From metaphor to theory: the role of resonance in perceptual learning

Abstract

Unlike dominant cognitivist theories that take perceptual learning to be a process of enriching sensory stimulation with previous knowledge, ecological psychologists take it to be an enhancement in the detection of already rich perceptual information. The difference between beginners and experts is that the latter detect better information to support their task goals. While the study of perceptual learning in terms of perceptual information and perceiver-environment interactions is common in the ecological literature, ecological psychology still lacks a story regarding the way perceptual information is detected by perceptual systems and the plasticity of such detection in learning events. In this paper, I propose the ecological notion of resonance—along with biophysical resonance, nonlinear resonance, and metastability—as a plausible foundation to account for the process of detection of perceptual information both in perceptual events and in events of perceptual learning.