ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to two-fold: to reflect on the development of a “new” description of the environment—the triad of medium, substances, and surfaces, and to highlight its significance to the study of perception and behavior. The ability to distinguish among the different substances is extremely important to us, and we often succeed in picking up the relevant information through the process of scrutiny. The central question is: where is the action in our scrutiny of the substances of the environment Brick, for example, can be visually or haptically inspected. An attempt to develop a “new” description of the environment, it seems, was a natural consequence of James J. Gibson effort at understanding useful vision. In addition, the raw material needs to have a peculiar natural layout of surfaces with angular edges and a more or less flat surface required for conchoidal fracture.
