Eleanor Jack Gibson

Background

Eleanor Jack Gibson was born in Peoria, Illinois, on December 7, 1910, to William A. and Isabel Grier Jack. She began formal schooling early, entered Smith College at sixteen, and developed lasting interests in animal and child psychology. At Smith she met psychologist James J. Gibson, whom she married in 1932. Their family included a son, James J. Gibson Jr., and a daughter, Jean Grier Gibson. During the Second World War she accompanied James Gibson to Texas and California while he conducted military research; their son was born in 1940 and their daughter in 1943.

Education

Gibson studied psychology at Smith College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1931 and a Master of Arts degree in 1933. She entered Yale University's doctoral program in psychology, completed the required coursework and examinations while teaching at Smith, and received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1938. Her doctoral work, advised by Clark Hull after Robert Yerkes's laboratory excluded women, examined generalization and differentiation in verbal learning and helped establish the research direction that led to her later theory of perceptual learning. She subsequently received honorary degrees from Smith College, Rutgers University, Trinity College, Bates College, the University of South Carolina, Emory University, Middlebury College, the State University of New York, Miami University, and Yale University.

Career

Gibson began her academic career at Smith College as a teaching assistant from 1931 to 1933, became an instructor from 1933 to 1940, and served as an assistant professor from 1940 to 1949, with a four-year interruption during the Second World War. She returned to Smith in 1946 after accompanying her husband during his wartime research assignments. In 1949 she moved to Cornell University, where she worked as a research associate in psychology until 1965. Cornell then appointed her Professor of Psychology from 1965 to 1972 and Susan Linn Sage Professor of Psychology from 1972 to 1979; she subsequently held the Susan Linn Sage Professorship emeritus. She also served as a visiting or adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Davis, the Salk Institute, the University of Minnesota, the University of South Carolina, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Connecticut, and Emory University, and was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Psychology in Beijing. Her research addressed perceptual learning, perceptual development, comparative psychology, infant perception, reading, and the acquisition of knowledge. With Richard D. Walk she conducted the visual-cliff studies, and her work on perceptual learning and reading helped connect experimental, comparative, and developmental psychology.

Achievements

• Developed a theory of perceptual learning that integrated experimental, comparative, and developmental psychology.

• Advanced the scientific study of perceptual development in infants and children, including the relation between perception, action, and environmental information.

• Conducted influential visual-cliff research with Richard D. Walk and helped establish modern research on depth perception and infant visual development.

• Made major contributions to the psychology of reading and to the study of how children acquire increasingly differentiated perceptual knowledge.

• Helped develop an ecological approach to perceptual learning and development through research and collaboration with James J. Gibson and Anne D. Pick.

Works

• autobiography

  • Eleanor J. Gibson

    (Autobiographical chapter in A History of Psychology in Au...)

    1980

• book chapter

  • The Concept of Affordances in Development: The Renascence of Functionalism

    (Chapter in The Concept of Development, Minnesota Symposiu...)

    1982

• journal article

  • The Role of Shock in Reinforcement

    (Study of reinforcement and learning published in the Jour...)

    1952

  • Retroactive Inhibition as a Function of Degree of Generalization Between Tasks

    (Research article published in the Journal of Experimental...)

    1941

  • Learning to Read

    (Published in Science and focused on the development of re...)

    1965

  • A Systematic Application of the Concepts of Generalization and Differentiation to Verbal Learning

    (Doctoral research published in Psychological Review.)

    1940

  • The Ontogeny of Reading

    (Published in American Psychologist.)

    1970

  • The Effect of Prolonged Exposure to Visually Presented Patterns on Learning to Discriminate Them

    (Co-authored with Richard D. Walk.)

    1956

  • The Visual Cliff

    (Co-authored with Richard D. Walk; published in Scientific...)

    1960

  • Bilateral Transfer of the Conditioned Response in the Human Subject

    (Co-authored with James J. Gibson and Gertrude Raffel.)

    1932

  • Perceptual Learning: Differentiation or Enrichment?

    (Co-authored with James J. Gibson; published in Psychologi...)

    1955

  • Continuous Perspective Transformations and the Perception of Rigid Motion

    (Co-authored with James J. Gibson.)

    1957

• memoir

  • Perceiving the Affordances: A Portrait of Two Psychologists

    (Final book, concerning the intertwined scientific lives a...)

    2002

• monograph

  • Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development

    (Major theoretical work on perceptual learning and develop...)

    1969

  • The Psychology of Reading

    (Co-authored with Harry Levin and published by MIT Press.)

