{"id":7057,"date":"2006-10-23T22:06:39","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T22:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/23\/heft-ecological\/"},"modified":"2006-10-23T22:06:39","modified_gmt":"2006-10-23T22:06:39","slug":"heft-ecological","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/23\/heft-ecological\/","title":{"rendered":"Heft, Ecological Psychology in Context<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 4<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>\n

Heft,
\n Harry. Ecological Psychology in Context<\/i>. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum,
\n 2001.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Heft undertakes an ambitious project: to account broadly for the formation
\nof ecological psychology<\/b> as a viable and distinctive area of inquiry in the
\nhuman sciences generally and in psychology more specifically. He reads the
\nformation of ecological psychology through several figures: William James<\/b>,
\nJames Gibson<\/b> and Roger Barker<\/b> are most notable and included in the
\nsubtitle. Basically, Heft sees James’ radical empiricism<\/b> as a suitable
\nbridge to connect Gibson’s work on ecological optics<\/b> and affordances<\/b>
\nwith more recent and pocketed uptakes of "ecological psychology" in various
\ndisciplines. According to Heft, this is needed work because it begins to resolve
\nexperimental psychology’s scientific compulsions<\/b>, ironing out some of the
\ncore suppositions that lead to "theoretical conflict."<\/p>\n

Heft frames the motivation for ecological psychology in terms of three
\ntenets: an overhaul of cause<\/b> (not simply taken as "mechanistic
\nantecedent-consequence relations<\/b>" (xxiv)), revision of the mind\/matter
\nsplit<\/b>, and repairing the dichotomy between organism and environment<\/b>.
\nFrom a stream of perceptual abundance, selectivity<\/b> is a key in
\nunderstanding the relationship between experience and knowledge in EP. Also,
\nthere is a clear–if not excessive–emphasis on functional relationships<\/b>,
\nrather than critical or rhetorical relationships (to adopt Selber’s troika).<\/p>\n

There’s a lot here, and I’ve focused mainly on Hefts explanation of
\nconcept and percept<\/b>, his expansion of affordances<\/b> by explaining them
\nin terms of James, and his distinction between tool<\/b> and artifact<\/b>
\n(let the record select this selectivity). Gibson explains that affordances
\nparadoxically are both subjective<\/b> and objective<\/b>. Heft sorts out
\nGibson’s ambiguity by using James’ idea of the "double-barreled nature of
\nconscious experience<\/b>," which eliminates the thought-object split<\/b>.
\nAlso, to explain the relativism of affordances, Heft uses an anecdote about a
\nchild in a daycare for whom the door does not afford passage like it does for an
\nadult (132). Tools, for Heft, are distinct from artifacts:<\/p>\n

\n

It will be more fruitful to employ a distinction offered by Ingold (1993)
\n between tools and artifacts: "A tool, in the most general sense, is an object
\n that extends the capacity of an agent to operate within a given environment;
\n an artefact is an object shaped to some pre-existent conception of form." (p.
\n 433). Ingold was proposing here a distinction between materials (tools) that
\n have not been designed by an individual for a particular purpose, but instead
\n have been selected for the purpose of extending action possibilities, and
\n designed materials (artifacts) that have been explicitly fashioned with their
\n role in carrying our some task in mind" (341). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Revisit<\/b> chapter 9, "Ecological Knowledge and Sociocultural Processes"
\nfor exam.<\/p>\n

Key terms: sciences of the inanimate (physical) (xxii), mechanistic
\nfoundations (xxii), adaptive agents (xxiii), knowing and selectivity (28),
\nJames’ radical empiricism (37), percepts and concepts (38), optical flow (119),
\noccluding edge (122), affordance (123), affordances as percepts (129),
\naffectional experiences (129), ecological optics (147), cognitive maps (186),
\necological knowledge, dilated bodies, networks (356).<\/p>\n

