Gibsons Differentiation Theory of Perceptual Development (Essay Sample)

Gibson’s Theory
Name:
Institution:
Gibson’s Theory
It is the nature of human beings to form some idea of the environment depending on the stimuli he attends to. Various processes play a role in the formation of the notion. Though some may be innate, most of them seem to be learned, and the aspect of learning the way of perceiving is referred to as perceptual learning. There are two theoretical explanations for perceptual learning. The first approach focuses much on the fact that the environment avails most of the information that is needed for perception to take place. The theory explains knowledge regarding using the information attained from the environment efficiently. This approach was brought forward by Gibson, and it is referred to as Gibson’s' Differentiation Theory of Perceptual Development.
The second theory dwells much on the idea that the environment supplies inadequate information. It, therefore, explains perceptual learning as the process of learning to create more extrapolations using the limited information from the environment. This theory was brought forward by theorists and transaction lists such as Bruner. The two theories have different points along a series of approaches depending on the amount of information that the environment supplies. However, it is the work of research studies to inform us the points in the series that presents the best explanation for perceptual processes in varying situations. This paper, however, will seek to describe and explain the Gibson’s Differentiation Theory of Perceptual Development, citing its importance.
Gibson’s national position is a perceptual diversity philosophy that states that perceptual learning is knowing how to acquire information from the sensory data availed by the environment (Adolph & Kretch, 2015). The theory considers the environment as a source of abundance information. For a human being to make the information sensible and useful, it is important he or she learns how to respond to different characteristics of the stimuli. For instance, when a baby hears people talking to him for the first time, probably, to him it sounds like the mass of insensible sounds that are undifferentiated. As time lapses, the baby learns and is capable of picking out the different features, the sounds that can help him in discriminating words, meanings, as well as other elements of the language.
It may be deducted that, according to Gibson, perceptual learning, therefore, is made up of two components. The first element is that people have to learn the distinctive features in stimuli, for example, the criteria used to differentiate a bad wine from a good wine. The second component is that the person has to learn how to utilize the distinctive characteristics to be able to discriminate valuable objects that are relevant. At the beginning of the process of perception, a person may already be capable of identifying the distinctive characteristics. If this is the case, therefore, perceptual learning can take place, since the person is only required to learn the way he can use these characteristics. The memory of an item is mainly perceived as being stored regarding the invariant patterns and distinctive features, on the contrary, to merely a copy of the stimuli that is unanalyzed.
For a person to learn how to identify and respond to the unique features, various processes such as abstraction have to be involved. Abstraction is the capability of selecting and ignoring the irrelevant variables, giving attention to the chosen ones only. The process of abstraction includes discriminating casual relationships or elements. For instance, when learning languages, people learn to abstract out (identify) distinct sounds regardless of the modifications in speed, loudness, or pitch. Furthermore, filtering out an irrelevant feature in learning how to ignore the parts of inspiration that are not significant and important to the needed perception, since pitch may not be relevant to the understanding of various language parts (Quinnell & Mercer University, 2015). According to Gibson, Selective attention refers to the tentative activity of the organs involved in sensin...