The ecological approach to visual perception

Gibson, J.J., 1979, The ecological approach to visual perception, Houghton, Boston

  • Author : Gibson, J.J.
  • Year : 1979
  • Publisher : Houghton
  • Publisher's Location : Boston
  • ISBN : 0395270499
  • Pages : 0
  • Comments : KEYWORDS: affordances, ecology, perception, design theory. --- For landscape architecture in relationship with environmental psychology and environmental behaviour, this book offers a theory that contributes to landscape design theory. Especially the Gibson’s theory on affordances (p127-143). The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes either good or ill. This term implies the complementarity of animal and the environment.
  • Outline : In this book, environment will refer to the surroundings of those organisms that perceive and behave, that is to say, animals. The environment of plants, organism that lack sense organs and muscles, is not relevant in the study of perception and behaviour. The author treat the vegetation of the world as animals do, as if it were lumped together with inorganic minerals of the word, with the physical, chemical, and geological environment. Plants in general are not animated; they do not move about, they do not behave, they lack a nervous system, and they do not have sensations. The environment of animals is what they perceive. The environment is not the same as the physical world, if one means by that the world described by physics. The observer and his environment are complementary. So are the set of observers and their common environment. The components and events of the environment fall into natural units. These units are nested. They should not be confused with the metric units space and time. The environments persist in some respects and changes in other respects. The most radical change is going out of existence or coming into existence.