What Should A “Gibsonian Neuroscience” Look Like? Introduction to the Special Issue
Open accessAbstract
Ecological psychology has been criticized for ignoring the brain in its theory formation. In recent years, however, a number of researchers have started asking ecologically-inspired questions about the ways in which not only the embodied activity of the organism in its environment, but also the particulars of the organism's nervous system matter. This work has typically appeared in neuroscience journals, thereby potentially escaping the attention of ecological psychologists. The current article introduces a Special Issue of Ecological Psychology that aims to correct this problem. This issue brings together one empirical and six theoretical articles that develop ideas about the contributions of the nervous system to perception-action. We briefly review each of the articles, identify common themes, and point out the surprising variety in theoretical positions. It is hoped that this Special Issue will help guide discussions amongst ecological psychologists and (ecological) neuroscientists as they confront the question “What should a ‘Gibsonian neuroscience’ look like?”
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The concept of resonance in ecological psychology remains a metaphor and lacks a mechanistic account.
“The concept of resonance has played an important role in ecological psychology, but it remains a metaphor.”
From A potential mechanism for Gibsonian resonance: behavioral entrainment emerges from local homeostasis in an unsupervised reservoir network (2024) · cites this paper as de Wit & Withagen, 2019
The opening passage quotes a criticism of ecological psychology for treating the brain as “wonder tissue” that resonates with affordances, and says neural contributions have generally received less attention. The Overview of the special issue also describes an organism–environment system as resonating. Neither passage says that resonance remains a metaphor or lacks a mechanistic account specifically. (LLM, conf=0.75)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Productive pluralism: The coming of age of ecological psychology.
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- Authors
- de Wit, M. M., & Withagen, R.
- Affiliations
- Department of Neuroscience, Muhlenberg College;
- University Medical Center Groningen (NL)
- ORCID
- Withagen, Rob
- Venue
- Ecological Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-07-03
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 147-151
- ISSN
- 1040-7413 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-6969
- OpenAlex
- W2960133348
- Cited by
- 16
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Ecological Psychology (publishedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- nervous system, perception-action coupling, embodiment, organism-environment interaction
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