of the DMP strategy, the cornerstone of the wayfinding theory proposed by J. E. Cutting, K. Springer, P. A. Braren, and S. H. Johnson (1992). Based on the reanalyses of the results of N.-G. Kim et al.'s Experiment 2, J. E. Cutting (1996) proposes another retinal variable DDLO as a substitute for DMP. The evidence for this new variable, however, is only circumstantial. A preferential strategy, we argue, follows from recognizing that different fields of view are samplings of optical flow that enhance the detection of invariants–such as that which is hypothesized to specify direction of heading.
... When a person uses a hand-held tool or probe to act on or to explore the environment, he or she feels the end of the implement, the surfaces that it contacts, and the implement as an extension of the body rather than as another part of the environment (e.g., Gibson, 1966;Katz, 1925;Lotze, 1856Lotze, / 1885Polanyi, 1958;Simpson, 1976;Vaugbt, Simpson, & Ryder, 1968). These features of human haptic perception are well recognized but poorly understood. ...
... These features of human haptic perception are well recognized but poorly understood. Moreover, they are features that humans share with many other animals for whom touching is an indirect mechanical disturbance of the skin mediated by an appendage and not a direct impression on the skin by an object (Gibson, 1966). Many animals have appendages to the skin (e.g., vibrissae, hairs, claws, horns, and so on) that protrude into the surrounding layout of surfaces and provide a means for obtaining information at some distance from the skin. ...
... The approach that we take toward this perceptual capability is that advanced by Gibson (1959Gibson ( , 1966Gibson ( , 1979. A simple formula expresses the essentials of the approach: Perception is specific to information, and information is specific to the environment and to one's movements; hence perception is specific to the environment (exteroperception) and to one's movements (proprioperception). ...
This study examined the ability to perceive surface separation on the basis of mechanical stimulation resulting from striking the surfaces' interiors with a hand-held rod. The variables manipulated were aperture size, angular displacement Θ, distanceb of the point of contact with the surfaces from the axis of rotation, hand-rod mass m, location of the hand–rod's center of mass a, and moment of inertia Io of the hand-rod. Given a particular rod and an aperture at a given distance, λ = sin(Θ/2) [1 −(2a/b) + (ma²/Io) ] was invariant over explorations. Perception of aperture size was specific to λ; it predicted successfully the interdependent effects of Θ, b, and the mechanical properties of the implement. The results of 7 experiments were discussed in terms of the specificity of perception to information and the general ability to perceive distant things by means of body appendages.
... These two topics are unified by considering the interaction of organisms with the natural environment. This interaction is central to the ecological approach to perception, as promulgated by J. J. Gibson (1966Gibson ( ,1979. Two principles of the ecological approach guide our treatment. ...
... In a normal terrestrial environment this is not possible, because the organism is always in contact with a surface of support and therefore always has information about orientation available to the somatosensory systems (J. J. Gibson, 1966). The only way to eliminate this information is to place an organism in freefall, such as in orbit. ...
... Our analysis implies that constraints on the act of orienting exist only in the presence of both a force (be it gravity or any other) and a resistant surface or medium (J. J. Gibson, 1966). ...
In this article we provide evidence against a fundamental assumption of traditional theories of orientation—that gravitoinertial force is perceived. We argue that orientation is based on information that is available in patterns of motion of the organism. We further argue that perception and control of orientation depend not only on information about an organism's motions relative to the local force environment but also on information about the surface of support and about the compensatory actions of the organism. We describe these kinds of information and discuss their availability to, and across, different perceptual systems. The use of this information for the control of orientation is emphasized. We conclude with recommendations for research based on the new approach.
... If haptic perceiving is not based on the independent processing of the multiple and various peripheral inputs, then how does the nervous system achieve haptic sensibility? Gibson (1966Gibson ( , 1979 addressed this problem through the proposal that the sensory organs should be considered perceptual systems, given that their function is to pick up information (rather than arouse sensations). His goal was to disentangle the act of perceiving from the variegated and individuated neural processes of the sensory organs (see Turvey, Shaw, Reed, & Mace, 1981), Central to Gibson's approach is the idea that when a part of the haptic system is exploring adjacent surfaces, "there is a continuing coordinated inflow of information to the brain from the skin, joints, and other tissues of the hand that uniquely defines the object or surface being explored" (Darian-Smith, 1984, p. 741). ...
... The foregoing paragraph conveys the gist of an argument shared by Katz (see Krueger, 1982), Revesz (1950;Hatwell, 1978), and Gibson (1962Gibson ( , 1966. Despite some differences in their philosophical orientations, each held that haptic perceiving is possible only through active and intentional explorations. ...
... Perceiving, as defined by Gibson (1966Gibson ( ,1979, is the pickup of information over time. In studies on the haptic perception of shape (Gibson, 1962(Gibson, , 1966 or texture (Binns, 1937;Katz, 1936;Taylor, Lederman, & Gibson, 1974), the subjects either move their hands over the object or move the object between their hands. ...
Nine experiments are reported on the ability of people to perceive the distances reachable with hand-held rods that they could wield by movements about the wrist but not see. An observed linear relation between perceived and actual reaching distances with the rods held at one end was found to be unaffected by the density of the rods, the direction relative to the body in which they were wielded, and the frequency at which they were wielded. Manipulating (a) the position of an attached weight on an otherwise uniformly dense rod and (b) where a rod was grasped revealed that perceived reaching distance was governed by the principal moment(s) of inertia (I) of the hand-rod system about the axis of rotation. This dependency on moment of inertia (I) was found to hold even when the reaching distance was limited to the length of rod extending beyond an intermediate grasp. An account is given of the haptic subsystem (hand—muscles—joints—nerves) as a smart perceptual instrument in the Runeson (1977) sense, characterizable by an operator equation in which one operator functionally diagonalizes the inertia and strain tensors. Attunement to the invariants of the inertia tensor over major physical transformations may be the defining property of the haptic subsystem. This property is discussed from the Gibsonian (ecological) perspectives of information as invariants over transformations and of intentions as extraordinary constraints on natural law.
... Recent results in both adult and infant perception suggest something of a Copernican revolution in the way 2-D pattern perception and 3-D form perception are thought to be related. Ecological and mathematical analyses of information available for visual perception have suggested the superiority of information given over time, by motion of objects or observers, in specifying the 3-D forms of objects and the layout of space (Braunstein, 1976;Gibson, 1966Gibson, ,1979Johansson, 1970Johansson, ,1975Lee, 1974;Longuet-Higgins & Prazdny, 1980). Such information is often not definable in momentary views of scenes. ...
... This is most obvious in cases where all momentary views consist of fields of apparently unstructured random dots, but when motion is added, structure is perceived (Braunstein, 1976). Closely accompanying claims about the nature of infor-mation have been suggestions that the use of such information depends upon perceptual mechanisms specialized for the pickup of change information (Gibson, 1966;Johansson, 1970). ...
... In addition, Experiment 3*\ suggests that a restricted range of spatiotemporal continuity is required for form perception. Infants did not perceive form from static views spaced as closely as 15° and separated in time by 0.5 s. Such results are consistent with analyses of optical change information as being basic in 3-D perception (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1979Johansson, 1970). The form-perception abilities apparent in these studies may be based on perceptual mechanisms sensitive to information in opt ical transformations. ...
