Integr Psych Behav (2009) 43:393–405
DOI 10.1007/s12124-009-9098-7
C O M M E N TA RY
The Ecological Level of Analysis: Can Neogibsonian
Principles be Applied Beyond Perception and Action?
David Travieso & David M. Jacobs
Published online: 18 June 2009
# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract Is it useful to apply ecological principles, developed to understand perception
and action, in research areas such as social psychology? Charles (Integrative
Psychological & Behavioral Sciences 43(1) 53–66 2009) warns ecological psychologists interested in this question that much time and effort can be saved through a
backwards extension to or rediscovery of the New Realism tradition. In response, we
analyze what ecological psychology risks to lose with such a backwards extension and
describe existing extensions of the approach not considered by Charles. According to
Charles, New Realism holds that: (1) we experience reality, (2) relations are real, and
(3) things are what you see when you see those things. Our arguments originate from a
comparison of these principles with six recently described ecological ones: (1)
organism-environment systems are the proper units of analysis, (2) environmental
realities should be defined at the ecological scale, (3) behavior is emergent and selforganized, (4) perception and action are continuous and cyclic, (5) information is
specificational, and (6) perception is of affordances (Richardson et al. 2008).
Keywords Ecological psychology . Gibson . Affordances . Perception-action .
Social psychology . Levels of analysis
Ecological psychology is a currently active approach, founded by Gibson (1966, 1979),
that aims to understand perception and action taking the environment-actor system as
its level of analysis (Michaels and Carello 1981; Richardson et al. 2008).
Notwithstanding exceptions, one should agree with Charles (2009) that the main focus
of the approach is on perception and action. Charles asks whether and how the
approach can be useful in other research areas, for instance in attempts to understand
social and socio-cultural phenomena. He argues that ecological psychologists interested
in phenomena other than perception and action should carefully consider the New
D. Travieso (*) : D. M. Jacobs
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid,
Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
D. M. Jacobs
e-mail: [email protected]
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Realism tradition, because that tradition has shown a large interest in such phenomena.
Otherwise, he argues, New Realism has much in common with ecological psychology.
As does Charles (2009), we ask if and how the ecological approach can be
applied to study social and socio-cultural phenomena. Our concern is to extend the
approach, or at least our understanding thereof, without abandoning its main
principles. We argue that Charles (1) does not sufficiently acknowledge what the
ecological theory risks to lose with a regress to New Realism and (2) does not
sufficiently consider currently ongoing ecological efforts to study social and sociocultural phenomena. These efforts include the work of Costall (1995) and the work
of Marsh and colleagues (Marsh et al. 2006; Marsh 2009). Before we address these
lines of research, however, we contrast the principles of New Realism (described by
Charles) with those of ecological psychology (described by Richardson et al. 2008).
Why a New Interest in Ecological Psychology? Why Should Ecological
Psychology be Considered?
Among the most well-known aspects of ecological psychology is the rejection of the
explanatory value of mental representations. Scientific approaches that do use
representations are at risk of an unexplainable dualism between the mental (the
representations) and the non-mental (environmental objects, for instance). This does
not mean that such approaches deny reality; rather, they consider two ontological
entities, the real and the mental.1 The mere assumption of realism is therefore by no
means unique to ecological psychology. As described by Charles (2009), realism is a
historical heritage of ecological psychology from New Realism, and it can be further
rooted back to American functionalism.
We do not think that other disciplines might want to turn to ecological principles for
the realism per se. Rather, what is relevant is how the assumption of realism has given
rise to a systematic and principled way to understand perception and action (Shaw et al.
1982; cf. Jacobs and Michaels 2002). At first sight this way to understand perception
and action might indeed seem to be closely related to the principles of New Realism as
described by Charles (2009): (1) we experience reality, (2) relations are real, and (3)
things are what you see when you see those things. Even though these statements do
indicate an influence of New Realism on ecological psychology, we think that Charles
underestimates the importance of the differences addressed in the following section.
