Extending the rather unnoticed Gibsonian view that ‘perception is cognitive': Development of the enactive approach to perceptual-cognitive expertise.
Résumé
In this chapter, we present the foundations of an enactive approach to cognitive expertise. We first discuss the dichotomy between classical cognitive approaches to expertise and ecological approaches to motor behaviour. The limits of classical cognitive approaches are related to the empirical study of experts on very derived tasks based on the study of memory in laboratory and to the symbols storing problem in continuous and uncertain environments. The limit of the ecological approach is related to the reduction of human complexity to the two-dimensional perception-action system. We propose an alternate framework in which basic cognitive functions such as categorization are taken into account in their links to visual search processes. We report some published experimental data which tend to show that visual perception embody higher-level demands. This shall involves redefining the role of cognition as a teleological constraint for perceptive systems rather than as a mere enrichment process of a poor stimulation, and redefining the ecology of perception as a multiform (i.e., biological, cognitive, physical) and demanding environment rather than as mere array of external light.