"At the level of human experience, animate beings<\/b>, unlike inanimate
\nthings, are (a) ceaselessly active<\/i><\/b> and b) continually in the
\nprocess of engaging their surroundings in a selective<\/i><\/b> manner.
\nEnvironmental conditions are in flux<\/b>, and animate beings monitor these
\nongoing conditions<\/b>, make functional adjustments with respect to them, and
\nengage environmental features in relation to their own goals<\/b> and
\ninterests<\/b>. For these reasons, (c) animate beings exist in relation<\/i> to
\na flow of events, and their functioning is best understood as that of dynamic,
\norganismic processes in context<\/i>. Animate beings selectively engage
\nenvironmental features and selectively enter places in order to benefit from the
\nfunctional<\/b> opportunities things and places offer. And more than this, (d)
\nanimate beings participate in the modification<\/i> of many of these very
\nfeatures and places. In these respects, (e) animate beings are adaptive
\nagents<\/i><\/b>" (xxiii).<\/p>\n

"From the outset, experimental psychology has been caught between, on the one
\nhand, following successful paths established in the physical sciences<\/b>
\nand, on the other hand, recognizing the necessity of grounding its concepts in
\nevolutionary theory<\/b>" (xxix).<\/p>\n

"Significantly, ecological psychology suggests an approach to meaning from a
\nthird-person perspective<\/b>, thereby offering a way of making this issue
\namenable to experimental study<\/b>" (xxiii). How to reconcile this with the
\ndiscussion of objective\/subjective and affordances? (James’ double-barrel
\nexperience)?<\/p>\n

"To back up for a moment, in radical empiricism<\/b>, knowing<\/b> refers
\nmost fundamentally to a functional relation<\/b> in experience between a
\nknower and an object known" (37). ^Heavy emph. on functional<\/b>. <\/p>\n

"Perceiving<\/b>, then, is a direct<\/b>, unmediated<\/b>, selective<\/b>
\ndiscovery of structure in immediate experience. And it is a selective process
\nthat transpires continuously over time: Percepts<\/b> ‘are singulars that
\nchange incessantly and never return exactly as they were before’ (p. 253)" (39).<\/p>\n

"Thinking<\/b> or conceiving<\/b> entails, in turn, selecting<\/b> and
\nfixing<\/b> particular parts of this perceptual flow<\/b>. Through this
\nprocess concepts are carved<\/b> out of immediate perceptual experience at a
\nremove from action and are abstracted from it" (40). This happens without a
\nrelation to language? Is this "carving" a symbolic process? Iconic? A blend?<\/p>\n

"What is the relation between percepts<\/b> and concepts<\/b>? For the
\nmost part, conceptual orders to not replace or override the intrinsic
\nstructure of perceptual experience<\/b>. Instead, percepts and concepts
\nimperceptibly merge together. The experience of our mental life is largely an
\ninterweaving of the immediate structure of perceiving and the abstracted systems
\nof concepts" (49). Absent an account of the role of language, it’s difficult to
\nfollow how percepts trump concepts. <\/p>\n

"An affordance<\/b> is the perceived functional<\/b> significance of an
\nobject<\/b>, event<\/b>, or place<\/b> for an individual<\/b>" (123).
\nEvent? Also, no collective<\/b> affordances.<\/p>\n

"Affordances<\/b> are claimed to possess two distinctive and seemingly
\ncontradictory characteristics: First, they are relational properties<\/b>, and
\nsecond, they are properties of environmental features existing independently<\/b>
\nof a perceiver<\/b>" (124). <\/p>\n

"One last point concerning James’ analysis of the double-barreled nature
\nof experience<\/b>: For James, the kinds of experiences that most clearly reveal
\nthis double-barreled quality are what he called ‘affectional experiences<\/b>.’
\nWhereas in most cases through the selective process of knowing, an experience is
\nreadily classified as ‘objective or subjective’ in terms of its relations to one
\nor another context, this possibility is much more difficult with experiences
\nthat have a particularly strong evaluative<\/b> character" (129). <\/p>\n