In three experiments with infants and one with adults we explored the generality, limitations, and informational bases of early form perception. In the infant studies we used a habituation-of-looking-time procedure and the method of Kellman (1984), in which responses to three-dimensional (3-D) form were isolated by habituating 16-week-old subjects to a single object in two different axes of rotation in depth, and testing afterward for dishabituation to the same object and to a different object in a novel axis of rotation. In Experiment 1, continuous optical transformations given by moving 16-week-old observers around a stationary 3-D object specified 3-D form to infants. In Experiment 2 we found no evidence of 3-D form perception from multiple, stationary, binocular views of objects by 16- and 24-week-olds. Experiment 3A indicated that perspective transformations of the bounding contours of an object, apart from surface information, can specify form at 16 weeks. Experiment 3B provided a methodological check, showing that adult subjects could neither perceive 3-D forms from the static views of the objects in Experiment 3A nor match views of either object across different rotations by proximal stimulus similarities. The results identify continuous perspective transformations, given by object or observer movement, as the informational bases of early 3-D form perception. Detecting form in stationary views appears to be a later developmental acquisition.
... He contended that economy is achieved by assigning the elements of the texture gradient to that slanted surface on which they would form a uniform (ungraded) texture. On the basis of his observations, Vickers concluded that the minimum principle provides a better account of the operation of texture gradients than either traditional cue theory or Gibson's (1950Gibson's ( , 1966 direct theory. ...
... Cue theory is understood as involving an item by item list of the relation between proximal lines and angles and possible distal slopes, making no mention of the inference rules or algorithms common to cue theory. Direct theory is characterized as involving a cumbersome cognitive apparatus for computing and solving the higher order variables of that theory, totally at variance with Gibson's (1966) notion of "information pick-up." Indeed, in a subsequent evaluation of this experiment Attneave (1972) remarked: "The foregoing comparisons show, if nothing more, the extraordinary difficulty of experimentally confirming or discontinuing a Pragnanz theory as opposed to its alternatives ... I doubt at this point that any experiment of the present kind is going to settle the issue in a decisive way" (p. ...
... A Gibsonian might contend that in most cases the constraints placed upon permissible perceptual representations by proximal stimulation are sufficient to determine a percept, so that the minimum principle must be regarded as a default rule operating in those few cases of impoverished stimulation. However, it should be noted that if our argument about geometric constraints is correct, this Gibsonian contention cannot be justified solely on the basis of ecological optics (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1979. (Our argument does not depend on adopting the conventional premise that stimulation is inherently equivocal from a geometrical point of view.) ...
We examine a number of investigations of perceptual economy or, more specifically, of minimum tendencies and minimum principles in the visual perception of form, depth, and motion. A minimum tendency is a psychophysical finding that perception tends toward simplicity, as measured in accordance with a specified metric. A minimum principle is a theoretical construct imputed to the visual system to explain minimum tendencies. After examining a number of studies of perceptual economy, we embark on a systematic analysis of this notion. We examine the notion that simple perceptual representations must be defined within the “geometric constraints” provided by proximal stimulation. We then take up metrics of simplicity. Any study of perceptual economy must use a metric of simplicity; the choice of metric may be seen as a matter of convention, or it may have deep theoretical and empirical implications. We evaluate several answers to the question of why the visual system might favor economical representations. Finally, we examine several accounts of the process for achieving perceptual economy, concluding that those which favor massively parallel processing are the most plausible.
... This view underlies the motor theory of speech perception (e.g., Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, & Studdert-Kennedy, 1967) as well as the theory of analysis-by-synthesis (Halle & Stevens, 1959). More recently, it has been augmented by ideas derived from Gibson's (1966) theory of event perception (see, e.g., Bailey & Summerfield, 1980;Neisser, 1976;Summerfield, 1979), which postulates that all perception is directed toward the source of stimulation. Although in the Gibsonian framework speech perception is not seen as basically different from the perception of other auditory (and visual) events, the special nature of the source (the human vocal tract) is acknowledged and em-Si phasized. ...
... 2 (b) Another criticism of a more far-reaching sort denies altogether the usefulness of fractionating the speech signal into cues (see, e.g., Bailey & Summerfield, 1980). This view, which rests on the precepts of Gibsonian theory (Gibson, 1966), is taken up in the concluding comments of this article. ...
... Although cues (i.e., acoustic segments) are indispensable for describing how the articulatory information is represented in the signal, we need not postulate special perceptual processes that construct or derive the articulatory information from these elementary pieces. Rather, the articulatory information may be said to be directly available (Gibson, 1966;Neisser, 1976). This is an attractive proposal; we should not forget, however, that there are real questions to be answered about the mechanisms that accomplish phonetic perception and that we know very little about at present. ...
Reviews recent experimental findings that show that the perception of phonetic distinctions relies on the integration of multiple acoustic cues and is sensitive to the surrounding context in specific ways. Most of these effects have correspondences in speech production and are readily explained by the assumption that listeners make continuous use of their tacit knowledge of speech patterns. A general auditory theory that does not make reference to the specific origin and characteristics of speech can, at best, handle only a small portion of the phenomena reviewed here. Special emphasis is placed on studies that obtained different patterns of results depending on whether the same stimuli were perceived as speech or as nonspeech. Findings provide strong empirical evidence for the existence of a speech-specific mode of perception. (4½ p ref)
... It is important to note that although Mandler's theory accounts for the formation of action categories, it stops short of describing how labels get mapped onto or extended to these categories. Mandler's argument is in line with Gibson's (1966Gibson's ( , 1979 view that in perceiving events we detect the invariants that persist from one event to another of the same type. Thus, although specific, situational features of an event may change across occasions (e.g., the agent, location, and objects involved), children may use their perception of what does not change across events to help them identify and classify actions of the same category. ...
... Nonetheless, there are a sufficient number of motion verbs, and they appear early enough in language development, to warrant their continued exploration through this technique. If children begin verb learning by bleaching the details out of action events (e.g., Mandler, 1992Mandler, , 1998 or extracting the invariants from action scenes (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1979, then the ability to abstract verbal essence might be available almost from the start. The verbal essence is the glue that holds the meaning of the verb together and allows the child to figure out what event he or she is seeing-apart from the particular agent, location, or instruments used. ...
In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children’s understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning.
... Simulated observer motion through a cloud of extensionless point lights that give rise to an optic flow field serve this purpose (Kaiser & Hecht, 1995;Kaiser & Mowafy, 1993). Within such a display, the direction of motion is specified by the focus of expansion (FOE; Gibson, 1950Gibson, ,1966. Thus, global tau operates on the angle between the FOE and the object. ...
... The observer's visual system must be able to determine the direction of motion. For linear movement, the direction of motion is specified by the FOE (Gibson, 1950(Gibson, ,1966. For linear forward motion, Warren, Morris, and Kalish (1988) demonstrated that performance declines in the absence of a global flow field. ...