The Axioms of New Realism Reconsidered
Principle 1 of New Realism: We experience reality
Charles (2009) further describes this statement as follows:
[…] all things are observable; all things have a consequence, and hence can,
by some means, be observed. The New Realists wanted to set this up as a very
1
It has also been argued that mental entities are real, meaning that the dualism is methodological rather
than ontological (Fodor 1983).
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broad principle, applying just as well to my seeing the coffee mug on my desk
as the consciousness of my office mate, the earth’s orbit, or subatomic
particles. (Charles, p. 55)
This description reveals a first difference between Charles’ understanding of New
Realism and ecological psychology, because ecological psychologists claim that we
do not perceive all physical properties of objects. Richardson et al. (2008) present
two principles that indicate the difference; Principle 1: Organism-environment
systems are the proper units of analysis, and Principle 2: Environmental realities
should be defined at the ecological scale. One should conclude from these principles
that we do not perceive, say, subatomic particles and movements of remote galaxies,
because such properties are not defined at the ecological scale.
Descriptions that are independent of organisms belong to the field of physics, in
which points, lines, planes, particles, masses, and durations are among the primary
elements of analyses. Ecological psychology emphasizes that such physical concepts
are not the ones to which we are attuned in our organism-environment system.
Instead, Gibson (1979) used concepts such as surfaces, substances, places, objects,
and events (see Table 9.1 of Richardson et al. 2008, for a further comparison of
physical and ecological properties). We consider this to be the first move forward of
Gibson’s theory with regard to previous approaches. We will see below that
restricting the scope of perception to ecological properties is indispensable in order
to advance from a naïve (unexplained) form of realism to an ecological or
operational form of realism.
Note in this regard that both cognitive psychology and behaviorism, still popular
alternatives of ecological psychology, adopt forms of naïve realism. That is, they
take perception or knowledge of elemental properties for granted without
explanation. In behaviorism, animals are assumed to perceive bells, levers, food,
etc., and in cognitive psychology, systems of representations are assumed to be
somehow related to the environment, or grounded. The principles of New Realism
advanced by Charles (2009) fail to provide an alternative to naïve forms of realism.
Principle 2 of New Realism: Relations are real, and hence detectable
The first part of this statement, that relations are real, is one of the foundations of
ecological psychology too. One might even go further and question to what extent it
makes sense to call some properties relations and others not. For instance, is time-tocontact a relation (combination) of speed and distance? Or is distance a combination
of speed and time? Hence, ecological psychologists would agree that properties that
are described as relations have the same ontological status as properties not so
described. Emphasizing the importance of relational properties, Gibson (1979)
introduced the concept of affordance to refer to the class properties that are of
interest to organisms or, more precisely, to refer to the properties that afford actions
to the organism. Such properties are by definition relational.
The second part of the statement, however, which states that relations are
detectable, points in the direction of a naïve realism much like the naïve realism in
behaviorism and cognitive psychology. Ecological psychology, in contrast, aims to
achieve a lawful or operative description of environment-organism relations. To
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achieve this, the above-mentioned restrictions in the description of the environmentorganism relations are needed. In sum, although relations are real, not all relations are
perceivable. Moreover, relations are not perceivable because of being real. As indicated
by Richardson et al. (2008), properties are perceivable if they are specified by detectable
information. This brings us to the following Neogibsonian principles; Principle 5:
Information is specificational, and Principle 6: Perception is of affordances.
Principle 5, or the claim that information is specificational, implies an advance of
Gibson’s theory with regard to Charles’ principles of New Realism, because it
provides a means to understand how organisms perceive. We might all agree with
Gibson (1979), for instance, that the heading direction of a locomoting animal is
specified by the center of expansion of the optical flow, that this center of expansion is
detectable, and that perceiving heading direction might mean detecting the center of
expansion. Likewise, perceiving the particular slant of a surface might mean detecting
a particular gradient in the optical projection of its texture elements, perceiving timeto-contact might mean detecting Lee’s tau (Lee and Reddish 1981), etc.
Even though the movements of subatomic particles and remote galaxies may also
be specified in ambient energy arrays, in these cases the patterns should be supposed
to be too fine-grained or coarse-grained to be detectable by biological organisms.
