The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception: Classic Edition

This book, first published in 1979, is about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do.

The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision — and what this book is about.

Table of Contents

Part I The Environment to be Perceived
Chapter 1 The Animal and the Environment
Chapter 2 Medium, Substances, Surfaces
Chapter 3 The Meaningful Environment

Part II The Information for Visual Perception
Chapter 4 The Relationship Between Stimulation and Stimulus Information
Chapter 5 The Ambient Optic Array
Chapter 6 Events and the Information for Perceiving Events
Chapter 7 The Optical Information for Self-Perception
Chapter 8 The Theory of Affordances

Part III Visual Perception
Chapter 9 Experimental Evidence for Direct Perception: Persisting Layout
Chapter 10 Experiments on the Perception of Motion in the World and Movement of the Self
Chapter 11 The Discovery of the Occluding Edge and Its Implications for Perception
Chapter 12 Looking with the Head and Eyes
Chapter 13 Locomotion and Manipulation
Chapter 14 The Theory of Information Pickup and Its Consequences

Part IV Depiction
Chapter 15 Pictures and Visual Awareness
Chapter 16 Motion Pictures and Visual Awareness