The time-to-passage (TTP; i.e., the time) until an object passes an observer is optically specified by global tau, a variable that operates on the expansion rate of the angle subtended by an object relative to the observer's heading. M. K. Kaiser and L. Mowafy (1993) provided evidence for observers' sensitivity to global tau in a 3-D cloud of point lights. This interpretation is challenged, and it is suggested that TTP judgments are based on a related but much simpler variable, the image velocity of the object. The present study reexamined several factors that are relevant for the extraction of global tau. When global tau and image velocity were brought into conflict by varying the lateral offsets of the targets, observers showed a strong tendency to rely on the latter variable. Other factors that are supposed to affect TTP judgments only if observers relied on global tau, such as flow-field density and gaze-movement angle, did not affect performance.
... Thus, we try to avoid debates as to whether "letters" or "bigrams" are more fundamental units of word perception. Of course, this merely extends Gibson's (1950Gibson's ( , 1966 insight that there is no privileged grain size of physical reality. Just as the environment nests multiple grain sizes of form, embedding finer grain forms in more coarse-grain forms (Gibson, 1966), so too does performance nest multiple grain sizes of form-function correlation, embedding fine-grain functional correlations within coarse-grain correlations (Turvey & Carello, 1981;Turvey, Shaw, Reed, & Mace, 1981). ...
... Of course, this merely extends Gibson's (1950Gibson's ( , 1966 insight that there is no privileged grain size of physical reality. Just as the environment nests multiple grain sizes of form, embedding finer grain forms in more coarse-grain forms (Gibson, 1966), so too does performance nest multiple grain sizes of form-function correlation, embedding fine-grain functional correlations within coarse-grain correlations (Turvey & Carello, 1981;Turvey, Shaw, Reed, & Mace, 1981). ...
Perception is described within a complex systems framework that includes several constructs: resonance, attractors, subsymbols, and design principles. This framework was anticipated in J. J. Gibson’s ecological approach (M. T. Turvey & C. Carello, 1981), but it is extended to cognitive phenomena by assuming experimential realism instead of ecological realism. The framework is applied in this article to explain phonologic mediation in reading and a complex array of published naming and lexical decision data. The full account requires only two design principles: covariant learning and self-consistency. Nonetheless, it organizes and explains a vast empirical literature on printed word perception.
... In particular, the philosopher Norman Malcolm (1977) has rejected mediationism in an especially thorough analysis. Among psychologists, Kolers (1973; see also Kolers & Roediger, 1984;Kolers & Smythe, 1984) and some who favor an ecological perspective (e.g., Bransford, McCarrell, Franks, & Nitsch, 1977;Gibson, 1966Gibson, , 1979) have deliberately avoided, or even rejected, The writing of this article was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH35873. I am grateful for helpful editorial comments from Judith P. Goggin, James J. Jenkins, and an anonymous reviewer; for criticism and encouragement from Elizabeth S. Seehler; and for construetive comments from Olga Watkins and from James Pomerantz, Henry Roediger IIl, Anthony Wright and other members of the Cognitive Tea group at Rice University. ...
... With regard to what the emphasis of direct memory theorizing might be, it seems reasonable to suppose that, by ceasing to look inward to the trace, theorists would be more likely to look outward to the context in which memory occurs. In other words, direct memory theorists would, roughly speaking, do for memory what Gibson (1950Gibson ( , 1966 and his followers have done for perception. One likely effect would be a strengthening of the relation between basic and applied research. ...
Memory theorizing is going nowhere. The reason is that it is rooted in mediationism, the doctrine that memory is mediated by some sort of memory trace. Mediationism is the basic tenet of those who seek the substrate of memory; for students of memory per se it is merely a metaphor, and moreover an unfruitful one, for it cannot be penetrated by the methods of psychology. The rejection of mediationism would serve both to replace mechanistic theories with laws or other modes of explanation and to focus research on the actual experience of memory and on the context in which it occurs. The ensuing advantages are discussed and illustrated.
... In the course of its long history of usage (see E. J. Gibson, 1953), the term perceptual learning has been applied to a great variety of perceptual modifications (Epstein, 1967; E. J. Gibson, 1969;Walk, 1978). In the present studies we intend the term in a sense directly inspired by J. J. Gibson's (1966Gibson's ( , 1979) theory of direct perception and E. J. Gibson's (1969) treatment of perceptual learning. In so doing we do not mean to rule out other usages nor to deprecate the significance of perceptual modifications that do not fit the delineation of perceptual learning emphasized by the Gibsons. ...
... The finding of transfer also fits well with the skill enhancement interpretation of perceptual learning that we derived from the Gibsons (J. J. Gibson, 1966Gibson, , 1979; E. J. Gibson, 1969;Gibson & Gibson, 1955). On this view, perceptual learning is tuning of the process of differentiation, with the result that spatiotemporal informative structures that individuate the vibrotactile patterns are successfully detected. ...
Perceptual learning was examined in two experiments in which subjects, originally unfamiliar with vibrotactile stimulation, were required to identify dynamic vibrotactile patterns with static visual patterns of the same two-dimensional shapes. In Experiment 1 we examined changes in performance with practice under a variety of vibrotactile spatial and temporal conditions. In Experiment 2 we investigated transfer of learning from one set of vibrotactile patterns to another different set. In neither experiment were subjects supplied with knowledge of results. Substantial perceptual learning (improvement in identification with practice) was observed in Experiment 1, although a minority of subjects did not exhibit improvement. Experiment 2 confirmed the general findings of Experiment 1 and also provided evidence of substantial positive transfer. In both experiments, multidimensional scaling of pattern confusion data revealed that practice (and improvement in identification) did not qualitatively change the relative confusability of patterns, suggesting that the (informative) structure of the patterns, irrespective of familiarity with a specific set of patterns, determined confusability. The findings are interpreted in terms of learning constructs offered by E. J. and J. J. Gibson. We conclude by considering the prospects that a connectionist mechanism can account for the observed perceptual learning.
... The person can separate off the invariant principal moments of inertia from the varying products of inertia. Gibson (1966) claimed that "the stimulus information from wielding can only be an invariant of the changing flux of stimulation in the muscles and tendons; an exteroceptive invariant in the play offerees" (p. 127). ...
... A partial answer to these questions, with respect to the measurements made in Experiments 1 and 2, might follow from a careful examination of the kinematics and kinetics of the wielding activity. A difference might exist between how the subjects wielded in Experiment 1 and how they wielded in Experiment 2. The reciprocity between the notions of invariance and transformation suggests that in order to detect different constant properties of a rigid body in three-space motion, different styles or forms of motion are required (Gibson, 1966). Recently, Lederman and KJatzky (1987) have extended substantially the evidence for highly particular exploratory styles associated with the perception of specific object properties. ...
We report two experiments on the length-perception capabilities of the hand-related haptic subsystem. On each trial, a visually occluded rod was wielded by the subject at a position intermediate between its two ends. The position was either ½ or ¾ of the rod's length. On two-thirds of the trials, a weight was attached to the rod at a point either above or below its center of gravity and not coincident with the hand's position. In Experiment 1, the subject's task was to perceive the distance reachable with the portion of the rod extending beyond the position of the grasp. In the second experiment, the subject's task was to perceive the distance reachable with the entire rod if it were held at its proximal end. In Experiment 1, perceived reaching distance was a function of the moment of inertia of the amount of rod forward of the grasp about an axis through the proximal end of the rod segment. In Experiment 2, perceived reaching distance was a function of the moment of inertia of the entire rod about the given axis of rotation intermediate between the rod's ends. The results are discussed in terms of (a) the notion of smart perceptual instruments capitalizing on invariant properties of the inertia tensor and (b) how the haptic decomposition of moments of inertia follows the principle of equivalence of forces.
