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Information Is Where You Find It: Perception as an Ecologically Well-Posed Problem
1Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States.
I-Perception
|April 5, 2021
Summary
Vision is not an ill-posed problem. Higher-order variables in sensory ecology specify environmental properties, enabling perception and action, like navigating gaps using optic flow.
Area of Science:
- Visual Perception
- Sensory Ecology
- Ecological Psychology
Background:
- Traditional view: Vision is an ill-posed problem, perception underdetermined by sensory information.
- James Gibson's hypothesis: Higher-order variables specify environmental properties, resolving underdetermination.
- These variables are crucial for behavior within ecological niches.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore Gibson's hypothesis regarding information specifying environmental properties.
- To demonstrate how ecologically relevant information resolves perception's logical ill-posedness.
- To examine the role of optic flow in navigating environmental gaps.
Main Methods:
- Review of theoretical frameworks in visual perception and ecological psychology.
- Analysis of examples from sensory ecology (e.g., electric fish, narwhal tusk, insect flight).
- Detailed examination of optic flow's role in locomotion and gap passage.
Main Results:
- Environmental properties are specified by higher-order information variables.
- Optic flow provides sufficient information for controlling locomotion around obstacles and through openings.
- Affordances, like gap passability, are specified by action-scaled information.
Conclusions:
- Logically ill-posed problems in perception are ecologically well-posed.
- Sensory information, particularly optic flow, specifies behaviorally relevant environmental affordances.
- Gibson's hypothesis provides a robust framework for understanding vision and perception.
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