A Path to Ecological Psychology

Abstract

This short essay describes the origin of my intellectual interest in James Gibson’s An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. I came to Gibson’s ideas via prior interest in phenomenological philosophy and behavior-based robotics. I use this origin to make sense of my promotion of a relational approach to affordances over the more typically held dispositional approach developed by Turvey, Shaw, Reed, and Mace. I finish with some speculation about the future of scientific research on affordances.