... np. Gibson, 1966;Schacter et al., 2011). ...
Zasada antropiczna, która podkreśla rolę ludzkiego obserwatora w obserwacji wszechświata, jest tutaj akceptowana jako fundamentalna zasada działająca w ramach „kondycji ludzkiej” (conditio humana, CH). Postulowany jest tutaj czterostopniowy model CH. Model ten obejmuje synergię następujących kroków/stopni: postrzeganie, zasada antropiczna, język, źródła zasilania języka. Zakłada się, że model ten jest istotny w opisie i ocenie następujących elementów ekologicznego podejścia do języka naturalnego: zasoby języka naturalnego, zarządzanie zasobami języka naturalnego, dobrostan komunikacyjny, stopień zachowania zasobów języka naturalnego w danym siedlisku języka naturalnego oraz ekologiczne wsparcie dla życia języka naturalnego.
... A diversity of factors concurs in determining the complexity of an urban view, based on visual perception [5]. Some aspects are linked with the difficulty of processing the sensory information in relation with the physiological limits of vision, like the angular size of target objects and the luminance contrast between target objects and their background: we call these bottom-up (or low level) processing aspects [6]. Some other factors refer to semantic structures built by cognition and experience, namely the meaning a target object represents in its context: these are top-down (or high level) aspects, as opposed to the previous ones [7]. ...
Understanding visual complexity of urban environments may improve urban design strategies and limit visual pollution due to advertising, road signage, telecommunication systems and machinery. This paper aims at quantifying visual complexity specifically in urban streetscapes, by submitting a collection of geo-referenced photographs to a group of more than 450 internet users. The average complexity ranking issued from this survey was compared with a set of computer vision predictions, attempting to find the optimal match. Overall, a computer vision indicator matching comprehensively the survey outcome did not clearly emerge from the analysis, but a set of perceptual hypotheses demonstrated that some categories of stimuli are more relevant. The results show how images with contrasting colour regions and sharp edges are more prone to drive the feeling of high complexity.
... Specifically working with Bruno Latour's (2002) article on the relationship between humans, technology and morality, some of this research approaches THN as a technology like any other: one that does not determine specific outcomes but, rather, produces multiple 'affordances'. Building on early notions of affordance offered by James Gibson (1966), Latour argues that human/technology encounters can produce multiple 'affordances' including drug effects, but also possible subject positions: ...
... Still, it is surprising to see that the video game experience was not associated with any other variable, not even the sense of presence nor the cybersickness, despite being regularly considered as an important human factor of VR (Lachlan & Krcmar, 2011;Weech et al., 2020b). Indeed, video game experience is often associated with a VR favorable experience because of i) a sensory mismatch habituation (Howarth and Hodder, 2008) and ii) common affordances and cognitive schemes (Gibson, 1966;Flach and Holden, 1998;Maneuvrier and Westermann, 2022). One could defend that the one-item question measuring video game experience was too little informative to differentiate the very different types of video games, for example, between casual puzzle games on smartphone and first person intensive shooters games (Bosser and Nakatsu, 2006;Baniqued et al., 2013;Kapalo et al., 2015). ...
Introduction: This exploratory study aims to participate in the development of the VR framework by focusing on the issue of cybersickness. The main objective is to explore the possibilities of predicting cybersickness using i) field dependence-independence measures and ii) head rotations data through automatic analyses. The second objective is to assess the impact of cybersickness on visuomotor performance.
Methods: 40 participants completed a 13.5-min VR immersion in a first-person shooter game. Head rotations were analyzed in both their spatial (coefficients of variations) and temporal dimensions (detrended fluctuations analyses). Exploratory correlations, linear regressions and clusters comparison (unsupervised machine learning) analyses were performed to explain cybersickness and visuomotor performance. Traditional VR human factors (sense of presence, state of flow, video game experience, age) were also integrated.
Results: Results suggest that field dependence-independence measured before exposure to VR explains ¼ of the variance of cybersickness, while the Disorientation scale of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire predicts 16.3% of the visuomotor performance. In addition, automatic analyses of head rotations during immersion revealed two different clusters of participants, one of them reporting more cybersickness than the other.
Discussion: These results are discussed in terms of sensory integration and a diminution of head rotations as an avoidance behavior of negative symptoms. This study suggests that measuring field dependence-independence using the (Virtual) Rod and Frame Test before immersion and tracking head rotations using internal sensors during immersion might serve as powerful tools for VR actors.
... Here, it is important to note that the situations under study are dynamic environments where human listeners are engaged observers who actively modify their behavior based on feedback from the environment (see for instance Turchet et al., 2015, for an elegant demonstration of the role of interactive auditory feedback such as footstep sounds in modulating walking upon surface materials such as snow). To characterize properly the above-mentioned "ordinary listening behaviors," it is therefore essential to consider the behavioral relevance of all soundscape features (biophony, geophony, propagation effects) for human listeners, in line with the ecological perspective conceptualized by Gibson (1966) in vision sciences, and more recently by Gaver (1993) and Neuhoff (2004) for hearing sciences. Indeed human listeners interact with dynamic environments with the focus on perceiving the causal properties of environmental sounds such as action types and source properties (e.g., materials) rather than the sounds the source produces (Heller et al., 2023;Houix et al., 2012;Lakatos et al., 1997;Lemaitre & Heller, 2012, 2013Lutfi & Oh, 1997;Lutfi & Stoelinga, 2010;McAdams et al., 2010;Warren & Verbrugge, 1984). ...
Research in hearing sciences has provided extensive knowledge about how the human auditory system processes speech and assists communication. In contrast, little is known about how this system processes "natural soundscapes," that is the complex arrangements of biological and geophysical sounds shaped by sound propagation through non-anthropogenic habitats [Grinfeder et al. (2022). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 10: 894232]. This is surprising given that, for many species, the capacity to process natural soundscapes determines survival and reproduction through the ability to represent and monitor the immediate environment. Here we propose a framework to encourage research programmes in the field of "human auditory ecology," focusing on the study of human auditory perception of ecological processes at work in natural habitats. Based on large acoustic databases with high ecological validity, these programmes should investigate the extent to which this presumably ancestral monitoring function of the human auditory system is adapted to specific information conveyed by natural soundscapes, whether it operate throughout the life span or whether it emerges through individual learning or cultural transmission. Beyond fundamental knowledge of human hearing, these programmes should yield a better understanding of how normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners monitor rural and city green and blue spaces and benefit from them, and whether rehabilitation devices (hearing aids and cochlear implants) restore natural soundscape perception and emotional responses back to normal. Importantly, they should also reveal whether and how humans hear the rapid changes in the environment brought about by human activity.
... There are different theories explaining the visual perception process based on expectations, prior knowledge, and the information available. For example, bottom-up processing assumes no prior knowledge and suggests that the interpretation of sensory information is in real-time [22], while top-down processing assumes having prior knowledge to make up for the limited sensory information while generating interpretations [24]. When there is too much information to process, selective attention is needed [64]. ...