They hence do not qualify as Gibsonian information. This illustrates that Principle 5
is defensible precisely because Gibson restricted his analyses to perception and
action in natural environments, described at the ecological scale. If one loosens up
the scale restriction too much, Principle 5 becomes indefensible, which implies a
regress to naïve forms of realism.
Remember that the goal of this commentary is to consider whether ecological
psychology can be extended to research areas such as for instance social psychology.
The problem at hand, however, and this is the crux of our arguments, is not to merely
extend ecological psychology, but to extend ecological psychology without giving up
the principles of specification. We think that Charles (2009) did not sufficiently
emphasize this when he suggested a backwards extension toward New Realism.
It might be useful at this point to consider a more detailed example of ecological
perception-action research. During the last few decades, a research line has been
developed on what Gibson (1966) called dynamic touch. Dynamic touch is that part
of haptics that allows observers to perceive properties of their body and of hand-held
objects through receptors in muscles and tendons. The receptors are active during the
angular movements of the body segments. Using knowledge about rotational
mechanics—the type of physics that concerns such movements—Turvey and
colleagues aimed to understand our (non-visual) perceptual access to properties
such as the length, weight, or even form of wielded objects (e.g., Carello and Turvey
2000; Turvey 1996; Solomon and Turvey 1988).
Remember Newton’s second law of motion: F=m a, which holds that a changing
force, F, is coupled to a changing acceleration, a, through the invariant property
called mass, m. The case of rotational mechanics is similar. In this case the law of
motion holds that τ=I α, where τ is a vector that indicates a changing rotational
force (or torque), α is a vector that indicates a changing rotational acceleration, and I
is a 3×3 matrix that describes the coupling of the torques and accelerations. The
matrix I is referred to as inertia tensor. If described in object-centered coordinates,
the inertia tensor is invariant. Turvey and colleagues hypothesized that observers
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have access to several properties of wielded objects because, through the wielding,
they are able to detect different invariant properties of the inertia tensor, which might
or might not be specific to the properties to be perceived.
The Neogibsonian principles can be applied to this situation as follows: Both
objects and organisms are real things, with properties such as mass and size in the
object, and joints and muscles in the organism. Relational properties such as force
and effort are also present. A cyclic pattern of perceiving and acting is required. The
perceiving-acting situation has persistence (the inertia tensor) and change (forces and
torques), and there is a lawful relation between organism and environment.
Information is present, not in the form of something that originates from the
environment and finds it way into the organism, but as a changing pattern of activity
in the organism that exists by virtue of the contact with the object (and is determined
as well by the particular structure of the organism).
Note from this example that ecological psychologists aim to identify information
that is specific to environmental properties (affordances) so that perception can be
portrayed as a resonance to that information. Remember that not all the properties of
objects are supposed to be specified by detectable information. Many details of the
subatomic structure of wielded objects, for instance, are neither specified nor
perceivable. This brings us to Charles’ (2009) final principle of New Realism.
Principle 3 of New Realism: Things are what you see when you see those things
Given the above arguments, we might add to this statements that things are more
than what you see when you see those things. Much remains without being
perceived at scales beyond the ecological one. Furthermore, even at the ecological
scale, organisms perceive only a fraction of what something actually is. This is
indicated in the following:
[...] something that is a cup for me, might not be a cup for a 2 year old child, a
dog, or a fruit fly, but might be a cup for an elephant. Further, as objects have
multiple affordances, I might perceive the affordances that make something a
cup when I am thirsty, but only perceive the affordances that make it a throwable object when I am angry. In none of those cases does the object itself
change, but there are differences in terms of what properties of the object are
detected (or responded to). (Charles, p.56)
The reader has probably noticed that, so far, we have presented only four of
Richardson et al.’s (2008) six Neogibsonian principles. The remaining ones are
Principle 3: Behavior is emergent and self-organized, and Principle 4: Perception
and action are continuous and cyclic. To conclude our description of these
principles, let us mention that Principle 3 connects ecological psychology to the
dynamical systems approach, a move forward that is more explicit in the work of
Neogibsonians than in the work of Gibson himself.
