The Ecological Approach to Perceiving
Psychology 493
Fall 2004
Instructor
William M. Mace
Office: Life Sciences 212A
Office Hours: M 10 – 11:15; W 1:30 – 3; Th 9:55 – 11:15; and by appointment
Phone: X2343
E-Mail: william.mace
What time is it? (BROKEN LINK)
Trinity College Intellectual Honesty Policy
Required Reading
- From Bookstore
- Gibson, James J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception
- Other material as it becomes appropriate and available
Grading:
In order to pass the course, you must pass the class participation requirement and complete all assignments
Class participation Your grade for class participation will take into account your attendance and your behavior. It is assumed that you will show normal courtesy to other classmates and arrive on time, then stay in your seat for the entire class. It’s only 50 minutes. Once in a while the class will be asked questions about what’s been covered in the current class, the previous class, or a salient reading. There also will be opportunities for students to clarify any questions that are unclear. Students who do not volunteer to answer questions in class may be called on. Occasionally, there will be short homework assignments and correspondence by email. Satisfactory participation in these also will count in the category of class participation. The point will be to help me stay in touch with what you are picking up, to increase the chances you will know the material well before exam cramming time.
Exams will consist of questions with short answers. Questions will depend on both classes and reading. You will not do well if you concentrate only on the reading or only on the classes. Moreover, the question usually will ask you to figure out the answer based on what you learned andnot merely to repeat something you heard or read. I want you to understand how things work. Your goal should be to make the material make sense to you. If it does not, you need to ask questions — ask in class, after class, over electronic mail, or any other time you can reach me.
The syllabus for this course is on the World Wide Web. The address is: http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/ecopsyc/courses/psy493.html. (No period at the end).
List of websites useful for this course
- Trinity Department of Psychology
- Psych Web
- Haskins Laboratories (Speech)
- Big list of sites about vision
- Magic Eye Autostereograms
- UC Irvine projects
- OED
- Google search program for searching the Web
To stay on schedule, you should complete the reading listed for a given class day by that day.
Schedule of Classes |
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DATE | READING FOR CLASS | TOPIC DESCRIPTION |
Class 1 September 7 |
Introduction to the course | |
Class 2 September 9 |
Read the exchange between Gregory and the Gibsons. Gregory Eleanor and James Gibson’s reply Because the format of the original Gregory article is so cumbersome, you need directions on how to read the file. Column 1 of the article, on the first page of your file, continues on page 3 of the file. |
Two versions of active theories of perception |
Class 3 September 14 |
Read: Gibson, J. J. (1960). The concept of the stimulus in psychology. American Psychologist, 15, 694-703. | |
Class 4 September 16 |
Read:
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Get familiar with this web site on linear perspective. The laws of perspective have been extremely important to the development of Gibson’s ideas. His ideas in no way are equal to perspective, but he’s tried to profit from what insights he thinks can be gleaned from perspective. |
Class 5 September 21 |
Read: Gibson (1959)Notes for Tuesday class | This chapter is a good way to get up to speed on Gibson, 1950 even though he felt he was far beyond it by the time the chapter came out. |
Class 6 September 23 |
Continue reading Gibson, 1959 | |
Class 7 September 28 |
Read: Gibson (1965). Research on the visual perception of motion and change. In I. M. Spigel (ed.)Readings in the study of visually perceived movement. NY: Harper & RowSupporting film also available on CD | It would be good to read some of the work explicitly on “motion” before we go much further. |
Class 8 September 30 |
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Class 9 October 5 |
Read: Handout on geometries | Transformations and Invariants: The hierarchy of geometries |
Class 10 October 7 |
Recommended reading: Cassirer [on Blackboard] | More on transformations and Invariants |
Class 11 October 14 |
Read: Gibson (1979) Chapter 1 | Animal and environment reciprocity; sky and earth |
Class 12 October 19 |
Read: Gibson (1979) Chapter 2 | Medium, substances and surfaces |
Class 13 October 21 |
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Class 14 October 26 |
Read:Gibson (1979) Chapter 3 | Classification of what’s in the environment |
Class 15 October 28 |
Gibson (1979) Chapter 4 | Information vs. stimuli: Do we ever see light (as such)? |
Class 16 November 2 |
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Class 17 November 4 |
Gibson (1979) Chapter 5 | The ambient optic array — Focusable lightNatural vs. Artificial perspective |
Class 18 November 9 |
Continuing Gibson (1979) Chapter 5 | The change between hidden and unhidden surfaces |
Class 19 November 11 |
Read:Gibson (1979) Chapter 7 | Perceiving the SelfAfter class: make still version of movie |
Class 20 November 16 |
Read: Purple peril on affordancesGibson (1979) Chapter 8 | Affordances |
Class 21 November 18 |
Gibson (1979) Chapter 9 and 10 | |
Class 22 November 23 |
Gibson (1979) Chapter 11 | The occluding edge and its consequences |
Class 23 November 30 |
Gibson (1979) Chapters 12 and 13 | |
Class 24 December 2 |
Gibson (1979) Chapter 14 | |
Class 25 December 7 |
Gibson (1979) Chapters 15 & 16 | |
Class 26 December 9 |