ABSTRACT
The theoretical position to be described in this chapter owes a great deal to the work of one man, the American psychologist, J. J. Gibson. His claim that perception is in an important sense direct, and his development of what has been called ‘ecological optics’, are among the most interesting theoretical developments in modern perceptual research. Since his death, Gibson’s ideas have been refined and developed and he himself changed his views during the course of his career. In what follows we shall give a general account of what seem to be the most important aspects of this approach to perception; for the sake of clarity and economy, we shall not always indicate whether a particular idea or argument belongs to Gibson or to a follower of his, although major theoretical differences will be pointed out. The general term, ‘direct perception’, will be adopted. This has been given to the body of theory developed by Gibson and his followers that, it has been claimed, represents a new paradigm. The reader will note that, once again, visual examples dominate the account of a theory.
