On Exploratory vs. Performatory Manipulation and the Experiments being Performed to Distinguish Them
J. J. Gibson, Cornell University; August 1963
The World Wide Web distribution of James Gibson's "Purple Perils" is for scholarly use with the understanding that Gibson did not intend them for publication. References to these essays must cite them explicitly as unpublished manuscripts. Copies may be circulated if this statement is included on each copy.
The difference between exploratory and performatory manipulation might be
said to be one of attention, but I rather say it is a difference
of intention. The purpose is information in one case and achievement
in the other.
Held's experiments fail to distinguish between exploratory and performatory
action (Cf. "Useful Dimensions"). He only distinguishes "active movements"
from "passive movement". What he ought to say is that only intended
movements cause adaptation to the prism situations, not unintended movements
of the hands. And I would add that either the intention to explore
or to perform would be sufficient to yield adaptation. (Exploratory
eye-movements with head movements are never performatory responses,
but they are probably sufficient for phenomenal adaptation to spectacles, as
Kohler and I conclude. Note that unintended eye movements cause
illusory motions of the world).
The stimulus information obtained from exploratory activity of the hands may
be quite different from the stimulus feedback from performatory activity of
the hands. The first is a selection from an inexhaustible supply; the second
is in selective. How can we further elaborate and test these hypotheses?
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