COMMENTARY Four Ways to Reject Directed Perception

Burton and Turvey (1990) found that two invariants, the first and second moments of mass distribution, were available and used for the perception of the length of a hand-held rod. The first predominated in holding and the second in wielding. They denied, however, that these invariants were information. Thus, they deny directed perception (Cutting, 1986), which allows for multiple specifi-cation of objects/events, in favor of direct perception, which preserves a one-to-one mapping between objects/events and perceived qualities. In this commen-tary, after some introductory questions and answers, I cite some evidence I take in support of multiply specified information for perception. I then outline four schemes for countermanding this evidence. These are (a) the appeal to proximal information identity, (b) the appeal to underlying information identity, (c) the appeal to broken linkage between information and experimental variables, and (d) the appeal to cross-modal holism of information. I claim Burton and Turvey (1990) espouse both (a) and (c). A new issue has captured the attention of the community of ecological psychol-ogists interested in perception-whether or not multiple sources of completely adequate information can exist for the perception of a single object or event. A n approach that follows J. J. Gibson insists o n a one-to-one mapping between information and object properties, called direct perception. A n approach em-bracing many-to-one mappings is directed perception. Burton and Turvey (1990) found multiple invariants available for the perception of the length of a Requests for reprints should be sent to James E. Cutting, Department of Psychology, Uris Hall