In e-commerce, product photos are a major component of product presentations that aid consumers' understanding of products. In this study, we investigate the impact of the background of product photos on consumers' interest. Drawing upon the attention theories of visual perception, we propose a contrast-composition-distraction framework to understand the product photo background's impact. We conduct an empirical study using a clothing dataset collected from a major fashion product website in China. After differentiating photos' foreground and background and generating features using machine learning, we apply a hierarchical Bayesian model and find that consumers prefer clothing products to be shown on a darker and simpler background. The product should be located in the center of the photo with a slight horizontal offset. It is preferable to use a blurred background and reduce the use of human model faces. These findings are of substantial theoretical and practical value to e-commerce.
... As the central issue in postphenomenology is to understand the mediating role of technology in our environment, the theory of affordances can help define the relationship between a device and its application that enables or constrains its potential use in a particular context. The concept of affordance was originally developed in the late 1960s by the psychologist James Gibson, who defined it as what a given environment offers, provides, or furnishes to an animal [27] Based on Gibson"s original concept, scholars from multiple disciplines have conceptualized various kinds of affordances: ...
Nowadays, technology plays an important role in supporting museum visit and enhancing overall museum visit experiences. An increasing number of studies have evaluated the potential of digitally mediated cultural heritage experiences. However, there is still a lack of a deeper understanding of how mediation devices influence the museum visit experiences and visitors" behaviours. The article focuses on the mediating role of digital screens in the museum space. This study examines visitors" activity and experience through their encounters with touchscreens at the Frederic Chopin"s Museum in Warsaw, Poland. This article presents and makes use of a recent approach in the philosophy of technology, initiated by the American philosopher Don Ihde, called postphenomenology as well as the theory of affordances. By conducting observations and interviews with museum visitors, the study shows that touchscreens, and digital technologies themselves, are not only functional but also shape the visitor"s perception and expectations. This study shows that touchscreens are an embodiment technique and play a role of the touch-substitute for museum visitors.
... One potential rationale for Kosko's (2022) findings is that the volumetric aspects of the holographic recordings signal the human eye to focus on events perceived to be proximally closer. Gibson (1966) conjectured that the human eye is drawn to aspects proximally closer due partly to the distance that light travels between further and closer events. Figure 2 provides a rough illustration of how holographic representations of students may signal the eye to look more closely at the student's desk, and, by consequence, they work they are doing with the mathematics at hand. ...
There is emerging evidence that professional noticing is embodied. Yet, there is still a need to better under embodied noticing at a fundamental level, especially from the preservice teachers. This study used traditional and holographic video, along with eye-tracking technology, to examine how preservice teachers' physical act of looking interacts with their professional noticing. The findings revealed that many participants focused on less sophisticated forms of mathematical noticing of students' reasoning. Additionally, results from eye-tracking data suggest that the more participants described students' conceptual reasoning, the more likely they were to focus on how recorded students used their hands to engage in the mathematics.
... To further concretise how the everyday aesthetics may be used as a resource to inform the design of attractive living environments, a tentative concept of aesthetic affordances (Eronen, 2019) is proposed. In this view, aesthetic affordances combine the theory of affordances developed by Psychologist James Gibson (Gibson, 1968(Gibson, , 2015 and the theory of aesthetic atmospheres by Philosopher Gernot Böhme (1993Böhme ( /2017. According to Gibson (Gernot Böhme, 1993/2017, affordances are the directly perceivable possibilities or opportunities for bodily actions and/or emotions that the environment provides. ...
Purpose
This study aims to explore aesthetic atmospheres and their affordances in urban squares to advance knowledge on the research and design of attractive living environments.
Design/methodology/approach
Descriptions of pleasant and unpleasant experiences of urban squares were collected using qualitative questionnaires with open-ended questions. The theoretical framework and the lens of aesthetic affordances were applied to pinpoint and understand the connections between the place attributes and experiences.
Findings
This study found four distinct aesthetic atmospheres formed by perceived synergies of both the material and immaterial aspects of the environment. It was also found that the atmospheres may shift. A model that shows the aesthetic atmospheres and their potential affordances as layered and emerging is presented.
Research limitations/implications
Everyday aesthetics considered as affordances open new research perspectives for the understanding of what generates attractive living environments – or not.
Practical implications
Aesthetics affordances may provide the design professionals and alike means on how to design places that engender specific aesthetic atmosphere.
Social implications
Gathering and discussing commonplace aesthetic experiences in everyday life may enhance democratic participation in place development among people with different levels of design expertise.
Originality/value
This study combines theories of place with a novel concept of aesthetic affordances to identify distinct aesthetic atmospheres. A holistic overview structure of how the various constituents of aesthetic atmospheres relate to each other provides new ways of studying and understanding urban aesthetic atmospheres.
... Our perceptual system (as a set of organs that include sensory receptors) as a self-tuning system attends to and detects certain classes of information that are available and useful to the perceiver as affordances (J. J. Gibson, 1966). Being sensitive and responsive to relevant cues and affordances an organism adjusts its perceptual and motor systems to the information in the environment. ...
... More recently, however, the realization has emerged that image structure resembles surface structure. Gibson (1950Gibson ( , 1966Gibson ( , 1979 emphasized that image structure was associated mainly with environmental surface structure. The theoretical meaning and implications of this idea have been elaborated primarily by Koenderink and van Doom (e.g., 1975, 1976a, 1976b, 1992aKoenderink, 1987Koenderink, ,1990, using differential geometry. ...
Vision is based on spatial correspondences between physically different structures—in environment, retina, brain, and perception. An examination of the correspondence between environmental surfaces and their retinal images showed that this consists of 2-dimensional 2nd-order differential structure (effectively 4th-order) associated with local surface shape, suggesting that this might be a primitive form of spatial information. Next, experiments on hyperacuities for detecting relative motion and binocular disparity among separated image features showed that spatial positions are visually specified by the surrounding optical pattern rather than by retinal coordinates, minimally affected by random image perturbations produced by 3-D object motions. Retinal image space, therefore, involves 4th-order differential structure. This primitive spatial structure constitutes information about local surface shape.
... One source of information that has been proposed to be useful for the recovery of object motion and observer motion is optic flow. Gibson (1950Gibson ( , 1966see also von Helmholtz, 1867/ J962, and von Kries, 1910, for related discussions) proposed the term optic flow to describe the transformations of the optic array available to an observer. Optic flow information can be the result of either object motion, observer motion, or a combination of object and observer motion. ...
The present study examined age-related differences in sensitivity to optic flow for the detection of 3-D surfaces. Observers were presented with optic flow displays simulating either a 3-D corrugated surface or a random velocity pattern and were asked to detect the 3-D corrugated surface display. Performance decrements were found for older (mean age = 71) compared with younger (mean age = 21) observers across variations in density and corrugation frequency. Older observers also showed performance decrements for a motion coherence task, but performance on this task was not significantly correlated with performance on the 3-D surface detection task. These results suggest that performance on 2-D motion tasks is not necessarily predictive of performance on complex 3-D motion tasks. In addition, the results suggest that different processes underlie the analysis of 2-D and 3-D motion.
