Information Pickup Theory

Founder of the Theory, James Jerome Gibson (J.J. Gibson)

James Gibson was born on January 27, 1904 in McConnelsville, Ohio. His interest in Ecology started at a very young age when he started to become curious about how things appeared in the world. Much of his grooming in the field of perceptual psychology came from his enrolment at Princeton University where he earned a Bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in Psychology. The focus of his doctoral research was the areas of memory and learning which later led him to become a teacher of Psychology at Smith College.[1] It was here that he met his soon to be wife Eleanor Jack Gibson who supported his psychological views on the world and was also a prominent psychologist in the area of perceptual learning and development. Their union produced two children, James Jerome, Jr. and Jean. (Hochberg,1994) Gibson served his country during World War II (1942-1946) after which he returned to the education field until he retired in 1972. He continued to carry out a wealth of research and write publications primarily centered around visual perception and was popularly known as one of the most controversial visual theorists of the twentieth century. Gibson’s study of visual perception was what could be considered an “ecological approach” and with it came radical ideas that contradicted many theories dealing with human experiences. Gibson later died in 1979 at the age of 75. [2]

What is Information Pickup Theory?

Gibson’s theory of information pickup is based primarily on the premise that perception is dependent on information in the environment instead of sensations. It is possible for organisms to directly obtain these information from the environment without the need for cognitive processing. According to Gibson, “Perceiving is an achievement of the individual, not an experience in the theatre of consciousness. It is a keeping-in-touch with the world, an experiencing of things rather than a having of experiences”. He further points out that the act of perceiving is being aware of the surfaces of the environment and having an awareness of oneself in that environment. (Gibson, 2015)

Gibson’s theory challenges the representational theory of perception and has been the topic of much debate over the years. He had a longstanding opposition with Cognitivism which promotes the role that knowledge plays perception. Gibson strongly believed that merely sustains many mistakes in Psychology without attempting to correct them. He acknowledges the behaviorist E.B Holt for influencing his thinking but modified his stimulus-response formula to arrive at the consensus that instead of viewing perception as a response, it should be viewed as an act, thus making perceptual information something that is obtained instead of imposed (Costall, 1984) In a rare and unique opportunity to hear James Gibson describe his approach to perception, Gibson proposed that if we were to have a sensation-based theory of perception then perception would be of the present, memory of the past and expectation or imagination of the future and this leads to complications. Hence a theory like Information- Pickup gives rise to the need awareness of the environment without respect to time. An understanding of the environment is therefore needed if one is to understand behaviors. He outlined that there has to be a new description of the environment to be perceived, one in which there is reciprocity between the environment and the observer (Gibson, 1974)

According to Nakayama, 1994, the fact that the pickup of information from the environment was said to be direct instead of being mediated by any kind of synthesis or inferences, was one factor that caused the theory to be so controversial. With this direct pick-up, it would suggest that the environment would have already be filled with all the information we need so it is just a matter of using the right senses to detect whatever information is available and that is needed. (Nakayama, 1994)

This further supports the use of one’s senses to holistically organize information in the mind detected from the environment, while maintaining interaction with its properties. (Braund, 2008)

The role of the senses

In Gibson’s book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, he tells us that animals and humans pick up information by using all the senses and the various senses contribute information about the same objects, patterns, places and movement for example. Perceptual systems can either work harmoniously together or by themselves (Freeman, 1969) These systems play the role of keeping us in contact with the world bringing about awareness of the environment.

In order to get a full appreciation of the theory of Information pick-up, one must understand Gibson’s thoughts on visual perception and the emphasis he placed on light. He saw light as an information carrier rather than a stimulus. This idea was bred from his belief in the “higher order variable of the optic array” (Nakayama, 1994) The optic array is known as the pattern of light from the environment reaching the viewer’s eyes. With the aid of this pattern of light, the viewer is able to directly interpret information with little or no processing. (Gibson, 1966) In an attempt to explain the concept of optical information, Gibson references what happens when one sees an object in the environment. In his words, “When one sees an object one does not ordinarily see its front surface, in perspective. One sees the whole of it, the back as well as the front. In a sense all of its aspects are present in the experience”. (Gibson, 1971) So essentially there is a limitless number of points of observation which assist with how we interact with objects in the environment. Gibson also made allowances for perceiving objects when they appear in pictures. He argued that when one sees a pictured object he also sees it as a whole instead of just one particular surface. (Gibson, 1971)

References

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