Ecological psychology

Ecological psychology is a tenure claimed by a number of schools of psychology. Conversely, the two most important ones are the writing done by James J. Gibson, and an additional on the work done by Roger G. Barker, Herb Wright and also the associates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Ecological Psychology is to “study the relation between knower and known”.

For the reason that all the other disciplines, by definition, begins “with an epistemic agent (the knower), and an intentional object of knowledge (the known), as well as the unambiguously or the unconditionally held epistemological or ontological assumptions that go with them.”

On the other hand they are construed, ecological psychology, which is presently the study of these things, can suitably be thought of as the most fundamental of all disciplines. Within this function it forms a primary bridge between, both drawing from and informing.

While the Gibsonian psychology is at all times termed as Ecological Psychology, similarly the work done by Barker (and his followers) is moreover at times referred to as Environmental Psychology. Presently there is a substantial amount of overlap sandwiched between the two schools, even though the Gibsonian approach tends to be extra philosophical.

The work performed by Barker's in the field of Ecological psychology was based on his pragmatic work at the Midwest Field Station. Later he wrote: "The Midwest Psychological Field Station was established to facilitate the study of human behavior and its environment in situ by bringing to psychological science the kind of opportunity long available to biologists: easy access to phenomena of the science unaltered by the selection and preparation that occur in laboratories." (Barker, 1968)

The study of environmental units (behavior settings) grew out of this research. In his classic work "Ecological Psychology" (1968) he argued that human behaviour was drastically situated. Gibson concerted more on the nature of cognition itself. He discarded indirect perception, in favor of 'direct perception'. The saying: "It's not what is in the head that is important, it's what the head is inside of", is imaginary to capture that point.

Questions:

• Why did Gibson stress the importance of the environment in Ecological psychology?
• What is direct and indirect perception?