The APA Journal History of Psychology started a News an Notes section a few years ago, including a "Poetry Corner." Most contributions are archival finds of poems by historically-eminent psychologists, but they also invited poems about the history of psychology. So far as I know, I am the only person to take them up on the latter offer. This was my first contribution:
Veridical Perception
Debate about whether perception can ever be veridical – true to reality, accurate with respect to the world – holds an important place in the history of psychology, driving both theory and research. Due to Descartes’s legacy, most early psychologists took for granted that perception was always indirect, and therefore inherently inaccurate. An alternative tradition began maturing in the final phase of William James’s career, but it’s implications for perception were not developed significantly until nearly half-a-century later, when James J. Gibson developed his system that showed how direct perception was possible. This re-enlivened the debate for several decades, though Gibson’s key points in the debate, the key features of the resulting research programs, and much of the crucial terminology, remains poorly understood. Nevertheless, the work of James and Eleanor Gibson inspired a field, Ecological Psychology, which endures, focusing on perception-action cycles, particularly in situations where veridical perception can be, and often is, achieved. Harry Heft, Ed Reed, Alan Costall, Robert Shaw, and Joel Michell are among the psychologists who have explored the history of this work.
A. A. Milne
is now best known as the author of the Winnie the Pooh book, but was quite well
reputed before that for his plays and his poetry, including collections such as
“When We Were Very Young.” The style of “Veridical Perception” will be familiar
to any who have read his work.
Veridical Perception
Passive sensations, from watching or hearing,
Sensations of those types are often quite strange,
But active perception, like looking or feeling,
Perceptions
of those types one might well
explain.
For all is,
Uncertain,
When sitting
back,
Passively,
Sight is,
Uncertain,
When cast to
a plain.
The world,
Impinges,
(Impinges,
impinges).
“The world,
Impinges,”
The dualist
exclaims.
Darwin, he
changed this, with his focus on function,
A focus on
function, James would soon mend,
The field, Psychology,
from backwater drudgery,
But Watson
derailed it, ‘fore his Hopkins upend.
James,
Had inspired,
As Radical,
Empiricist,
New Realists,
Who emerged,
And captured
the stage.
But only,
In
philosophy,
(Philosophy,
philosophy).
Some stayed,
At Harvard,
Holt retired
to Maine.
Holt was self-exiled,
when Langfeld retrieved him,
To a decade
at Princeton, where little was said.
But Gibson,
his student, was there much inspired.
And therefore
the realism continued to spread.
Gibson,
Studied
prisms,
Which
flipped,
Around
visions.
His
reputation,
Hinged,
On the
curving of lines.
Then war
came,
And flying,
(By pilots,
in airplanes),
Took him,
To question,
Psychophysic’s
hard line.
Just-noticed
differences, had little merit,
When trying
to determine who could land a plane.
Movement and
motion resolved ambiguity,
And all this
transpired outside of the brain.
Meanwhile,
Jackie,
At Yale,
Rejected,
by Yerkes.
For “there
are,
No women in my
lab.”
Finds Hull,
Grand
planning,
(With symbol,
equations).
Discrim-ination,
Becomes hers
to divine.
Discrimination,
perceptual learning,
Distinguishing
things, out there and in hand,
Humans with
flash cards, but no reinforcement,
Still
there’s improvement, Law-of-Effect be damned.
Improving,
Responses,
To “out
there”,
Reality.
Requires,
Responding,
‘T out there - not ‘n mind.
But what of,
Reality?
(Reality,
reality)
Di-rect,
Perception,
Still sounds
like,
a line.
Back at
Smith college, Jimmy and Jackie,
Restless,
but not, too eager to leave,
Hoping for Cor-nell,
which soon comes a calling,
And the Seer
of Ithaca’s, sabbatical reprieve.
Deeply,
Rethinking,
Fundamental,
Assumptions.
Retinal
flow,
Not enough,
With
evolution in mind.
Adaptation,
To the
world,
(Ecology,
Ecology).
A brand new,
Ecology,
Must now be
defined.
Ecological optics,
the light that surrounds us,
Converging
at points, where our eyes can reside,
Then even
the insects, and primitive crustacea,
Adapt ‘t the
same structure, with quite different eyes.
The Senses,
Considered,
As Perceptual,
Systems.
Eyes in head,
In a body,
Exploring to
find,
Higher-order,
invariants
(invariants,
invariants).
Lawful,
Relations,
Which can specify!
Systems
designed through evolution and developed,
Embodied and
enactive, and fully alive.
Attuned to possibility,
opportunity, of behavior.
Attuned to
affordances, so the animal can thrive.
But we,
Most surely,
Are not,
Always perfect.
Not long,
Without
error,
The critics
complained.
But focus,
On success,
(In action,
in action).
Accuracy,
Is the thing,
Perception explains.
Speci-fication,
is the crux of the argument.
How’s an
organism accurate, in the best of times?
Perceptual
attunement, makes action a function,
Of
invariants that specify, the world’s confines.
With error,
It matters,
What kind,
Of a system,
Has failed,
In pursing,
That towards
which it strives.
Not
coherence, nor
Cor’spondence,
(from world,
to ideas).
A Convergence system
Finds truth,
Given time.
Peirce’s
legacy stretches, to James and Holt realism,
Nothing is added, by mental design.
Behavior’s a
function, of out-there, world-happenings,
And part of
the “out there”, James Gibson defined.
Veridical,
Perception,
Accurate,
Functional.
No magic,
No ghost
soul,
No dualist’s,
refrain.
The truth of,
The matter
(The matter,
the matter)
The truth of
the matter can really be plain.
------------------------
Charles, E. P. (2018) Veridical Perception. History of Psychology 21, 172-175.
