Theories of perception

• Gibson Direct Theory of Perception

  He says that sensation and perception are the same, everything in our optic array gives us the information to perceive something accurately. This means we don't make inferences through expectations or past experience to fill in gaps rather we use visual information such as light, texture etc to make accurate judgements about distance, movement and depth
• Gibsons arguments fall into the side of nature as he believes we don't learn how to perceive rather it's innate we are born with it
• Gibson 2 main ideas

  • Optic flow pattern; the point we move towards stays stationary while everything else seems to 'rush' past us
  • Motion Parallax; monocular depth cue as we move past closer objects they appear to move faster than objects further away
• One strength of Gibson's Theory

  It had real-world application as research was conducted on World War 2 pilots therefore having real-world relevance and explaining how we perceive the world around us daily
• One weakness of Gibson's Theory 


  Struggles to explain visual illusions if perception is seen as accurate how can illusions trick the brain therefore the theory is incomplete
• Gregory's Constructivist Theory of Perception

  Gregory opposes Gibsons idea and says that we do use past experiences to make sense of the world our brain uses incoming information and information we already know to understand their 5 senses
• Gregory's argument falls into the side of nurture as he believes perception is learnt from experience
• Gregory's 2 main ideas

  • Inferences; our brain fills in gaps to create a conclusion on the 5 senses(taste, touch, smell, heard, seen)
  • Visual cues; illusions occur due to incorrect conclusions from visual cues
• One strength in Gregory's Theory

  The theory is supported by cross-cultural research which demonstrates that perception may be a product of the environment
• One weakness of Gregory's Theory


  Explaining perception using ‘nurture’ as the argument ignores the fact that babies can use sensory information to make sense of their environment (e.g. Fantz, 1961)