James J. Gibson

James J. Gibson was a psychologist known for his work on visual perception. He introduced the idea of "affordances," which are the opportunities for action that objects and environments provide, based on their properties. For example, a chair affords sitting, and a staircase affords climbing. Gibson emphasized that perception is active and directly related to detecting these affordances in our surroundings, without needing complex mental processing. His ecological approach to perception highlights how we naturally pick up information from our environment to guide behavior effectively.