Ecological psychology

Ecological psychology (EP) is a school of psychology based on the writings of J. J. Gibson. EP emphasises 'real world' studies of behaviour as opposed to the artificial environment of the laboratory. EP also rejects the information processing view of cognition.

Gibson rejected 'indirect' (cognitivist) perception, in favour of 'direct realism'. Gibson argued that animals and humans stand in a 'systems' relation to the environment, such that, to fully explain some behaviour it was necessary to study the environment in which this behaviour took place. The aphorism: "Its not what is inside the head that is important, its what the head is inside of", is supposed to capture that point.

Further Reading

J.J. Gibson (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (ISBN 0898599598)