Week 4

Question 1

ecological psychology and perceptual information

Answer 1

Interceptive actions require co-ordination betwen the relevant system components and the object or surface to be intercepted

Question 1

ecological psychology and perceptual information example

Answer 1

A surgeon must co-ordinate their
neuromuscular system to move the required
body parts (arms, hands, fingers, etc) to
manipulate a surgical instrument and
intercept the surface of the body (of the
patient).

Question 2

Direct vs indirect perception

Answer 2

ALL of the sensory information we receive has to be processed and interpreted before it can influence our actions
* The CNS must compare sensory information to a stored internal representation to make it meaningful
* Indirect perception = to interact with the world, we need to process information first

Question 3

Direct vs indirect (
Ecological psychology (EP):)

Answer 3

“We perceive to act, and we act to perceive”
* The relationship between perception and action is circular.
* You can’t examine one without the other
- this is called perception action coupling

Question 4

Direct perception means what?

Answer 4

Percieving the world without complex calculations using the info to directly perform movement
- meaning we dont need to process info in stages but can act in what we percieve instantly we need to percieve info from our environment to decide our actions

Example: walking on road, car will efect our movement as we walk

Question 5

Perception action coupling is what?

Answer 5

The spatial and temporal coordination between vision and movement.
 Importance of vision for picking up critical spatial info and guide limb movements accordingly
 Solves cognitive limitations presented in traditional theories

Question 6

Direct vs indirect perception example using traditional theories and ecological psychology

Answer 6

Traditional theories:
* Every gap is seen, processed, rated as passable/not passable before action is performed

Ecological Psychology:
* Every gap is directly perceived in terms of action capability, i.e., as passable or not passable
* no comparison to representation needed

Question 7

Energy flow between systems: humans as open systems. Why are humans open systems?

Answer 7

Moving is a way of exchanging energy with the environment
* Movement: Forces within the system result in changes to system organisation – this leads to an interaction and energy exchange with the environment
* Muscle contraction moves a limb in space and interacts with gravity, air resistance,
friction on the ground, displacement of object, etc.

Humans have sources of energy allowing for movement: to be self-sustaining and adaptive
* Heart beats, lungs that breathe, Nerve conduction, muscle contraction…
With experience we become more energy efficient
* We learn to exploit environmental energy flow to guide movement more efficiently
(informational constraints)
* In other words: we become attuned to the specifying information in the environment

Question 8

Experts are better at exploiting environmental energy flow, use slacklining as an example and figure skating

Answer 8

The expert harvests frictional forces
(feet to line) to move better than a beginner can
* Expert uses less of their own energy
to traverse the line

Scatter: expert harvests the limited frictional forces (skate to ice) to move better than a beginner can
* expert generates momentum through muscular contractions (internal energy) better than a novice

Question 9

Perception action coupling

Answer 9

open systems exchange energy and matter with their environment making perception of the environment directly coupled to action

Simple:
When I move, I generate, expend and exchange energy within myself and with my performance environment.
* Moving in my environment generates information flow that I use (perceive) to guide my future action
* Perception is needed for action, and action is needed for full perception

Question 10

Can you de-couple perception and action?

Answer 10

No!

Question 11

Variant energy flow

Answer 11

When an element of the superficial structure in our informatiom changes as we move relative to an object or surface, the energy flow is variant
E.g: sunlight reflecting on the tbale makes it look like a different shade

Question 12

Invariant

Answer 12

There is an underlying essential structure that is invariant-even if the superficia strcuture changes, the essential structure stays the same
- e.g height of table, number of legs

Question 13

Ambient optical array (Ambient light is what?)

Answer 13

Light that is reflected from an object

• reflected light is scattered in many directions based on microscopic surface structure
• Ambient light carries information about the surface it came from
• Ambient light has structure (i.e., it is an array)
• = Ambient optical array

Question 14

Radient light?

Answer 14

Comes directly from a source (lamp, the sun)

Question 15

Tau is what?

Answer 15

Represents the rate of expansion of an object on the retina aas it approaches. It usilises the ambient light reflected from the contours of an object to form the visual angle

The speed of expansion of these angles is called tau. (time to contact).

Question 16

Affordance is what?

Answer 16

We perceive invariants as opportunities (or invitations) for action – Affordances
* Neurobiological systems perceive environmental information by what it offers,
invites or demands in terms of actions

• What they perceive depends on their individual capabilities (constraints)!
• In moving, the performer observes changes in the ambient optical array and
  directly perceives affordances in terms of their individual physical capabilities
  Examples:
• Is that gap ‘passable’ for me?
• Is that stair ‘climbable’ for me?
• Is that surface ‘walk on-able’ for me?

Question 17

Direct perception based on Gibson

Answer 17

Our perceptual systems gather meaningful information from the environment to guide the performance of our actions
* This information is gathered in terms of affordances (or opportunities for action) relative to the performer
* This removes the cognitive demand required to process information as data and compare that to internal representations (indirect perception)
i.e removes cognitive effort, reducing time to act (indirect perception)

Question 18

Gibsons perception action coupling

Answer 18

When we move, we change the energy flow
* We use this information flow to inform our actions
* These two processes (perception and action) are cyclical.
* This means we cannot study either of them in isolation!
* The context in which we practice must maintain the perception- action couplings of ‘the real thing’.

Question 19

Affordances with landscape changes, ground hockey example

Answer 19

Affordances are dynamic: possibilites appear and disappear
performers calibrate to speed of information flow
They scale their current action capabilities with the demands of the task

Question 20

Skilled performance with ronaldo: constraints and affordances

Answer 20

Performer gathered the environmental information
* Matched that with his action capabilities at that point in time
* Perceived this kick as an affordance at the time
* Affordances are dynamic and are under the
influence of constraints

Question 21

Visual vs acoustic information

Answer 21

For some tasks and individuals, acoustic information can sometimes be superior to visual detail for learning
* In the Drumming session we did, how did you find drumming to song?
* Consider learning a dance routine without music, makes it harder
* Swimmers train with audio pacers to assist with regulating stroke rhythm