    1975

  • A Comparative and Analytical Study of Visual Depth Perception

    (Co-authored with Richard D. Walk.)

    1961
  • An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development

    (Co-authored with Anne D. Pick; presents an ecological acc...)

    2000

• review article

  • Perceptual Learning

    (Annual Review of Psychology article presenting a systemat...)

    1963

  • Exploratory Behavior in the Development of Perceiving, Acting, and the Acquiring of Knowledge

    (Published in Annual Review of Psychology.)

    1988

• scholarly collection

  • An Odyssey in Learning and Perception

    (Collection of Gibson's scientific papers and reflections ...)

    1991

Views

Gibson's psychological work emphasized that perception develops through active engagement with structured environments rather than through the passive accumulation of sensations. She treated perceptual learning as a process in which organisms become increasingly able to differentiate useful information and detect relationships in the world.

Membership

Gibson was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and served as president of its Division 3 from 1976 to 1977. She was president of the Eastern Psychological Association from 1969 to 1970, chair of Section J of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1982, and a member of the governing council of the Society for Research in Child Development from 1979 to 1985. She belonged to the Psychonomic Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering, Sigma Xi, and Phi Beta Kappa. She was also an honorary member of the British Psychological Society, the Italian Society for Research in Child Development, and the New York Academy of Sciences, and was a William James Fellow of the American Psychological Society.

• Fellow; president of Division 3 from 1976 to 1977; recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, G. Stanley Hall Award, and Gold Medal Award.

  American Psychological Association , United States

• Fellow and chair of Section J in 1982.

  American Association for the Advancement of Science , United States

• Elected member in 1971.

  National Academy of Sciences , United States

  1971

• Elected member in 1972.

  National Academy of Education , United States

  1972

• Elected member in 1977.

  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

  1977

• Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering , United States

• Member of the governing council from 1979 to 1985; recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1981.

  Society for Research in Child Development , United States

• Psychonomic Society , United States

• Recipient of the Howard Crosby Warren Medal in 1977.

  Society of Experimental Psychologists , United States

• President from 1969 to 1970.

  Eastern Psychological Association , United States

• Honorary member.

  Italian Society for Research in Child Development , Italy

• Honorary life member.

  New York Academy of Sciences , United States

  1983

• Honorary member.

  British Psychological Society , United Kingdom

  1977

• National Sigma Xi Lecturer in spring 1971.

  Sigma Xi , United States

• Phi Beta Kappa , United States

• William James Fellow.

  American Psychological Society , United States

Personality

Gibson described intellectual independence, sustained curiosity, and a commitment to experimental evidence as central to her life and work. Her biographical memoir portrays her as viewing humans and animals as active learners who explore their environments and progressively discover structure and meaning.

Quotes from others about the person

• Elizabeth S. Spelke characterized Gibson's research as transforming the study of the origins and nature of knowledge and intelligence. Ulric Neisser described her as a leading developmental psychologist whose work changed conceptions of the origins of mental life.

Interests

• Comparative psychology, child development, infant perception, reading, perceptual learning, and the relation between perception, action, and knowledge.

Connections

Gibson's professional and personal life was closely connected with psychologist James J. Gibson, whom she met while studying at Smith College and married on September 17, 1932. They collaborated on research concerning perceptual learning, visual perception, and development, while maintaining distinct scholarly careers. They had two children, James J. Gibson Jr. and Jean Grier Gibson.

Father:

William

William A. Jack, the subject's father.

Mother:

Isabel

Isabel Grier Jack, the subject's mother.

husband:

James J. Gibson

Psychologist, collaborator, and spouse; married Eleanor Gibson in 1932.

Son:

James J. Gibson Jr.

Daughter:

Jean Grier Gibson

References

• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir: Eleanor Jack Gibson Biographical memoir covering Gibson's life, education, research, career, family, professional obstacles, honors, and selected bibliography.
  2023
• Eleanor Gibson Curriculum Vitae Curriculum vitae documenting education, academic positions, professional memberships, honors, and selected publications.
• Guide to the Eleanor Gibson Papers Cornell University archival guide documenting Gibson's education, research, teaching career, writings, and professional papers.
• Cornell University Memorial Statement for Eleanor J. Gibson Cornell University memorial statement concerning Gibson's academic career and service to the university.
  2002
• National Medal of Science: Eleanor J. Gibson National Science Foundation citation for Gibson's National Medal of Science, recognizing her theory of perceptual learning and research on perceptual development and reading.
  1992