In the following we aim to continue Charles’ (2009) efforts and explore how
ecological psychology can be (and has been) applied in more social and sociocultural research areas. We summarize three possibilities. First, one might explore
how far the ecological level of analysis can be extended or stretched; that is, explore
whether or not some social properties might be specified in ambient energy arrays,
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as are properties such as heading direction, and hence might be directly perceived.
Second, rather than applying the ecological principles of specificity in social
psychology, one might apply the principles related to dynamical systems. Finally,
socio-cultural processes might be understood as an attunement to particular
culturally accepted affordances of objects. As we will see below, the latter two
views allow social psychologist to apply ecological tools without extending the
ecological scale of analysis, and hence without the above-mentioned risk to violate
the principles of specificity.
These approaches will be discussed after a few more specific comments on
Charles (2009).
Perception, Invariants, and Development
What is Perception?
Charles (2009) sees much similarity in the conceptions of perception in the
ecological and New Realism traditions; in our understanding correctly so. About the
New Realists he asserts that:
“When you know that someone has perceived something, what is it that you
have observed?” I believe the New Realist’s answer to that question would be
that you see a matching between the behavior of the organism and the
environments in which that behavior takes place. [...] That is, a New Realist
would define perception as a particular type of matching between an array of
behaviors and an array of circumstances. (Charles, p. 57–58)
About the ecological view he says that:
I think that if asked: “What do you have to explain when explaining
perception?” Many ecological psychologists would answer something like:
“Your primary obligation is to explain how people correctly respond to the
objects and events of the world.” Here, it would seem their answer is exactly in
line with the New Realist’s. (Charles, p. 58)
Let us use these descriptions to further illustrate one of our arguments. First note
that the descriptions are similar to the naïve forms of realism in behaviorism and
cognitive psychology to the extent that they take the observable relation between
organism and environment for granted. To ground environment-organism relations,
ecological psychology further asks: Which are the ambient energy patterns to which
we are attuned? We can walk adaptatively in most cases, but among the infinitely
many informational variables, which are used? How do we resonate to that
information? As described by Charles (2009):
From the perspective of the New Realist, Ecological Psychology may offer an
improved explanation for perception, an explanation for how the matching
between behavior and environment could come about. That is, Gibson offers a
mechanism that could explain how the New Realists’ claims are possible.
(Charles, p. 58)
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In our understanding, this improved explanation of perception, or this grounding
of realism, is an important advance of ecological psychology with regard New
Realism. An advance, we think, that should not be undone through a regress to New
Realism.
The Mathematics of Invariants
In a subsection about the mathematics of invariants, within the section of future
areas of research, Charles (2009) argues that:
The two invariants most commonly invoked as models are the ratio of leg
length to riser height […] and the rate of acceleration of optic expansion seen
when an object is moving straight towards the head. (Charles, p. 61)
He describes these two invariants as successful discoveries of ecological
psychology and then claims:
However, the success seems to have also led many to think that all invariants
must be of similar mathematical form. (Charles, p. 61)
from which he continues with:
Ecological psychologist would benefit from expanding the types of mathematics
they use to identify information. (Charles, p. 61)
Let us give a brief reaction on these claims. First, even though the two invariants
that Charles mentions are frequently used as examples, especially the optical
specification of time-to-contact, a multitude of other invariants has been considered.
One could think about the invariants in dynamic touch, which are related to
rotational dynamics and the inertia tensor, invariants related to the force by which
standing humans pull on a horizontal bar (Michaels and de Vries 1998; Michaels
et al. 1993), or invariants that specify the relative mass of colliding balls (Runeson
1995; cf. Jacobs et al. 2001), to give a few examples.2
Ecological psychologists have been able to identify such invariants because they
accept that perception and action are based on apparently complicated (higher-order)
informational variables. Such variables differ from the stimuli used in approaches
such as behaviorism and cognitive psychology precisely in that their mathematical
descriptions are more complicated. This is important because if one does not accept
that informational variables might be higher-order variables, one cannot defend the
principle that informational variables are specificational (Principle 5 of Richardson
et al. 2008). Lower-order variables typically do not specify properties of interest.