... Only with attention can the processing continue to the stage at which information concerning surface slant or distance can be brought to bear on the proximal stimulus, thus resulting in shape or size perception that takes account of such information. If this reasoning is correct, then our findings and those of others such as Epstein and his co-workers support a theory of perception, or at least of perceptual constancy, that is more in line with the notion of unconscious inference (von Helmholtz, 1867(von Helmholtz, /1962, perceptual coupling (Epstein, 1982;Hochberg, 1974), or an algorithmic processing approach (Ebenholtz, 1977;Epstein, 1977) than with the notion of the extraction of invariant stimulus information (Gibson, 1950(Gibson, , 1966. ...
Although, ordinarily, upright objects are readily recognized by observers who are tilted, it is hypothesized that this is achieved by a process of correction. The first stage of that process is held to be a description of the object in relation to the biologically more primitive system of retinal coordinates. In order to test this hypothesis, tilted subjects were required to view figures under conditions of inattention (Experiment 1) or divided attention (Experiment 2). Under such conditions description may not proceed beyond that first stage. The results showed that recognition was higher for figures that maintained their orientation with respect to the retina (although they were then tilted in the environment) than for figures that remained upright in the environment (although they were then disoriented with respect to the retina). This outcome is the very opposite of what occurs under conditions of attention.
... We use the term optical flow to mean temporal change in the structure of the optic array, the pattern of light intensities in different visual directions at a moving point of observation, which is logically prior to the introduction of an eye (Gibson, 1966). Eye movements subsequently influence the change in the retinal image, which we will call retinal flow. ...
Radial patterns of optical flow produced by observer translation could be used to perceive the direction of self-movement during locomotion, and a number of formal analyses of such patterns have recently appeared. However, there is comparatively little empirical research on the perception of heading from optical flow, and what data there are indicate surprisingly poor performance, with heading errors on the order of 5°–10°. We examined heading judgments during translation parallel, perpendicular, and at oblique angles to a random-dot plane, varying observer speed and dot density. Using a discrimination task, we found that heading accuracy improved by an order of magnitude, with 75%-correct thresholds of 0.66° in the highest speed and density condition and 1.2° generally. Performance remained high with displays of 63–10 dots, but it dropped significantly with only 2 dots; there was no consistent speed effect and no effect of angle of approach to the surface. The results are inconsistent with theories based on the local focus of outflow, local motion parallax, multiple fixations, differential motion parallax, and the local maximum of divergence. But they are consistent with Gibson's (1950) original global radial outflow hypothesis for perception of heading during translation.
... The classic eyepress experiment introduced by Descartes (1664/1972) and Helmholtz (1909Helmholtz ( -1911, in which a mislocalization of the visual stimulus occurs when an eye is passively displaced, suggests that motor outflow plays a primary role in spatial localization (Bridgeman & Delgado, 1984;Brindley & Merton, 1960;Matin, Picoult, Stevens, Edwards, Young, & MacArthur, 1982;Skavenski, Haddad, & Steinman, 1972;Sperry, 1950;Stark & Bridgeman, 1983;von Hoist, 1954). However, some authors disagree (Gibson, 1966;Gyr, Willey, & Henry, 1979;Hershberger, 1984;James, 1890;Sherrington, 1918). ...
Two motor acts were analyzed at the level of tongue and fingers. These motor acts generated illusions. When subjects voluntarily rotated the tongue by 90°, the perceived orientation of a tactile stimulus applied to the tongue did not covary with the perceived orientation of the tongue itself. Analogously, when subjects voluntarily crossed two adjacent fingers, the perceived position of two tactile stimuli applied to the fingers did not covary with the perceived position of the fingers themselves. Although tongue and fingers were positioned accurately in space, a lack of perceptual constancy occurred for tactile stimuli applied to these body parts. Therefore, whereas position sense was preserved, correct localization of objects was lost. The occurrence of this perceptual dissociation suggests that spatial localization of tactile stimuli may be independent both of knowledge of body part location and motor activity.
... There is no support for this in the Gibsonian position. In fact, Gibson discouraged such a view and proposed that special metrics be developed to fit the requirements for perception and action in organisms, as exemplified by the concepts of layout and affordance (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1979. Nevertheless, if one ventures to test his propositions by means of indirect quantitative measures-however great may be the need for means to put current theories to test-only major effects could be of critical relevance. ...
The distorted room illusion (DRI) and the attendant argument for perceptual ambiguity is critically analyzed from a Gibsonian/ecological point of view. The notions of multiple specification, conflicting information, and perceptual skill are invoked in showing how the ecological approach can accommodate illusion effects that may remain under mobile binocular viewing conditions. Static optic arrays are shown not to be ambiguous. So-called equivalent configurations are found to be analytic artifacts, appearing when the problem of information is treated in geometrical terms without regard for constraints due to physical and ecological regularities. The relative importance of motion-based and motion-independent information is discussed.
... One reason for thinking that the perceptual system seeks implicit information about change is the now good evidence that the perceptual system has a tendency to pick up information about real-time change. For instance, J. J. Gibson (1950Gibson ( , 1966Gibson ( , 1979, Johansson (1950Johansson ( , 1973Johansson ( , 1975, and many others (e.g., Cutting & Proffitt, 1981;Lasher, 1981) have demonstrated the perceptual system's natural competence with information carried dynamically. ...
This article pursues the possibility that perceivers are sensitive to implicit dynamic information even when they are not able to observe real-time change. Recent empirical results in the domains of handwriting recognition and picture perception are discussed in support of the hypothesis that perception involves acquiring information about transitions, whether the stimuli are static or dynamic. It is then argued that dynamic information has a special status in mental representation as well as in perception. In particular I propose that some mental representations may be dynamic, in that a temporal dimension is necessary to the representation. Recent evidence that mental representations may exhibit a form of momentum is discussed in support of this claim.
... One answer might be that the combined length and orientation change constitutes the stimulus for depth, that is, directly leads to that percept much as a particular frequency of vibration of a sound wave reaching the ear constitutes the stimulus for the perception of a tone of a particular pitch. This kind of answer has in recent years been associated with the theory propounded by Gibson (1950Gibson ( , 1966Gibson ( , 1979. Since, however, Gibson generally focused on the stimulus transformations of the entire optic array consequent on motion of the observer in a natural environment, an analysis of the kinetic depth effect in the laboratory would probably not be considered crucial or even relevant to his general theory. ...
It has been assumed that certain stimulus transformations lead directly to depth effects, that is, that such transformations are the necessary and sufficient conditions for kinetically generated depth perception. An alternative is to view such perception as the preferred solution to the problem posed by the transforming stimulus as to what event in the world is producing that transformation. In 3 experiments (80 Ss) it is shown that when other solutions are supportable by the stimulus, those same transformations will no longer lead to depth perception. These other solutions become preferred on the basis of rejection of certain coincidental features of the stimulus that otherwise would have to be accepted were the kinetic depth solution to be maintained. Findings are interpreted as challenging any theory that perception is simply the direct result of stimulation or of extraction of stimulus information and as supporting the Helmholtzian (H. Helmholtz, 1866) rule of perception as a construction of the most reasonable representation. (21 ref)
... Another way to view them is from an ecological perspective. As Gibson (1966) pointed out, color changes in the environment are correlated with surfaces of objects. Although the relation is far from perfect, color is usually homogeneous within a surface but changes from one surface to another. ...
