Handbook of Perception, Volume X: Perceptual Ecology, deals with perceptual aspects of the study of interaction of persons with their environment. The book is organized into six parts. Part I examines an ecological approach to the perceptual systems and cultural differences in perception. Part II is devoted to impaired perception and action. It includes studies on perception by the deaf and blind, and outlines the intellectual principles necessary for understanding sensory aids. Part III on aesthetics covers central problem of aesthetic theories and the generation and measurement of aesthetic forms. Part IV on architecture, music, art, and cinema discusses the perceptual aspects of architecture; the psychology of music; and the perception of art and motion pictures. Part V deals with the role of olfactory hedonics in perfumery and the assessment and abatement of noxious odors; and food habits, gastronomy, and analysis of flavors and foods. Part VI focuses on parapsychology. It reviews experimental evidence on telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis in order to assess the status of parapsychology and show why it is paradoxy, outside of accepted opinion, after some 100 years of psychic research.

The essential nature of learning is primarily thought of as a verbal process or function, but this notion conveys that pre-linguistic infants do not learn. Far from being "blank slates" that passively absorb environmental stimuli, infants are active learners who perceptually engage their environments and extract information from them before language is available. The ecological approach to perceiving-defined as "a theory about perceiving by active creatures who look and listen and move around"-was spearheaded by Eleanor and James Gibson in the 1950s and culminated in James Gibson's last book in 1979. Until now, no comprehensive theoretical statement of ecological development has been published since Eleanor Gibson's Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development (1969). In An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development, distinguished experimental psychologists Eleanor J. Gibson and Anne D. Pick provide a unique theoretical framework for the ecological approach to understanding perceptual learning and development. Perception, in accordance with James Gibson's views, entails a reciprocal relationship between a person and his or her environment: The environment provides resources and opportunities for the person, and the person gets information from and acts on the environment. The concept of affordance is central to this idea; the person acts on what the environment affords, as it is appropriate. This extraordinary volume covers the development of perception in detail from birth through toddlerhood, beginning with the development of communication, going on to perceiving and acting on objects, and then to locomotion. It is more than a presentation of facts about perception as it develops. It outlines the ecological approach and shows how it underlies "higher" cognitive processes, such as concept formation, as well as discovery of the basic affordances of the environment. This impressive work should serve as the capstone for Eleanor J. Gibson's distinguished career as a developmental and experimental psychologist.

This is a book about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do. The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision -- and what this book is about.

This book presents studies of self-motion by an international group of basic and applied researchers including biologists, psychologists, comparative physiologists, kinesiologists, aerospace and control engineers, physicians, and physicists. Academia is well represented and accounts for most of the applied research offered. Basic theoretical research is further represented by private research companies and also by government laboratories on both sides of the Atlantic. Researchers and students of biology, psychology, physiology, kinesiology, engineering, and physics who have an interest in self-motion -- whether it be underwater, in space, or on solid ground -- will find this volume of interest. This book presents studies of self-motion by an international group of basic and applied researchers including biologists, psychologists, comparative physiologists, kinesiologists, aerospace and control engineers, physicians, and physicists. Academia is well represented and accounts for most of the applied research offered. Basic theoretical research is further represented by private research companies and also by government laboratories on both sides of the Atlantic. Researchers and students of biology, psychology, physiology, kinesiology, engineering, and physics who have an interest in self-motion -- whether it be underwater, in space, or on solid ground -- will find this volume of interest.

First Published in 1984. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Aimed at students taking a course on visual perception, this textbook considers what it means for a man, a monkey and a computer to perceive the world. After an introduction and a discussion of methods, the book deals with how the environment produces a physical effect, how the resulting "image" is processed by the brain or by computer algorithms in order to produce a perception of "something out there". It also discusses color, form, motion, distance, and also the sensing of three dimensionality, before dealing with visual perception and its role in awareness and consciousness. The book concludes with discussions of perceptual development, blindness, and visual disorders. Visual perception is by its very nature an interdisciplinary subject that requires a basic understanding of a range of topics from diverse fields, and this is a very readable guide to all students whether they come from a neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, robotics, or philosophy background.

Handbook of Perception: Perceptual Processing v. 9

Handbook of Perception, Volume VIII: Perceptual Coding covers perceptual coding of space, time, and objects, including sensory memory systems and the relations between verbal and perceptual codes. This volume contains contributions that focus on such subjects as the compound eye; the problems of the perceptual constancies and of intersensory coordination in perceptual development; the visual perception of objects in space; and perception of motion. Topics on the perception of color, the representation of temporal, auditory, and haptic perception; and the relationship between verbal and perceptual codes are discussed in detail as well. This book will be of use to psychologists, biologists, and those interested in the study of perceptual codes.

Appropriate as a textbook for graduate courses, The Evolution and Function of Cognition provides a systematic and progressively inclusive integration of the facts and principles of cognitive psychology. It includes contributions of information processing and reaction, and emphasizes historical continuity. In addition, the book shows how evolutionary psychology fits in with the mainstream of thought in psychological theory. The Evolution and Function of Cognition will benefit scholars and researchers interested in the general topics of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.

separated by the exigencies of the design life cycle into another compartment, that makes invisible the (prior) technical work of engineers that is not directly pertinent to the application work of practitioners. More recently (and notably after the work of Greisemer and Star) the black box has been opened and infrastructure has been discussed in terms of the social relations of an extended group of actors that includes developers. Ethical and political issues are involved (cf f accountable computing). Writing broadly within this context, Day (chapter 11) proposes that the concept of 'surface' can assist us to explore space as the product of 'power and the affective and expressive role for materials', rather than the background to this. Surfaces are the 'variously textured...sites for mixtures between bodies', and are thus the 'sites for events'. The notions of 'folding' and 'foldability' and 'unfolding' are discussed at length, as metaphors that account for the interactions of bodies in space across time. Some of the contributors to this volume focus on ways in which we may experience multiple infrastructures. Dix and his colleagues, for example, in chapter 12 explore a complex of models - of spatial context, of 'mixed reality boundaries' and of human spatial understanding across a number of field projects that make up the Equator project to explain the ways in which co-existing multiple spaces are experienced.