With the search for higher-order variables, ecological psychology has advanced the
mathematical descriptions of informational variables more than any other approach.
Even so, one should firmly agree with Charles (2009) when he claims that
ecological psychologist would benefit from further expanding the types of
2
Charles (2009) refers to the invariants that are considered up to the present as algebraic invariants. We
are not sure, however, whether the term algebraic invariants would be the most suited term for a
hypothetical common mathematical structure of the presently known invariants.
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mathematics used to identify information. In our view, denying this claim would be
similar to affirming that, at present, we have a complete understanding of perception
and action.3
Learning to Detect Invariants
Near the end of his article, Charles (2009) discusses a lack of knowledge about the
movements that are required to extract invariants, and he also argues that little is
known about how we learn to make these movements. Relatedly, he asks how
children and young animals develop the ability to extract invariants. It might be
useful for readers interested in this latter question to mention, for instance, the work
of Eppler and Adolph (1996), van der Kamp et al. (2003), and Kayed and van der
Meer (2007), being well aware that this list could be much extended.
Three Ways to Apply Ecological Principles in the Social Realm
The Individual-Level Approach
At several points, Charles (2009) discusses possible extensions of ecological
principles beyond perception and action, in particular to social psychology. He does
this in a way that Marsh et al. (2006) would have classified under the heading of the
individual-level approach (cf. McArthur and Baron 1983). The individual-level
approach can be introduced as follows:
The identification of new types of invariants will most likely also be key for
expanding Ecological Psychology into the social realm (“new”, of course,
referring merely to our conception of them). To repeat the New Realist’s almost
tautological premise, anything perceived must be an observable thing. In this
sense, any integration of social psychology with Ecological Psychology will
have to include a determination of the types of observations made possible by
being in a social setting. (Charles, p. 61–62)
Thus, the individual-level approach explores whether properties in social settings
are specified in a Gibsonian way, perhaps with new types of invariants, much like
properties at the scale of perception and action. Charles notes different attitudes in
this regard between Gibsonians and New Realists. With regard to the more hesitating
or cautious attitude of at least some Gibsonians he writes that:
It is unclear, however, whether Gibson would have been willing to extend
perception as far as the New Realist’s wished to; unclear, for example, whether
he would have been comfortable with the notion that mental traits are
perceivable. (Charles, p. 58–59)
3
Note that expanding the mathematics of invariants does not entail a return to New Realism as advocated
by Charles (2009). To the contrary, such an expansion further distinguishes ecological psychology from
previous approaches. The same is true, we think, for the other issues that are discussed by Charles in his
section on future areas of research.
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About the New Realists’ attitude he asserts that:
For Holt, the “asleep or awake, receptive or unreceptive, hungry or satiated,”
the intentionality of the actors, can be perceived by an observer. I believe that
Ecological Psychology’s best hope of making a coherent transition to dealing
experimentally with interpersonal and cultural phenomenon will be to extend
ecological theory back towards a New Realist approach. (Charles, p. 59)
As indicated by this quote, Charles is more sympathetic with the New Realist
position. Whereas ecological psychologists typically limit their analysis to the scale
of perception and action, he suggests that they should use a wider focus. However,
changing the scale of one’s analysis, much like a camera zoom, implies a
perturbation of principles, methods, and models.
Let us illustrate this with a reconsideration of the extreme case: A zoom that
includes all physical properties. As argued above, such a zoom would be
inconsistent with the Neogibsonian portrayal of perception because one cannot
assume, say, the movement of remote galaxies to be specified by information that is
detectable at the time scale of perception. Hence, given that perception is defined as
a resonance to information, Neogibsonians cannot consider the beliefs that we have
about movements of galaxies as perceptual knowledge. Words other than perception
should be used to refer to the way in which we obtain such beliefs; perhaps
inference, deduction, or intuition might do.
