E COLOGICAL S ELF

E COLOGICAL S ELF

Neisser (1991) argues that there are many sources of self-knowledge, giving rise to different aspects of self. He proposes that there are at least fi ve aspects of self. Two perceptually given aspects of self are the ecological self and the social self. Both are directly specifi ed in infancy by co-perception of the environment and self that occurs

286 Joan M. Preston

with activity in the environment. People are clearly different from other “objects” in the environment, capable of mutual gaze, contingent gestures, reciprocal vocalizations, etc. The information specifying interpersonal interactions includes reciprocity, the contingency of each participant’s actions on those of the partner. Neisser states that interpersonal perception is probably functional from birth. It is clearly important in our choice of media; the most popular media, historically, whether books, television, or fi lm, are drama. In newer media, such as VGs, we have seen the rapid development of both creator-imposed complex narrative and games permitting complex partici- pant-led narrative, for example, “live-action team-play” VGs.

For Gibson, the ecological self is the self that inhabits the environment. In 1966, Gibson argued that organisms actively obtain information, not only about the environment, but about the self, through awareness of their own movements and actions. Because Gibson views it as inseparable from movement through one’s surrounding array, perception is functional rather than static. For Gibson, each posi- tion /path of a moving individual creates a specifi c cone-shaped visual fi eld which expands in the direction one is moving and contracts in the direction from which one has come, thus locating the individual within the environment. This is called perceptual fl ow or streaming perspective.

Whenever movement occurs, of the individual or an object in the environ- ment, corresponding changes occur in the array. Movement produces changes in the gradients of fl ow, surface, and texture, and we use this information to coordinate our behavior. What we perceive directly is the “immediate ecological situation”—an ambient array which includes not only the environment but the self—our own posi- tion and our own actions. Gibson insisted (1979, p. 126) that all direct perception is co-perception of the environment and the self. That is, all perception of an ambient array is simultaneously and intrinsically a self-perception of the specifi c position of oneself in that array. Hunt (2004b) points out that, for Gibson, there is no outward “there” without “here.” The surrounding array gives back—like a shadow—the exact position of the ecological self from which a creature of specifi c shape and speed would expe- rience that array, that is, open horizon ahead and fl ow past of surrounding feedback implies a “hole” fi lled by the embodied ecological self.

Motion perspective not only carries information about distances to objects, but also information about the direction in which the individual is moving. As optical information fl ows with the perceiver’s movement, it simultaneously pro- vides information about objects and events as well as the self so that we always know where we are in the environment. For Gibson, self perception is “the percep- tion of the active aware self encountering the environment” (Reed 1988, p. 233).

The ecological self, the self that inhabits its environment, brings together directly and indirectly apprehended information. Therefore, experiences in one’s real-life environment and in one’s simulated environment are expected to affect one another. For example, a VG player can use appropriate real-life skills, knowl- edge, and strategies to solve or resolve game situations, while VR training (e.g., pilot

11 Mediated Environments to Consciousness

training, reduction of fear of fl ying) is expected to transfer to real-life events. The ecological self, whether in virtual space or the natural environment, has available both direct and mediated apprehension.