Psychology

Ecological Psychology photo

Ecological Psychology

This approach draws, as its name suggests, upon the work of James J. Gibson. Other important influences include pragmatism in the tradition of John Dewey, and the phenomenological tradition.

Including research on: use of everyday objects (Alan Costall), building and design as social practice and against theory of mind (Alan Costall, Paul Morris, Vasu Reddy); robotics (Endre Kadar), visual control and exploratory learning (Endre Kadar).

Research example:

Biologically inspired robotics became common in the 1990s. In line with this trend, Endre Kadar has developed a generic field theory to animal navigation and his approach provided the basis of his interdisciplinary work in robotics. Specifically, the feasibility and effectiveness of basic strategies (e.g., chemotaxis, biased random walk) in chemical searching have been investigated by using robotic platforms.

Selected publications:

  • Costall, A. (2004). From Darwin to Watson (and Cognitivism) and back again: the principle of animal-environment mutuality. Behavior & Philosophy, 32, 179-195. ISSN 1053-8348.
  • Lytridis, C., Kadar, E. E., & Virk, G. S. (2006). A systematic approach to the problem of odour source localisation. Autonomous Robots, 20, 261-276. ISSN 0929-5593.
  • Kadar, E. E., Maxwell, J. P., Stins, J. & Costall, A. (2002). Drifting toward a diffuse control model of exploratory learning: A comparison of global and within-trial performance measures. Biological Cybernetics, 87, 1-9. ISSN 0340-1200.
  • Williams, E., Reddy, V., Costall, A. (2001). Taking a closer look at functional play in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31 (1), 67-77. ISSN 0162-3257.
  • Costall, A. (2006). ‘Introspectionism’ and the origin myth of modern scientific psychology. Cognition and Consciousness. ISSN 1053-8100.