Sufficient information for direct perception
- Gibson’s direct theory of perception is a theory which claims that perception is based on what a human can see right in front of their eyes
- Gibson claimed that human perception ‘feeds’ off the immediate surroundings in which someone finds themselves
- There is no need for prior experience or learning to fill in any perceptual gaps
- Humans start perceiving the world from birth
- The above point makes it clear that Gibson’s theory falls on the side of nature in the Nature (nurture) debate i.e. people are born ready to perceive their world (in this regard Gibson did not distinguish between sensation and perception)
- Gibson & Walk (1960) conducted a groundbreaking study in which they demonstrated their theory that very young infants show evidence of innate depth perception as follows:
- The researchers built a structure which was designed so that if a baby crawled on a raised glass top they would see the ground suddenly drop away from them (see the image below):
- The baby would be able to see that the ground beneath them appeared to have disappeared when in fact it was covered in the glass sheet and was safe to cross
- The researchers hypothesised that each baby would stop at the ‘edge’ of the patterned table top and would refuse to continue across the transparent glass - even when their mother was standing at the other side of the table encouraging them to move forward
- 92% of the babies stopped at the ‘edge’ and refused to cross the transparent glass tabletop
- The researchers concluded that this was evidence that humans are born with depth perception as very young babies cannot have learned an aversion for sheer drops or steep edges
Gibson & Walk Cliff Walk Diagram
Gibson & Walk’s (1960) ‘cliff walk’ structure.
Exam Tip
Gibson & Walk (1960) is not a named study in the AQA specification but it is a good one to use in a higher-value exam question as it shows that you have a broad understanding of and interest in the topic.