Notes on Gibson, 1960 (assigned for and discussed at the last class)<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, whether or not a potential stimulus becomes effective depends on the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beth noted that this seems to be just as eclectic as the variety of positions Gibson was reviewing.\u00a0 Therefore, it didn\u2019t seem like he was taking such a definite position after all.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to leave this hanging.\u00a0 Gibson would not be especially happy about this way of putting the matter later on, but there is a point that\u2019s largely consistent with what he\u2019s saying and will continue to say.\u00a0 First the large presupposition of the last sentence quoted \u2013 Gibson endorses the idea of potential<\/em> stimuli and does not want to limit the definition of stimuli only to effective<\/em> stimuli.\u00a0 Second, the main point here \u2013 if an effective stimulus can be defined relative to a receptor, or a neural impulse, or sense organ adjustments, or overt responses, it means that there is no single level that is the<\/em> stimulus.\u00a0 If, for example, a ray of light can be said to fire a cone receptor in the retina, it does not mean that only rays of light can be considered stimuli and that every other feature of experience is the result of operations adding together and operating on the receptor responses to many stimuli.<\/p>\n This leads us naturally to the considerations in the 1959 chapter.<\/p>\n Notes of 1959 chapter<\/p>\n Keep in mind that for most scholars of perception, whether they are philosophers, physiologists, or experimentalists, the fundamental experiences that animals have as an immediate function of stimulation is something usually called a sensation\u00a0 — like a meaningless patch of color.\u00a0Philosophers called these \u201csense data.\u201d\u00a0 The primary presumption is that the psychological effects of stimuli are very different from our \u201ceveryday\u201d experiences of the world.\u00a0 Stimuli for vision are, for example, light rays, and we experience solid surfaces, open spaces, other people, and so on.\u00a0The experiences of our meaningful world are a far cry from the stimuli at our receptors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Much of perceptual theory, and cognitive theory, is devoted to hypothesizing and investigating the \u201cfilling in\u201d processes \u2013 whatever has to happen to explain the experiences we ultimately have.\u00a0 The whole enterprise is based on theories of stimuli that guarantee that they are nothing like what we finally experience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Gibson was questioning the basis for people\u2019s certainty that they knew enough about what stimuli were to know that they definitely would not the basis for our experiences.\u00a0 If you can question what counts as a stimulus, and do research on it, then it\u2019s not necessarily the case that there is a gap between stimuli (what is given) and what is experienced.\u00a0 That\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It then becomes possible to imagine Gibson\u2019s formula \u2013 \u201cthat perception is a function of stimulation and stimulation is a function of the environment (p. 463),\u201d and therefore that the environment is the object of perception.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Consider Gibson\u2019s DEFINITION of perception:\u00a0 The word perception<\/em> in this essay means the process by which an individual maintains contact with his environment (p. 457).\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You won\u2019t find anyone else who defines that as the issue.\u00a0 Can you find other definitions of perception?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Later for students:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look at<\/em> some of the pictures from Gibson\u2019s 1950 book, inspired by looking at the earth from airplanes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is an object (in the topic of object perception)?\u00a0 Then:\u00a0 Is the ground an object?\u00a0 How much of it?\u00a0 Does it have a shape?\u00a0 Is the sky an object?\u00a0 Where are they?\u00a0 Is the horizon an object?\u00a0 Where is it?\u00a0 Are these weird?\u00a0\u00a0 Who talks about them?\u00a0 Do you see air?\u00a0 How do you know where to walk?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1950, Gibson called his theory a GROUND theory and then called the opposing traditional theories, AIR theories.<\/p>\n Psych 493 Syllabus<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Notes on Gibson, 1960 (assigned for and discussed at the last class) 701 \u2013 \u201cAn effective stimulus can now be defined. It is one which arouses receptor activity, or recorded neural impulses, or sense organ adjustments, or overt responses, or … Continue reading