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Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd.
THEECOLOGY OF J. J. GIBSON'S
PERCEPTION
E. Bruce Goldstein*
Abstract-J. J. Gibson's approachto,the study of perceptionemphasizesthe way an active observer
picks up informationfrom the environment.The centralpostulates of Gibson'sapproachare that (1)
visual space is defined by information (such as texture gradients) contained on environmental
surfaces, (2) the crucial informationfor perception is information that remains invariant as an
observer moves throughthe environment,and (3) this invariantinformationis picked up directly, so
that no intervening mental processes are necessaryfor visual perception. This paper summarizes
Gibson's approach as it is stated in his three books, Perception of the Visual World (1950), The
Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966) and The Ecological Approach to Visual
Perception (1979) and evaluates thefinalform of his approachdescribedin his third, and last, book.
191
192 E. Bruce Goldstein
Thus, in his paper Observations on Active Touch radically new way of thinking about perception is
[7] he analyzes touch in a new way by describing proposed...' [1].
touch not in terms of an experimenter'spush on the This statement gives an accurate picture of
skin, but in terms of an observer who actively Gibson's emphasis. Throughout the book he stresses
explores the surfaces of objects; and he shows that the importance of movement of an observer and of
the observer's perceptions are totally different in the invariants for perception, and in so doing he
two situations. continues a theme begun in his other two books [2,
Something common to Gibson's invariants is 3]. The major new contribution is an expanded
that they are descriptions of characteristics of the discussion of affordances (which were only briefly
environment, or, more properly, descriptions of introduced in Ref. 3). Thus, he reaffirms his
characteristics of the stimuli for perception. The commitment to invariance and direct perception,
stimuli for perception are, however, not merely expands his discussion of affordances and sum-
described in Gibson's analysis, but they are given a marizes the evidence supporting these ideas. I will
place of premier importance. Gibson asserts not consider Gibson's treatment of affordances, in-
only that invariants provide the information neces- variances and direct perception, in turn.
sary for perception, but that this information exists
in a form that can be used immediately, without A. Affordances
being transformed, processed or manipulated in Gibson's discussion of affordances focuses on
any way. how information in light specifies what the environ-
Gibson, in fact, states that space and other ment affords. Thus, he asks, 'if there is information
qualities of the environment are perceived directly, in light for the perception of surfaces, is there
without the aid of an intervening mental process. information for the perception of what they afford?'
For example, the Helmholtzian explanation of size And he answers this question by stating that 'The
constancy requires that a process of 'unconscious "values" and "meanings" of things in the environ-
inference' somehow takes both retinal size and ment can be directly perceived' [1, p. 127]. Thus,
physical distance into account to achieve constancy, according to him, perception of an object involves
whereas, Gibson's explanation requiresonly that an not only perception of the visual characteristics of
observer see how many units of a texture gradient that object, but also involves perception of what the
are covered by the base of an object. Thus, the fact object affords. And this perception of the object's
that the two bricks on the gradient of Fig. 1 cover affordance, like the perception of the object's visual
the same number of texture units at the point at characteristics,occurs directly-it is specified in the
which they rest on the ground indicates directlythat light.
they are the same size and, therefore, eliminates, Gibson correctly anticipates an objection that
according to Gibson, the need for unconscious most readers would have when he states that the
inference or any other intervening mental process. skeptic may not be convinced that what food
Perception is explained, according to Gibson, by affords, something that tastes good, is specified in
considering the stimuli in the environment, rather light. 'The taste of a thing, (the skeptic) will say, is
than by considering what happens to these stimuli not specified in light; you can see its form or color
after they enter a person's eyes. and texture, but not its palatability; you have to
Given the above summary of Gibson's ideas, I taste it for that' [1, p. 140]. Unfortunately, he does
shall now consider the contribution made in his last not offer a way out for the skeptic. Instead, he says
book. that affordances are specified by 'invariant com-
binations of invariants' [1, p. 140] but he does not
help readers to understand exactly how these
III. THE ECOLOGICALAPPROACHTO VISUAL
'higher order invariants' specify affordances. The
PERCEPTION [1] idea that the meanings of objects are important to
In the Introduction of the book Gibson says: observers is an important one-a person's first
'This book is a sequel to ThePerceptionof the Visual reaction to a flight of stairs may, in fact, be 'here is a
World,which came out in 1950. It is ratherdifferent, way to go up' rather than, 'here is a series of
however, because my explanation of vision was then surfaces'. The problem comes with Gibson's state-
based on the retinal image, whereas it is now based ment that what an object affords is specified in the
on what I call the ambient optic array. I now believe light, and his failure to deal adequately with the fact
we must take an ecological approach to the that affordances must be learned. A wooden chair
problems of perception ... When no constraints are may afford sitting for a human, but something to
put on the visual system, we look around, walk up gnaw on for a beaver, even though the information
to something interesting, and move around it so as provided by the light is the same for both.
to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to Learning must occur before the information in the
another. That is natural vision, and that is what this light can indicate what something affords, but he
book is about .... The process of perception ... is mentions learning only briefly at the end of the
not the processing of sensory inputs, however, but chapter when he states that 'affordances ... are
the extracting of invariants from the stimulus flux. usually perceivable directly, without an excessive
The old idea that sensory inputs are converted into amount of learning' [1, p. 143]. What is missing here
perceptions by operations of the mind is rejected. A is the amplification of this statement. Learning
194 E. Bruce Goldstein
must be involved in a person's understanding of the sistent with the views of many other researchers.