Tested the hypothesis that perceived dimensionality of projection drawings is influenced by perceived organization in 2 experiments using 100 undergraduates. Organization was biased by coloration: The drawings were (a) uncolored, (b) colored in ways that emphasized plausible 3-dimensional (3D) parts of the represented objects, or (c) colored in ways that emphasized 2-dimensional (2D) parts of the drawings themselves. In Exp I, subjective ratings of 3-dimensionality (3D) were greater for the 3D-biased stimuli than for the unbiased stimuli, and ratings for the 2D-biased stimuli were lower than for the unbiased stimuli. Similar results were obtained in Exp II in which latencies to perceive the drawings 3-dimensionality were measured. The 3D-biased stimuli were seen in depth more quickly than the unbiased stimuli, and the 2D-biased stimuli were seen in depth more slowly than the unbiased stimuli. Additional results on the relation between ratings and latencies suggest that latencies are affected more strongly by object complexity than are ratings. (10 ref)
... Turvey (1977) puts an argument of this sort in terms of the Gibsonian (cf. Gibson, 1966) view that the information needed to define the perceptual world is available in the environment and needs only to be "picked up" by the perceiver. In this view there is no need for mechanisms to search snapshots and process and combine the information they contain. ...
Reports a series of 3 experiments that present evidence that color information is available throughout the course of iconic memory. Exps I and II, with 8 college age Ss each, measured iconic delay curves for naming color patches and for reading letters whose contours are created through hue differences (in the manner of a color blindness test). Results show that iconic memory for letters defined by scotopically undetectable color differences lasts about as long as iconic memory for black letters on white background. Exp III (6 Ss) attempted to show a type of Stroop color–word interference in iconic memory in which Ss' ability to read out symbolic information was disturbed for the entire duration of iconic memory by irrelevant and iconically stored color information. Results of the 3 experiments indicate that (a) rods cannot be the sole locus of iconic storage, and (b) the argument that iconic memory is entirely retinal cannot rest on the supposition that iconic memory is carried by the rods. It is argued that the available evidence from the literature indicates that rods are unlikely to be involved in iconic memory at photopic light levels. Experimental operations are suggested that might establish the extent to which iconic memory is central or peripheral. (30 ref)
... Consequently, skilled performance is closely linked to visual perception. In this respect, ecological psychology (Gibson, 1966(Gibson, , 1979 holds that visual perception is an activity of a perceiver with the eyes in a moving head on a body that moves in the environment, rather than a passive reception of visual stimuli that are processed in increasingly higher brain centers. Put differently, for a player to take adequate action, it is critical to engage in active exploration or search of the on-goings in the immediate situation (Gibson, 1979;Fajen, Riley & Turvey, 2009). ...
Objective: Visual exploratory activities (VEA) refer to head and body movements that soccer players make prior to receiving the ball to discover possibilities for action. The current study investigated the degree to which the amount and timing of VEA relates to performance and is influenced by player position. MethOd: Using pre-recorded video-footage of matches, the VEA of elite soccer players (n = 72) playing in national professional leagues were analyzed with respect to amount (i.e., in number/s) and timing (i.e., during the penultimate and final pass prior to ball reception) for different player positions (i.e., lines and axes). ANOVAs were used to compare the amount of VEA as a function of its timing and player position, and hierarchical stepwise regression analyses were conducted to examine the degree to which VEA predicts subsequent performance (i.e., adequate ball contact, passes, dribbling actions and shooting). Results: Elite players showed more VEA in the final pass than in the penultimate pass, and midfielders showed more VEA than players in other lines. In addition, the amount of VEA during the penultimate pass predicted the adequacy of the subsequent pass. The amount of VEA during the final pass did not significantly contribute to this. cOnclusiOn: In elite soccer players, the amount of VEA systematically varies according to the spatial and temporal unfolding of the play and is positively related to subsequent performance. VEA supports the early perception of the possibilities for action.
... The concept of affordance was initially coined in 1966 by ecopsychologist Gibson (1966). It is considered a relational attribute of the animal-environmental system, which determines what can be done by considering both the attributes of an object and a perceptual entity; in other words, affordance indicate the opportunities for an entity to perceive action in its environment (Stoffregen, 2003). ...
This study investigates the effect of social media affordances (SMAs) on tourist destination image formation from the technology affordances lens, and measures the mediating role of social presence and parasocial interaction (PSI). Through both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the empirical examination of 1751 pieces of tourist data collected from a two-wave survey approach, this study finds that SMAs has a significant direct relationship with cognitive image and affective image. The results also suggest that PSI partially mediate the effect of SMAs on cognitive image and affective image, and cognitive image and affective image under the influence of SMAs lead to conative image formation. These substantial findings could offer valuable insights for destination marketers into the development and adoption of SMA strategies, with the objective of cultivating and promoting a positive image of their destination in the tourism market.
James J. Gibson’s affordance theory (AT) and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism (CR) have both gained attention in Information Systems (IS) research. After works by Markus and Silver [1] and Volkoff and Strong [2], IS research has linked affordance theory (AT) with CR metatheory. However, this essay challenges this connection in three ways: 1) Gibson was not a critical realist; 2) The similarities between CR and AT are limited; and 3) The legitimacy of the CR-AT connection is questionable because it is not present outside IS. The essay then showcases examples of IS-AT research that use AT with non-CR perspectives, proving that affordance is a neutral concept that can be applied with any theoretical approach. Finally, I propose that an exploration of the New Mechanical Philosophy’s (NMP) concept of methodological mechanism (MM) could aid in establishing a non-committal and neutral characterization of AT in IS.
We introduce an active 3D reconstruction method which integrates visual perception, robot-object interaction , and 3D scanning to recover both the exterior and interior , i.e., unexposed, geometries of a target 3D object. Unlike other works in active vision which focus on optimizing camera viewpoints to better investigate the environment, the primary feature of our reconstruction is an analysis of the interactability of various parts of the target object and the ensuing part manipulation by a robot to enable scanning of occluded regions. As a result, an understanding of part articulations of the target object is obtained on top of complete geometry acquisition. Our method operates fully automatically by a Fetch robot with built-in RGBD sensors. It iterates between interaction analysis and interaction-driven reconstruction, scanning and reconstructing detected moveable parts one at a time, where both the articulated part detection and mesh reconstruction are carried out by neural networks. In the final step, all the remaining, non-articulated parts, including all the interior structures that had been exposed by prior part manipulations and subsequently scanned, are reconstructed to complete the acquisition. We demonstrate the performance of our method via qualitative and quantitative evaluation, ablation studies, comparisons to alternatives, as well as experiments in a real environment.
The aim of this work is to show, first of all, how landscape cannot but stand out on the horizon of a cognitive flux that affects every aspect of our being in the world (or, better said, of our being in the world). A special role will be reserved for aesthetic mediation, to be understood as an act that regulates the epistemic negotiation between what is "in the center" and what is "in the surroundings". In this sense, the work will start from bio-cognitive assumptions on the species-specific ways in which an organism circumscribes and enriches its world, and will then finally arrive at considerations that should, in our hopes, demonstrate how aisthesis is, in fact, the conceptual category that best lends itself to describing this process, in virtue of the particular gnoseological value it assigns to the sensitive body and its extension.
