ABSTRACT
As readers of this volume will know well by the time they reach this sentence, the current chapter is part of a collection designed to honor Anne D. Pick and Herbert L. Pick, Jr. Most contributors owe personal debts to Anne and Herb, and all owe intellectual debts, often evident in their shared commitment to the ecological theories of J. J. and E. J. Gibson, At first glance, my own place in this context may seem surprising. Despite my interactions with both Gibsons during my undergraduate days at Cornell, my theoretical identification is unquestionably more Piagetian than Gibsonian. Furthermore, much of my empirical work (and the focus of this chapter) concerns representations, a construct commonly greeted with suspicion by ecological psychologists. I believe, however, that the seeming discord between these traditions is in many ways only illusory. Thus, I begin this chapter by highlighting some of the core compatibilities between the work of the Picks and the Gibsons, on the one hand, and aspects of Piagetian theory and of my own conceptual and empirical work on representations, on the other (Identifying an Ecological Niche for Constructivists and for Representations).