The question becomes: Are properties in social settings more like remote galaxies
(to be excluded from the ecological zoom) or more like heading direction (to be
included in the zoom)? Our personal view, partly based on our reading of Marsh
et al. (2006), is that they are in many cases more like remote galaxies, in the sense
that they are specified in ambient energy arrays at spatiotemporal scales beyond the
scale of perception, if at all. That is, we would say that even though the intentionality
of actors can often be intuited or inferred, it cannot be perceived, because one cannot
resonate to information that specifies it.
Having said this, in agreement with Charles (2009), we see much merit in the
analysis of properties that might be close to the edge of an acceptable ecological
zoom, which is to say, the limiting cases of the Neogibsonian principles. Such
attempts have been reviewed by Marsh et al. (2006), who considered studies about
properties such as sexual availability and intentions and about biophysical features
such as age and biological movement. Different levels of success are obtained in this
line of research (the individual-level approach). On the positive side, there have been
consistent results with regard to biophysical features, for instance in the detection of
biological movement through point light displays (e.g., Runeson and Frykholm
1981, 1983). In contrast, the detection of properties such as intentions of others is
often found to be less consistent and more context dependent. Apparently, many of
those cases violate the ecological principles presented above.
The Social Synergy Approach
The above-mentioned limitations of the individual-level approach indicate that a
different approach is needed in order to understand social phenomena in an
ecological way. As an alternative, Marsh et al. (2006) considered what they refer to
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as the social synergy approach (cf. Marsh et al. 2009; Richardson et al. 2009). Note
that the individual-level approach does not in fact address interactions between
organisms; it merely asks whether certain aspects of individuals can be perceived by
others. The social synergy approach, in contrast, is based on the idea that organisms
mutually influence each other in social interactions, and thus that organisms in social
situations cannot be considered as the sum of the individual organisms. Given that
behavior is emergent and self-organized, interacting individuals should be
considered as a system, and the coordinated behavior should be the unit of analysis.
To introduce the social synergy approach we first briefly mention a few
characteristics of the more general (non-social) synergetics or coordination dynamics
approach (Kugler and Turvey 1987). This approach considers organisms as complex
systems and behavior as self-organized. Commonly observed phenomena are
multistability, phase transitions, and hysteresis, which are typically described or
explained through the application of the theory of nonlinear differential equations.
Of interest here is the relatively simple HKB-model (Haken et al. 1985), probably
the most well-known model of the approach.
If individuals rhythmically move their hands or fingers in anti-phase, and speed
up the movement, a switch is observed to in-phase coordination.4 The HKB-model
was proposed to explain several empirical findings with regard to such phase
transitions (or switches). The simplest form of the model is the following:
:
f ¼ " sinðfÞ " 2k sinð2fÞ;
:
in which 7 is the phase difference between the limbs, f is the rate of change of the
phase difference, and k represents the cycle period of the movement. The model
describes how the phase difference converges on a stable attractor, which depends on k
and on the recent history. The HKB-model has shown to be a powerful instrument to
analyze human movements, and several models have been developed on the basis of it.
The social synergy approach aims to apply tools of coordination dynamics to
social situations. The first successes of the approach consist in the application of
HKB-like models to transitions in coordination patterns among individuals, rather
than to the originally studied transitions in interlimb coordination. Schmidt et al.
(1990), for instance, showed that phenomena observed with interlimb coordination
within an individual also occur with leg movements of two individuals, and
Richardson et al. (2007) addressed transitions in dynamic charge movements such as
lifting and carrying objects either individually or jointly (cf. Marsh et al. 2009). On
the basis of such results, Marsh et al. (2006) conclude that the social synergy
approach holds more promise than the individual level approach.
To summarize, rather than using the Neogibsonian principles of specificity (e.g.,
Richardson el al.’s Principle 5), the social synergy approach relies on the principles
of self-organization (e.g., Richardson el al.’s Principle 3). Hence, by not extending
the principles of specificity, the approach does not run into the potential problems
that are associated to the use of the principles of specificity beyond the appropriate
scale.
