Respond to the following prompt for your Short Paper 3. This question asks you to synthesize the class material around overarching questions/concerns. You are free to use the information you like. The word limit means that you cannot cover everything, but you should ensure that your answer does not conflict with material you don’t cover. You will submit this paper by the same day as the in-class exams, but you will submit them as MSWord .docx files.
So, in this last and short third of the semester, you see both textbook and lecture providing a view on ecological approaches to perception, that is, a view on how action and bodily engagement of environmental structure matter to perception. Goldstein and Cacciamani reflect in Ch. 8 “Something to Consider” how sweeping the role of movement is in perception. But they address ecological approaches to perception in 5, 6, and 7. In Chapter 5, Goldstein & Cacciamani tell us how we orient to a global, field-like scene. In Chapter 6, Goldstein & Cacciamani tell us how our goals and tasks shape perception. In Chapter 7, Goldstein & Cacciamani tell us how our action supports our perception. Lecture offered a related but slightly different perspective on these same issues in an ecological light. Compare and contrast the ecological approaches as presented in class with the ecological approaches as presented in the textbook. What are the promises of this ecological approach? That is, what could it do well to complement the earlier more computer-like approaches to perception? And what are the challenges that you see ahead in these ecological elaborations beyond strictly computer-like approaches to perception? That is, what are the questions that occur to you as you see these ecological and computational approaches operate together to complete a full view of perception.