Humans use their voice concurrently with upper limb movements, known as hand gestures. Recently it has been shown that fluctuations in intensity and the tone of the human voice synchronizes with upper limb movement (including gesticulation). In this research direct evidence is provided that the voice changes with arm movements because it interacts with whole-body muscle activity (measured through surface EMG and postural measurements). We show that certain muscles (e.g., pectoralis major) that are associated with posture and upper limb movement are especially likely to interact with the voice. Adding wrist weights to increase the mass of the moving upper limb segment led to increased coupling between movement and voice. These results show that the voice co-patterns with whole-body kinetics relating to force, rather than kinematics, invoking several implications how the voice is biomechanically modeled, how it should be simulated, and importantly how the human voice must have evolved in relation to the whole-body motor system. We concluded that the human voice is animated by the kinetics of the whole body.
Urban development needs to pay attention to environmental psychology. The city has lost space for socializing, recreation and expression. Children as the basis of complete human development are deprived of their rights to play safely and comfortably. This research highlights the phenomenon of recreational activities that occur in inappropriate spaces such as railroad tracks, underpasses, and abandoned spaces where the activities cause human-vehicle conflict. The research uses a descriptive-qualitative analysis method by observing several cases due to the absence of public open space, identifying physical-non-physical elements, as well as basic human needs (humanism). This method finds the quality of a city (and country) through the adequacy of humanist public open spaces, where psychological and physical needs are met.
Small-format mobility services have been introduced in many cities to promote sustainable urban development. In some cities, these services are primarily seen as entertainment rather than significant transport modes. Research has studied the roles of experiential/hedonic and func-tional/instrumental motivations in users' adoption intent for such services. However, there is still a limited understanding of how actual spatial experiences of mobility travels shape travel behaviors. This study explores the role of spatial experience in mobility travels. Specifically, the research question revolves around whether better spatial knowledge leads to better spatial experiences, thereby satisfying users' functional/instrumental and experiential/hedonic values for mobility trips. Additionally, we examine how spatial knowledge affects travel behaviors regarding trip chaining and vehicle charging. To assess road users' spatial knowledge, we use sketch maps to examine changes after three months of using battery-sharing two-wheelers. A mixed-methods approach and multiple data sources are employed to provide deeper insights, including sketch maps, questionnaire surveys on attitudes, and a panel data analysis on activity-travel patterns. The results indicate that spatial experience significantly influences perceived values and, consequently, travel behaviors. Improved knowledge leads to greater satisfaction with mobility travel. Furthermore, an interaction effect is found between cognitive distance and cognitive direction concerning users' satisfaction with the driving range and charging issues of electric vehicles.
Through this contribution I aim to explore the horizons and limits of digital medicine in light of an embodied approach to the issue of care. I will sketch the historical background of digital medicine and show the contemporary status of this interdisciplinary field, as well as its applications and outcomes. Then, I will address a critique of the computational theory of mind (CTM) upon which many contemporary mental health apps are designed. This approach to the mind is inscribed into the modern trend of neuromania, which conceives the embodied, living human being as a mere series of data analyses and algorithms, with the brain as the seat of the person. Drawing on continental philosophy and classical phenomenology I will develop a notion of health conceived as a moral enterprise, showing how wellbeing and vitality are not reducible to a product made by technologies or doctors, but rather they are the results of an embodied encounter. As such, empathy and person-centered care cannot be achieved by digital medicine. They are the result of a journey into the regions of recognition, embodied presence and the aliveness constituting the person. Finally, I will show how the issue of care cannot be separated from an embodied encounter between people, especially in case of dementia.
This study tested scene perception during depicted self-movement. In Experiment 1, viewers reproduced angular scene configurations, revealed over time by camera motions in depth. Viewers used visible flow to update off-screen locations of landmarks that had been drawn from view and thereby perceived scenes in depth beyond the display's boundaries. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether offscreen space is perceived as a function of depicted velocity and time and whether information from prior views is used. Viewers predicted when lateral movement would reveal a peripheral landmark whose location was shown in a prior panoramic view. Accurate responses, observed under certain conditions, would result if viewers perceived space according to S = ∫ V dt (D. Algom & L. Cohen-Raz, 1984, 1987; R. Jagacinski, W. Johnson, & R. Miller, 1983). When required to picture wide spans in space yet to emerge, however, viewers responded as if these spans were compressed. The theoretical implications of the ability to retrieve, transform, and apply information after a discontinuous transition from a prior view are discussed.
The search rate for a target among distractors may vary dramatically depending on which stimulus plays the role of target and which that of distractors. For example, the time required to find a circle distinguished by an intersecting line is independent of the number of regular circles in the display, whereas the time to find a regular circle among circles with lines increases linearly with the number of distractors. The pattern of performance suggests parallel processing when the target has a unique distinguishing feature and serial self-terminating search when the target is distinguished only by the absence of a feature that is present in all the distractors. The results are consistent with feature-integration theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980), which predicts that a single feature should be detected by the mere presence of activity in the relevant feature map, whereas tasks that require subjects to locate multiple instances of a feature demand focused attention. Search asymmetries may therefore offer a new diagnostic to identify the primitive features of early vision. Several candidate features are examined in this article: Colors, line ends or terminators, and closure (in the sense of a partly or wholly enclosed area) appear to be functional features; connectedness, intactness (absence of an intersecting line), and acute angles do not.
Four experiments utilized G. Johansson's technique for presenting biological motion as moving points of light. In Exp I, 9 23–53 yr old congenitally deaf signers were highly accurate in matching movements of lexical signs presented in point-light displays to those normally presented. Both discrimination accuracy and the pattern of errors were similar in this matching task to that obtained in a control condition in which the same signs were always presented normally. Exp II (6 Ss) showed that these results held for discrimination of morphological operations presented in point-light displays as well. In Exp III, 11 Ss were able to accurately identify signs of a constant handshape and morphological operations acting on signs presented in point-light displays. In Exp IV (8 Ss), aspects of the motion patterns that carried most of the information for sign identifiability were evaluated. Signs in point-light displays with certain lights removed were presented. It was found that the movement of the fingertips, but not of any other pair of points, is necessary for sign identification and that, in general, the more distal the joint, the more information its movement carries. (21 ref)
Argues that the distribution of errors in letter identification depends on (a) whether the set of letters is defined by features that exist or do not exist or by dimensions that exist at some positive value, and (b) whether errors are produced by process limitation in which the letter patterns are distorted or by state limitation in which there is inadequate energy. A specific hypothesis tested was that error distributions reflect the attribute structure under both types of limitation if dimensions define the letter set, but only under a process limitation if features define the letter set. Under a state limitation, feature set errors are primarily produced by a loss of features, so that a letter with more features is called a letter with fewer features more often than conversely. An experiment with 12 paid Ss completely validated the hypothesis under test. In addition, the relative discriminabilities of 2 dimensions defining a dimension set of letters was reversed from state to process limitation. Thus, the attribute structure derived from error distributions is not invariant across types of perceptual limitation, nor are distances between letter pairs always symmetric. (21 ref)
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