4
In the case of rhythmically tapping a table with index fingers, in-phase coordination is defined as tapping
the table at the same time with the two fingers, and anti-phase as tapping in an alternating way at equally
spaced time-intervals.
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Socializing Affordances
We next describe a third ecological approach to social and socio-cultural phenomena.
The approach was developed by Costall (1995, 2004; cf. Costall and Leudar 1996),
and is referred to as the socializing affordances approach. Objects have multiple
affordances. For example, a cup affords drinking, throwing, breaking, and infinitely
many other actions. Some affordances (drinking) are actualized or executed more
often than others (throwing). Costall refers to affordances that are regularly executed
in the social context as canonical affordances. In the course of development, or
enculturation, the human is socialized through the manipulation of his or her actions
with regard to objects; canonical uses are promoted, others punished.
Canonical affordances are defined at the ecological scale of analysis and can
hence be supposed to be specified in the Gibsonian sense. In fact, they are different
from other affordances only because they are more regularly executed. Because the
scale of affordances is not extended beyond the usual, this application of ecological
tools does not face the same problems as the individual-level approach. Rather than
assuming that social properties at the limit of (or beyond) the ecological scale are
specified, social aspects are now introduced to study the selection of affordances.
Note that related statements were made by L.S. Vygotsky (1978). Vygotsky
described child development as a progressive enculturation process in which
language is introduced through the association of words (referents) to activities that
the child is doing, or affordances. In this way, language first allows the adult’s
control over the infant’s behavior, to promote canonical affordances, and afterwards
the child’s own regulation (referred to as self-regulation and linked to consciousness).
The functional reorganization that language produces on human behavior was further
analyzed by Luria (1973), who highlighted the inseparable relation of perception and
action in a way that resembles the 3rd and 4th ecological principles of Richardson
et al. (2008; see also Travieso 2007).
Conclusions
Then: Is ecological psychology relevant for areas beyond perception and action? Our
answer is yes, because the approach attempts to ground human behavior through the
search for lawful organism-environment relations. In the case of social psychology,
independently of whether one adopts an individual-level, social synergy, socializing
affordances, or other approach, this grounded view of human behavior seems to be a
better starting point for the study of socio-cultural phenomena than the naïve realism
of for instance behaviorism and cognitivism.
Even so, the main interest of ecological psychologists is in perception and action,
processes that are confined to a restricted level of analysis. This spatially and temporarily
limited scale will not suffice for the study of socio-cultural, educational, political, and other
processes with much larger scales, perhaps even with scales that go back to the origins of
society. Hence, one should not necessarily expect ecological laws and principles to be
appropriate to understand such processes. Note, though, that one cannot reject the validity
of studies with smaller or larger levels of analysis; that would be analogous, we think, to
rejecting current neurobiology because subatomic particles are not taken into account.
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It is impossible to delimit the ecological scale with precision, but one should be
careful not to stretch that scale too much. If one keeps stretching the focus of
analysis, one will inevitably reach a point at which the ecological approach loses its
rigor. The risk of including coarse-grained social and socio-cultural phenomena, to
give an example, is that one might no longer be able to defend the existence of
(detectable) specificational information. The existence of specificational information,
however, is crucial, because it is necessary for the definition of perception as a
resonance to such information, and hence for the ecological grounding of realism.
Our main critique on Charles (2009) is that he does not sufficiently take these
potential problems into account.
In sum, in response to the title of Charles’ article, and in spite of his arguments,
we find it easier to see what ecological psychology has to offer beyond his
description of New Realism than the other way around. We conclude (1) that
ecological psychology is of importance to fields of study beyond perception and
action, (2) that several proposals in this regard have been developed and are
currently being worked on, and (3) that the backwards extension to New Realism
suggested by Charles holds some value but might not be the most promising among
these proposals.
Acknowledgements This material is based upon work supported by project HUM2006-11603-C02-02
of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
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David Travieso work at the Facultad de Psícologia of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. His research
focuses on an embodied approach to haptic perception.
David M. Jacobs work at the Facultad de Psícologia of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He works
on a specification-based (direct) approach to learning.