SP.2: Deep Dive – Eleanor Gibson: Pioneer in Perceptual Learning and Development

Approximate reading time: 3 minutes

Eleanor Gibson’s foundational work in perceptual learning and development revolutionised our understanding of this complex field. Observing infants, she conceptualised perception as a combination of environment-originated, self-in-search, and reciprocal perception processes. Here is a brief description of each of her contributions to our understanding of perception.

• Differentiation theory: She posited infants as active learners, interacting with their surroundings to “differentiate” or pick out stable structures — a concept now known as differentiation theory. This model challenges the notion of children as passive recipients of their environment. As they develop, children increasingly perceive specific details, refining their perceptual systems to recognize the diversity and nuances in their environment (Pick, 1992).
• Direct perception: Gibson proposed direct perception, another groundbreaking theory that veered from established ideas. This theory stated that perception does not require heavy internal processing or the creation of mental representations of the world. Instead, the environment supplies all the necessary cues, and it is up to the infant to detect these cues directly. Perception, in this view, is a direct extraction from the stimuli in our environment.
• Ecological approach: Gibson, along with her husband James Gibson, pioneered the ecological approach to perception. This approach asserts that perception is not an isolated process but deeply connected with the environment. The environment and the perceiver are in a reciprocal relationship, and understanding perception requires a comprehensive exploration of this interaction (Adolph, & Kretch, 2015).
• Affordances: Gibson also focused on the nature of Perceptual Learning. She emphasised that perceptual learning is not just about receiving feedback from the environment. Instead, it involves the discovery and detection of different affordances (opportunities for action) in the environment. As infants explore and interact, they learn what actions are feasible, contributing significantly to their understanding of the world around them. An affordance refers to what the environment offers an individual in terms of action (Chemero, 2003; Szokolszky, Read,, Palatinus, & Palatinus, 2019). For example, a chair doesn’t merely “appear” as a chair to us; it affords sitting. Infants gradually learn about these affordances as they navigate their surroundings.

In sum, Eleanor J. Gibson’s contributions have left an indelible mark on our understanding of perceptual development. Her theories emphasised the infant’s active role in discerning information from the environment and the direct link between environment and perception. This innovative approach countered previous theories that necessitated heavy cognitive processing for perception, and continues to influence.