"The objects and events of the environment are embedded in a rich web of
\nrelations<\/b>. Critically, these relations can be perceived by the knower; they
\nare ‘in’ the environment and not imposed on it" (143).<\/p>\n

"As independent objects, tools<\/b> reside potentially within an
\nindividual-environment relation. They are environmental features that can become
\nappropriated into the goal-directed action of the individual; and in doing so,
\nthey extend or amplify actions, and they alter the body’s phenomenal boundary
\nduring their use<\/b>" (342). Never before or after their use? This definition of
\ntool precludes language, no?<\/p>\n

\n
Related sources:<\/dt>\n
Heider, F. (1959a). Thing and medium. On perception and event
\n structure, and the psychological environment, Psychological issues<\/i>, 1,
\n Monograph 3, 1034. (Original work published 1926).<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 4<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>Heft, Harry. Ecological Psychology in Context. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[175],"tags":[1323,1038,1390,1127,1388,1288,1391,404,398,1392,1040,1393,1037,588,1394,445,453,257,1395,915,1046,1161,963,1396,1131,1389],"class_list":["post-7057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toolsinuse","tag-adaptation","tag-affordance","tag-animate","tag-artifacts","tag-barker","tag-cause","tag-concept","tag-context","tag-ecology","tag-empiricism","tag-environment","tag-functionalism","tag-gestalt","tag-gibson","tag-idealism","tag-knowledge","tag-meaning","tag-networks","tag-percept","tag-person","tag-phenomenology","tag-psychology","tag-science","tag-selectivity","tag-tools","tag-wmjames"],"yoast_head":"\nHeft, Ecological Psychology in Context - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/23\/heft-ecological\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heft, Ecological Psychology in Context - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 4 minsHeft, Harry. 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The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1986. In his discussion of the affordances of tools in the environment, Gibson up-ends commonplace distinctions between the objective and subjective and between the human being and the surrounds. That is, he describes affordances (a concept he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7011,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/27\/gibson-theory-o\/","url_meta":{"origin":7057,"position":1},"title":"Gibson, “Theory of Affordances”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"July 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Gibson, James J. \"The Theory of Affordances.\" Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. R.E. Shaw and J. Bransford, eds. Hillsdale, N.J.: Elrbaum, 1977. Gibson's seminal essay introduces the term, affordances, and articulates the nuances in its application to ecological psychology. An affordance, according to Gibson, is \"a specific combination of the properties\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7055,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/21\/bronfenbrenner\/","url_meta":{"origin":7057,"position":2},"title":"Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Bronfenbrenner, Urie. The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1979. Bronfenbrenner doesn't do much to discuss tools explicitly as such, but he presents a theoretical and analytical framework for the radical localism emphasized in activity theory. He's not an activity theorist per se; instead, he sets out to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Scrape 1.03","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/8\/11064391_ffe9c84566_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6635,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/17\/information-pic\/","url_meta":{"origin":7057,"position":3},"title":"Information Pickup","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I was reading for exams when I came across \"The Theory of Information Pickup and Its Consequences,\" Ch. 14 in James Gibson's The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Gibson writes about ecological optics; a version of his theory of affordances appears in ch. 8. He's a small piece of what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Notes","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/reading_notes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7080,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/18\/syverson-wealth-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":7057,"position":4},"title":"Syverson, Wealth of Reality","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"November 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Syverson, Margaret. The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1999. Syverson's The Wealth of Reality--revised from her dissertation, which won the Berlin and Burns awards in 1995--calls for a reconceptualization of writing activity as radically situated in the interest of moving us away from reductionism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7045,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/02\/cooper-the-ecol\/","url_meta":{"origin":7057,"position":5},"title":"Cooper, “The Ecology of Writing”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Cooper, Marilyn. \"The Ecology of Writing.\" College English 48.4 (1986). 364-375. Setting out from Hairston's 1982 embrace of \"a process-centered theory of teaching writing\" to \"process, not product,\" what happens when writers write has been reduced, hazardously, to a simplistic cognitive process. The cognitive process model idealizes the solitary author,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}