D. Gibson contrasted his theory with the concepts of perception, which argue that humans receive insufficient information through their senses to construct complete and accurate images of the world around them. The researcher argues that the information coming to man through his senses is sufficient to perceive the world around him correctly. Gibson proves the validity of his ecological theory of perception using the example of visual perception. He writes that the optical information coming to the visible organ from the surrounding world is sufficient to perceive it correctly and completely.
One of the central positions in the ecological theory of perception is the concept of perceptual invariants. The perceptual invariant is a stable image of a perceived object, which is preserved (has the property of constancy) under many random changes of conditions of its perception. Images of perceived objects and phenomena represent this kind of perceptual invariants. D. Gibson argues that internal thought processes play an insignificant role in perception or do not participate in it. In this assertion, the ecological approach to understanding perception is methodologically close to nativism, but it represents its modern variation. The basic idea for this approach was that man, as an observer, constantly moving through space, directly assimilates the information he needs to correctly perceive the world around him and successfully adapt to it (Kennedy, 2021). Therefore, a person does not need additional sensory information processing or interpretation using thinking or other cognitive processes.
Attitudes toward Gibson’s ecological theory of perception are not uniform among contemporary psychological scientists. Most of those who study vision believe that it is possible to agree with many of Gibson’s statements. This theory allows us to form a holistic picture of perceptual processes, its main advantage. Nevertheless, many scientists disagree that the perceiver’s prior experience allegedly little influences perception. Moreover, critics of Gibson’s theory believe that human perception of the world around us is not immediate, direct, and self-sufficient. To some extent, in their opinion, it is constructed by a person’s imagination, memory, and thinking based on sensorially perceived signs (Kennedy, 2021). It is difficult to imagine the process of formation of images without the participation of other cognitive functions, except perception, i.e., only based on receiving and processing sensory stimuli. Moreover, Gibson, as the author of the ecological theory of perception, provides no convincing evidence for what constitutes this “exhaustive and sufficient” stimulation. Almost every case or example Gibson cites as supposedly demonstrating the ecological sufficiency of such stimulation for image construction can be challenged, and the same examples can be used to prove that simple sensory stimuli are not sufficient for image construction.
Reference
Kennedy, J. M. (2021). Gibson and Pictures in Perspective: Reverse the Directions. I-Perception, 12(5), 204166952110472.