The Perception & Action Podcast 555 – Turvey, Lectures on Perception: An Ecological Perspective, Chapters 22-23 (JC56)
Dec 3, 2025
In this discussion, Andrew Wilson, a researcher in ecological psychology, and Marianne Davies dive into Michael Turvey's insights on perception. They explore the shift from Cartesian ontology to an organism-environment duality, emphasizing affordances as real properties of habitats. Key topics include how perception scales with an organism's body, the interplay of affordances and effectivities, and the ecological optics that challenge traditional views of perception. Their vibrant exchange reveals how understanding these concepts can reshape our perception and interaction with the world.
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Organism–Environment Duality Matters
- Ecological ontology replaces Cartesian parts with organism–environment dualities as the unit of analysis.
- Affordances and effectivities are complementary properties grounded in lawful relations, not subjective inventions.
Affordances As Dispositions
- Turvey treats affordances as dispositional properties of the environment complemented by organism effectivities.
- He argues dispositions remain real whether or not an organism currently uses them, enabling learning and evolution.
Step And Gap Example
- Andrew uses a step/gap example to show one surface holds multiple affordances for different-sized animals.
- The brink affords stepping, jumping, or crawling depending on organism size and activity.
