Capability as the Source of Perception
A corollary of the theory of affordances
Capability as the Source of Perception
Today we think of perception as some kind of computation that happens in our brains to processess information from the world, "out there". While at first appealing in its simplicity this dualist view of perception has many issues1. One such problem is that in this system it is unclear how we could attach meaning to the things around us. If the information that comes to us doesn't have any inherent value, i.e. is meaningless, then it is unclear by what mechanisms we could generate the cogent meaning for things that we experience.
To resolve the problems that come from this dualist view of perception James Gibson introduced the ideas of direct information pickup and affordances. Using these in combination, he argues that we directly pickup information from the environment that signals what it means for us as creatures.
To give an example: When you move towards a surface like a table, if the position2 of that surface remains the same (i.e. is invariant) while the surfaces around it change, for example by being covered by the edge of the first surface, then this is information that the first surface is blocking your path and you will run into it unless you stop moving. We perceive the information as an affordance, in this case that there is a surface that ‘affords’ blocking your path3.
This theory of affordances define the things we perceive not as valueless objects composed of atoms that we later impose meaning onto but as objects that are perceived in relation to us, defined by what they afford us as a creature4. Thus an affordance is a relation shaped by both the environment and the creature in much the same way that a niche and a species define each other in an evolutionary setting. Recognising this relation that melds both subject and object offers a powerful way past the problems of the dualist frame.
Although not explored in depth by Gibson, there is a corollary to the theory of affordances. If what we see is a result of the things that we are able to do in the world that means that what we perceive is determined on one side by our capabilities. We navigate the world through standing, walking, eating etc. as such we see the world as places that can be stood on, areas that can be walked through, and objects that can be consumed.
If this is the case it means that as we gain new capabilities it allows us to quite literally perceive more of the world. There is some evidence from our everyday experience to support this. At an observational level you can see it with children as they grow. As a child begins to gain mastery over more domains they will ask questions about more and more granular aspects of the world around them as they begin to see those aspects.
It also happens in our own life when we gain complex new skills. When you first learn to drive a car the machine seems unwieldily and you are painfully aware of how little you can see of the road and the other vehicles around you. However, after a few years behind the wheel this all changes. Before we couldn’t see what was going on and now we might even be tempted to say we 'feel' the edges of the metal box we are sitting in.
This theory then implies that if we wish to see further and more clearly the first thing we should look to do is expand our own capabilities. As we do so, what the world affords us will flower forth in our perception offering new realities to be explored.
I’ve written about the issues of the computational theories of perception and Gibson’s response to it a couple times before, most directly with Affordances & Awareness.
In Gibson’s language the ‘position’ here is determined by “visual solid angles” the intercept angles by which the illuminated environment reach the observer.
In other words, as a result of basic optics and changing perspective you directly pickup the information from your environment to specify this affordance. The world you perceive is actually made up of these affordances. We can, and do, of course later decompose what we see so that we can understand things in ways other than what they afford but that is a different question.
More on affordances in Affordances & Pragmatism