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Lectures on Perception: An Ecological Perspective addresses the generic principles by which each and every kind of life form—from single celled organisms (e.g., difflugia) to multi-celled organisms (e.g., primates)—perceives the circumstances of their living so that they can behave adaptively. It focuses on the fundamental ability that relates each and every organism to its surroundings, namely, the ability to perceive things in the sense of how to get about among them and what to do, or not to do, with them. The book’s core thesis breaks from the conventional interpretation of perception as a form of abduction based on innate hypotheses and acquired knowledge, and from the historical scientific focus on the perceptual abilities of animals, most especially those abilities ascribed to humankind. Specifically, it advances the thesis of perception as a matter of laws and principles at nature’s ecological scale, and gives equal theoretical consideration to the perceptual achievements of all of the classically defined ‘kingdoms’ of organisms—Archaea, Bacteria, Protoctista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.
Originally published in 1987, the introduction states: "the authors have successfully accomplished their program – to explain, based on physical representations, the observed relations among various parameters of wrist-pendulum oscillations. Thereby a set of new ideas and concepts, including those developed recently by the scientific school to which the authors belong, are introduced to biology. These concepts are closely related to the experimental data. This accomplishment makes the book especially attractive and demonstrates once more the productivity of applying physics to biology." "Clear language, simple figures, and physical examples illuminate rather complicated problems. These att...
This is a very unusual book. It brings to the English speaking reader a masterpiece written some 50 years ago by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century--Nicholai Aleksandrovich Bernstein--considered the founder of many contemporary fields of science such as biomechanics, motor control, and physiology of activity. Divided into two parts, this volume's first section is a translation of the Russian book On Dexterity and Its Development. It presents, in a very reader-friendly style, Bernstein's major ideas related to the development and control of voluntary movements in general, and to the notion of dexterity, in particular. Although very few scientific works remain interesting to the rea...
This ground-breaking book brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the control and coordination of processes involved in perceptually guided actions. The research area of motor control has become an increasingly multidisciplinary undertaking. Understanding the acquisition and performance of voluntary movements in biological and artificial systems requires the integration of knowledge from a variety of disciplines from neurophysiology to biomechanics.
Intellectual Journeys in Ecological Psychology: Interviews and Reflections from Pioneers in the Field presents 12 in-depth interviews with prominent scientists associated with Ecological Psychology, rooted in James Gibson’s radical approach to perception. Featuring a mix of interviews conducted around the turn of the millennium with leading figures of Ecological Psychology, the book reveals discussions not previously found in publications and authentic personal perspectives about the early days of Ecological Psychology, a significant paradigm of post-cognitivist psychology. The interviews are supplemented by current reflections that bridge the past to the present. Each interview chapter al...
This book provides a chapter-by-chapter update to and reflection on of the landmark volume by J.J. Gibson on the Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979). Gibson’s book was presented a pioneering approach in experimental psychology; it was his most complete and mature description of the ecological approach to visual perception. Perception as Information Detection commemorates, develops, and updates each of the sixteen chapters from Gibson’s volume. The book brings together some of the foremost perceptual scientists in the field, from the United States, Europe, and Asia, to reflect on Gibson’s original chapters, expand on the key concepts discussed and relate this to their own cutting-edge research. This connects Gibson’s classic with the current state of the field, as well as providing a new generation of students with a contemporary overview of the ecological approach to visual perception. Perception as Information Detection is an important resource for perceptual scientists as well as both undergraduates and graduates studying sensation and perception, vision, cognitive science, ecological psychology, and philosophy of mind.
This volume presents cutting-edge research on the production, perception, and memory of timed events. Athletes and musicians demonstrate the levels to which humans can ascend in the timing of behavior. But even common actions, such as opening a door or bringing a cup to one's lips, reveal how we organize our behavior temporally. When there is damage to the nervous system and the ability to time behavior breaks down, we become aware of how many things must go right for timing not to go terribly wrong. In recent years, there has been a considerable growth of interest among cognitive and brain scientists in the timing aspects of human behavior. This volume presents cutting-edge research on the ...
What is the future of psychology? Will it continue to splinter into increasingly disparate camps or find new common ground? This book brings together leading experts--including Roger Sperry, Stephen Kosslyn, and Gordon Bower--to answer such questions.
Blending unconventional film theory with nontraditional psychology to provide a radically different set of critical methods and propositions about cinema, Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations looks at film through its communication properties rather than its social or political implications. Drawing on the tenets of James J. Gibson’s ecological theory of visual perception, the fifteen essays and forty-one illustrations gathered here by editors Joseph D. Anderson and Barbara Fisher Anderson offer a new understanding of how moving images are seen and understood. Focusing on a more straightforward perception of the world and cinema in an attempt to move film theory closer to reality, Moving Image Theory proposes that we should first understand how cinema communicates information about the representation of the three-dimensional world through properties of image and sound.
An overview of today's diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to action and the relationship of action and cognition. The emerging field of action science is characterized by a diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches that share the basic functional belief that evolution has optimized cognitive systems to serve the demands of action. This book brings together the constitutive approaches of action science in a single source, covering the relation of action to such cognitive functions as perception, attention, memory, and volition. Each chapter offers a tutorial-like description of a major line of inquiry, written by a leading scientist in the field. Taken together, th...