Eleanor J. Gibson

Eleanor Jack Gibson (7 December 1910 – 30 December 2002) was an American psychologist who focused on reading development and perceptual learning in infants. Gibson began her career at Smith College as an instructor in 1932, publishing her first works on research conducted as an undergraduate student. Gibson was able to circumvent the many obstacles she faced due to the Great Depression and gender discrimination, by finding research opportunities that she could meld with her own interests.

Gibson, with her husband James J. Gibson, created the Gibsonian ecological theory of development, which emphasized how important perception was because it allows humans to adapt to their environments. Perhaps her most well-known contribution to psychology was the "visual cliff," which studied depth perception in both human and animal species, leading to a new understanding of perceptual development in infants. Gibson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1971, the National Academy of Education in 1972, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977. In 1992, she was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Early life and education Eleanor (née Jack) Gibson was born on December 7, 1910, in Peoria, Illinois. Her father, William Alexander Jack, was a businessman who specialized in the wholesale of hardware. Her mother, Isabel Grier Jack, was a homemaker who graduated from Smith College. Gibson had one sibling, Emily Jack, who was born in 1916.

Gibson began attending Smith College at the age of sixteen with the intention of studying languages. She graduated in 1931 with a B.A. degree. While at Smith, she became interested in experimental psychology. Gibson completed her master's degree at Smith, graduating in 1933. despite the fact that they did not necessarily have the same theoretical perspective. Gibson's interest in development grew after working with the animals. is a collection of her academic papers starting from the 1930s. The book encompasses her 50 years of work toward perceptual learning and development. Gibson died on December 30, 2002, in Columbia, South Carolina.

Legacy

Perceptual learning

Gibson was highly influenced by the work of her husband, James Gibson. Together they developed the Gibsonian ecological theory of development. This theory influenced her research on perceptual learning.

Gibson believed that a radically different new view of perceptual learning was needed. One of her major studies involved the steps to how children perceive their environment. Gibson and her husband argued that the aspect of learning is to strengthen your insight or perception of the environment. This process of perceptual learning was deemed a part of differentiation by Gibson and her husband. Humans first have the tendency to categorize everything that appears similar into groups. In other words, people tend to overgeneralize. With perceptual learning, humans can battle the tendency to overgeneralize by learning to make appropriate distinctions, such as the specific patterns and properties of different stimulus. An example Gibson and her husband used to describe this is that someone who regularly participates in wine tasting can taste the differences in many wines. However, someone participating for the very first time might think many if not all wines taste the same. The differentiation theory states that in the information received from sensory stimulation, individuals discriminate objects in the environment and experiences by identifying unique characteristics about them, termed distinctive features. The children used in the study were between ages 4 and 8 years old. While washing one of the baby goats, another was about to be born. produced the idea of studying depth perception with the visual cliff. In the original study with rats, the apparatus was made of two sheets of glass standing "parallel to the floor and 53 inches above it" with a thin board along the middle. At the annual convention, she was recognized for her exceptional studies in perceptual learning and development. Along with James Birren and Muzafer Sherif, they were each presented with a writing of their contributions to the field of scientific psychology, as well as a cheque for one thousand dollars. In 1949, she worked as a researcher in the department of psychology at Cornell University. Gibson was then appointed professor in 1966, where she became the first woman to hold an endowed professorship at Cornell. Six years later, she was named the Susan Linn Sage Professor of Psychology. Gibson provided her with an opportunity to be a part of her research one month into the school year. Arlene was part of a team of graduate researchers, whom were all brand new students but Jackie never failed to give them full credit.

In her lifetime, Gibson published several academic works.

Gibson, E. J. (1939). Sensory generalization with voluntary reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 24, 237–253. Gibson, E. J. (1940). A systematic application of the concepts of generalization and differentiation to verbal learning. Psychological Review, 47(3), 196–229. Gibson, E. J. (1941). Retroactive inhibition as a function of degree of generalization between tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 28(2), 93–115. Gibson, E. J. (1942). Intra-list generalization as a factor in verbal learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30(3), 185–200. Gibson, E. J. (1952). The role of shock in reinforcement. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 45(1), 18–30. Gibson, E. J. (1969). Principles of perceptual learning and development. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Gibson, E. J. (1980). Eleanor J. Gibson. In G. Lindzey (Ed.), A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 7, pp. 239–271). San Francisco, CA: W H Freeman & Co. Gibson, E. J. (1988). Exploratory behaviour in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquiring of knowledge. In Rosenzweig, M. R., Porter, L. W. (Eds.), Annual Review of Psychology (Vol. 39, pp. 1–41). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews. Gibson, E. J. (1991). An odyssey in learning and perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gibson, E. J. (1994). Has psychology a future? Psychological Science, 5, 69–76. Gibson, E. J. (2002). Perceiving the affordances: A portrait of two psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.