The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 1986 - 332 pages
This is a book about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do.

The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision -- and what this book is about.
 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
1
ONE THE ANIMAL AND THE ENVIRONMENT
7
Summary
15
Surfaces and the Ecological Laws of Surfaces
22
The Qualities of Substantial Surfaces
31
The Environment of One Observer and the Environment of All Observers
43
FOUR THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STIMULATION
47
Do We Ever See Light as Such?
54
ELEVEN THE DISCOVERY OF THE OCCLUDING EDGE
189
What Is Seen at This Moment from This Position Does Not Comprise What
195
The Puzzle of Egocentric Awareness
201
TWELVE
203
How Does the EyeHead System Work? Outline of a New Theory
209
The Fallacy of the Stimulus Sequence Theory
219
The Control of Locomotion and Manipulation
225
Rules for the Visual Control of Locomotion
232

A Demonstration That the Retinal Image Is Not Necessary for Vision
61
The Intercept Angle
69
Covering Edges
76
How Is Ambient Light Structured? A Theory
86
A Special Case
92
The Optical Information for Perceiving Events
102
The Causation of Events
109
The Specifying of Limb Movements
120
Summary
126
EIGHT THE THEORY OF AFFORDANCES
127
A Recent History
138
Is There Evidence Against the Direct Perception of Surface Layout?
166
The Coperception of Ones Own Movement
182
FOURTEEN
238
Input Processing
251
A New Approach to Knowing
258
PICTURES AND VISUAL AWARENESS
267
A Theory of Drawing and Its Development in the Child
274
What About the Illusion of Reality? The Duality of Picture Perception
280
The Consciousness of the Visual Field
285
Summary
291
A Theory of Filming and FilmEditing
297
CONCLUSION
303
BIBLIOGRAPHY
313
NAME INDEX
319
Copyright

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