We live in interaction with a world of happenings, places, and objects. We can know it only through perceptual systems equiped to pick up information in an array of energy, such as the optical array. Furthermore, time is required for the adjustment of the perceptual system, for the monitoring of the information being acquired, and for the scanning required by most perceptual systems to pick up information (perceiving an object by touching, for example, or locating a sound source through hearing). Information, accordingly, is picked up over time. Thus if a stable world is to be discovered, there must be temporal invariants of some kind that make constancy of perception possible. I take for granted that perceptual acts extend over time. Perceiving and acting go on in a cycle, each leading to the other.
Exploratory Behavior in the Development of Perceiving, Acting, and the Acquiring of Knowledge
by Eleanor J. Gibson
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.ps.39.020188.000245
Perception occurs over time and is active. Action participates in perception. Active adjustments in the sensory systems are essential. But action itself may be informative, too. Information about things and events exists in ambient arrays of energy. Actions have consequences that turn up new information about the environment. They also provide information about the actor-about where he is, where he is going, what he is doing. All actions have this property; but it is useful to distinguish executive action from action that is information-gathering. We tend to think of some perceptual systems and the activities that go on within them as primarily information-gathering. The visual and auditory systems, in particular, seem to have little or no executive function.
Gibson’s Theory of Perceptual Learning
by Karen E. Adolph and Kari S. Kretch
http://psych.nyu.edu/adolph/publications/AdolphKretch-inpress-GibsonTheory.pdf
Perception-Action Reciprocity
A corollary of animal-environment reciprocity is perception-action reciprocity. Traditionally, researchers study perception by projecting displays onto observers’ eyes or into their ears. But on Gibson’s (1988a) account, we don’t just see, we look. We don’t just hear, we listen. Perceiving is an active process. The visual system, for example, is a motor system as well as a sensory one. It involves more than the retina or even the moving eye. Looking involves the eyes in the head on a mobile body. Perceivers seek information and optimize it rather than passively receiving it. The animal must do something to obtain information—scan the scene, turn the head, palpate the surface, kick the tires. Learning what to do—how to gather perceptual information—is a major part of perceptual learning. Because perceiving goes on over time, it can correct itself in real time and improve over development.