The Essential Elements of an Evolutionary Theory of Perception

ABSTRACT

Traditional theories of perception developed for centuries before Darwin conceived his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Although many areas of psychological theory and research now have mainstream approaches strongly influenced by evolutionary thinking, mainstream perceptual theory remains close to its pre-Darwinian roots. This paper draws on insights from ecological psychology, especially as represented in J. J. Gibson's The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966), to identify 4 elements that any future evolutionary approach to perception should be expected to include: (a) an ecological analysis of ambient energy, (b) a comparative understanding of the perceptual abilities of different species, (c) a dynamic understanding of organism–environment interaction as essential for perception, and (d) an understanding of perceptual attunement based on the concept of affordances. Each of these elements serves an essential theoretical role while also pointing toward lines of research where much work remains to be done. The presence of these elements explains, in part, the affinity between ecological psychology and other evolutionarily grounded approaches to psychology, including the emerging fields of enactivism and embodied cognition.

Acknowledgments

This publication does not represent the opinion of the Marine Corps. This paper has benefited from feedback from Dustin Aurand and Nicholas S. Thompson, and two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

¹ Note that two-path theories in cognitive psychology try to have it both ways by hypothesizing a neurological path that leads to action that is independent of a path that leads to higher mental functioning. Although worth acknowledging, dual-path theories do not address the primary concerns of this paper.

² Given the breadth of cognitive research, exceptions exist. The heuristic-cognition literature, for example, gives significant attention to how cognitive “shortcuts” can act as highly functional adaptations to a world with certain structure (e.g., Gigerenzer & Todd, 1999).

³ Note that the “transforms” metaphor works best if you are considering the light that converges onto the moving organism. If you instead frame things in terms of the environment in which the organism is moving, then the “sampling” metaphor is more appropriate. Whether analyzed from an “objective” (organism-independent) point of view, or from the point of view of a particular organism, the focus of ecological optics remains on the patterns of energy in the ambient light itself.

⁴ The literature of ethology is composed largely of studies of such imperfect actions toward the environment such as a territorial robin that will readily attack a red tuft of fuzz held up by brown wire or the nesting goose that will roll any white egg-size object into its nest, even if it is almost cubical in shape. Beyond that, the literature of operant and classical conditioning is largely about how arbitrarily most organisms can come to act toward most aspects of their environments should a reliable correlation between events be maintained for a sufficient duration.

⁵ It is tempting to say that any approach must have “ecological optics.” I avoid that phrasing here because I am more concerned about the ideas that are J. J. Gibson's legacy than about his terminology or whether he is explicitly credited by all future theories.

⁶ J. J. Gibson (1966) anticipated that his use of this term information would be problematic, and indeed it has caused much confusion. Gibson made it clear that this use of the term “means information about, or specification of” and that “not all structure carries this sort of information” (p. 187). Because it is so susceptible to confusion, and because other terms are available, I do not refer to information anywhere else in this paper, and instead refer to specification and structure.

⁷ This dynamic view of perception is quite similar to the epigenetic approach to physiological and behavioral development (e.g., Miller, 1997; Wagman & Miller, 2003).

⁸ For example, Natsoulas wrote about the potential of subsuming memory completely into perception within the Ecological Approach (e.g., Natsoulas, 1987–1988). See also discussion by Reed (1988, pp. 298–309).