meanings of objects, and this involvement deserves Many would accept the idea that it is not pictures, be
more discussion than Gibson gives it. they retinal, neural or mental, that are important in
determining perception, but, rather, it is informa-
tion, some aspect of the retinal image or resulting
B. Invariants neural signal that is correlated with the external en-
According to Gibson, invariants explain how a vironment, that determines visual perceptions.
person perceives the world. For example, the ability Thus, Gibson's assertion that animals with com-
to correctly perceive the sizes of objects is attributed pound eyes like the dragonfly [ 1, p. 62] or the fiddler
to the information provided by texture gradients crab [1, p. 176] can see, even in the absence of a
(Fig. 1) and the ability to stay on course as a person retinal image, poses no problem for most psycho-
move towards an object is attributed to our ability logists and physiologists, who require not that
to keep the unchanging (invariant) center of the information be in the form of a picturebut only that
optical flow pattern centered on the desired destina- it be correlated with the environment.
tion. The idea of directperceptionhas usually,however,
Note that Gibson's approach has, so far, been been discussed not in relation to neural signals but
described without reference to any empirical re- in terms of cognitive processes. Gibson's claim is
search. In fact, it has been noted that 'Gibson wrote simply that perception can occur directly, in a single
with a strange authority, merely stating his position step, based only on the information contained in the
rather than marshalling experimental evidence' [8]. stimulus, with no intervening cognitive processing
The problem is that, despite Gibson's authority and being necessary. Thus, direct perception changes a
the intuitive appeal of the idea of invariance, some multistage process into a one-stage process, so that
experimental evidence must be presentedto support instead of (1) perceiving forms and (2) then
the idea that invariants are, in fact, used by the interpreting depth cues, a person perceives the
perceptual system. For example, is the information layout directly in terms of invariants. As Gibson
in texture gradients actually used by the perceptual puts it, a person simply 'picks up' the invariants.
system to determine depth? There are some studies But while he demonstrates that perception is a
on texture gradients [9, 10] but few on most of the function of features on the ambient arrayof light, he
other invariants. fails to show that this perception is 'direct'. Thus, in
This lack of experimental evidence is, in fact, Chapter Nine, Experimental Evidence for Direct
something of which Gibson was aware. In an early Perception, he shows that a person's perception of
exposition of this approach, he stated in 1959that 'it depth in a 'pseudotunnel' [1, p. 153] is dependent
has been extraordinarilyfruitful in suggesting to the on the number of intensity transitions in the tunnel,
author hypotheses for experiments and in opening but it is hard to see how demonstratingthis relation-
up new ways of experimentingon old problems. The ship tells anything about the process that leads to
important question is whether it will serve the same the perception of depth in the tunnel.
function for others' [11]. But 20 years later he states Perhaps the most clear-cut example that Gibson
in his last book that 'The experiments I will cites to support direct perception is his experiment
report ... are mostly my own, and the evidence, [1, p. 160], which showed that an observer can
therefore, is scanty. Other students of information accurately judge the heights of stakes placed on the
based perception are at work, but the facts have not texture gradient formed by a plowed field. The
yet been accumulated' [1, p. 3]. The problem is that observer perceives the size of the stakes directly, it is
invariants are so complex that it is difficult to know argued, by noting the number of units in the texture
how to go about isolating these invariants and then gradient covered by the base of each stake, thereby
studying them. Recently, some investigators have eliminating the need to take distance into account.
taken up the challenge of investigating invariants But, anyone who has walked around with a camera
[12], but this work has just begun, and it remains to trying to find examples of texture gradients to
be seen whether enough empirical evidence can be photograph realizes that homogeneous texture
accumulated to support Gibson's claim that the gradients analogous to Gibson's regularly plowed
pickup of invariants can explain the totality of field are hard to find. Thus, in the real world one
human visual experience. often encounters a nearbyobject resting on a surface
that has densely packed texture and a far away
object resting on a surface with a more widely
C. Direct Perception spaced texture. In this situation a person would
Gibson begins Chapter Nine of his last book [1] have to move his or her eyes from one object to the
with the statement 'when I assert that perception of other to see both objects clearly in foveal vision [13],
the environment is direct, I mean that it is not and the person would then have to carry out some
mediated by retinal pictures, neural pictures, or sort of mental operation to account for the change
mental pictures. Direct perception is the activity of in the density between the two gradients.The ability
getting information from the ambient arrayof light' to make accurate judgments of size in situations
[1, p. 147]. such as this is difficult to explain in terms of the
If, when reading this definition the word 'pictures' direct pickup of information about the number of
is emphasized, then Gibson's view is not incon- texture units covered by the objects.
The Ecology of J. J. Gibson's Perception 195
IV. CONCLUSIONS Acknowledgments:I thank Lynn Cooper, Elizabeth Goldstein,
Julian Hochberg, Peter Machamer and Richard Rosinski for
What has Gibson left to us? At the very their helpful comments on various drafts of the manuscript.
least, he has sensitized those concerned with visual
perception to the fact that to truly understand
perception they must consider the information that REFERENCES
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