(This reply got slightly delayed as JISCmail didnt think I was a subscriber; not too late hopefully to contribute to the fast-moving and very interesting discussion).
Dear Richard
Gerda Smets moves Gibson’s theories into the domains of 3D and other design in her 1989 paper in Design Issues Vol V/2.
Quoting loosely from a discussion on this subject in my book (details below):
“Gibson’s work on perception and its applications in design are linked through descriptions of how in visual and verbal thinking we use processes of categorisation, as expounded by Jerome Bruner (1957) amongst others. Language enables us to name things in categories to identify them, to make sense of the world and to produce meaning. Such making sense is both an interpretive strategy, and then becomes a projective habit as we navigate the identifiers of the myriad communities we belong to…..Designers as people use naming categories as Athavankar (1989) describes, and people as consumers experience objects as categories, which constrains acceptable innovation in product types. De Bont et al. (1992) in their study of cognitive style and preference for forms of espresso machines discuss issues of tolerance of ambiguity amongst different types of consumers. Smets observes that Gibson’s concept of perception as ecological rather than individual enables design to shift the connection between function and form to function as behaviour and usage. She quotes a fascinating earlier study (Pettinger et al. 1979):
“The pattern of geometrical changes in the skull (of a child or adult)…. Is found to provide the possibility of detecting its age. This “growing older” invariant can be applied not only to growing organisms such as bird, ape, or dog, but also inanimate objects (Volkswagen). Experimental subjects describe the Volkswagen as young or old.”
(There is a wonderfully convincing set of line drawings to accompany Pettinger et al’s text).
Best wishes
Prue Bramwell-Davis
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