Perceiving weather through knowledge of the local weather system is that ‘preparedness’ needed in a hostile environment.

Learning what to see: Visual Perception

Perceiving Affordances, Theory of ‘Pickup,’ and ‘Information’ not as Processing Inputs

At the heart of Gibson’s work concerned visual perception where the perceiver relates to what is there to perceive in the environment, that at the onset was apt for Gibson’s Theory of Affordances. Gibson’s (1950, 1966, 1986) ecological approach to visual perception encompassed detailing the senses and accounting for the surroundings (through a medium and substances) giving ground to affordances for both the perceiver and the environment. Affordances is meant by what it affords or offers the animal in both negative and positive ways. Not least, animals and people’s perceptual capabilities have evolved, and that the environment is functionally tied to existence. Gibson’s visual perceptions described what there was to look for in the environment, not simply physiology of eye or the mind. For Gibson (1986, 149), animals and people sense (not receptors or sense organs) the environment in the meaning of detecting. The key to affordances is not whether they exist and are real but whether “information is available in ambient light for perceiving them (Gibson 1986, 140).”

Yet this is not to fall into the dualism of “separating realms of consciousness and matter” (Gibson 1986 p. 141). For Gibson, our bodies through our senses (again not receptors or sense organs) tend to gravitate to things, in the process we receive stimuli through the body, intrinsic to motion – seemingly without any barriers. Gibson (1986 p. 141) reiterated, “This is only to reemphasize that exteroception (external stimuli) is accompanied by proprioception (understood here as egoreception[1]) – “that to perceive the world is to copercieve oneself.” Is anyone else thinking back to phenomenology’s first-person perspective? Gibson (1986 p. 239) redefined perception in stating, “Perceiving is an achievement of the individual, not an appearance in the theatre of his consciousness. It is a keeping-in-touch with the world and experiencing of things rather than a having of experiences.” Getting a handle on Gibson’s (re) definition of perception on a level to remove the dualism ‘barrier’ seems to flow. Something comes from something. But that something is a flow unbroken. It follows, the act of picking up information is a continuous act (Gibson 1986, 240). The sea of energy flows, the non-stop movement of energy is continuous. Nothing is discrete, nothing to be objectified, not even the processing of information is assumed.

It becomes clear for Gibson that perceiving is a phychosomatic act, not of the mind or of the body but a “living observer” (Gibson 1986 p. 240). This speaks to a concern throughout this thesis; in the information coming to us, how much of past experiences are in our bodies (not of a conscious awareness per say) or when being ‘attentive’ to the world (referring to the keeping-in-touch above), how much of past experience a facet of information ‘pickup’?

For Gibson, information, as you are now accustomed, is not defined with the familiar meaning associated with communication. Information is specific to the observer’s environment, not to the observer’s sense organ or receptors (Gibson 1986, p. 242). The process of picking up information is dependent on the two-way “input-output” of what is perceived, and as for Gibson when information is always available (Gibson 1986, p. 250). - has to do with the present. To the others who subscribe to the information processing in terms of the brain, Gibson differs. Gibson (1986, p. 250-251), holding on to his defined information that is meshed with an ongoing experience in hopes that the observer will ‘anticipate’ or ‘learn by induction’ – not all information is meant to be passed on and stored. The process is about learning. Gibson’s point is that Information pickup is not predicated on past experience and present experience because experiences are continuous streams, with no breaks, and thus memory is not part of the information pickup equation. This begs the question, is there a separation from what we perceive from what we know? Gibson (1986, p. 258) follows up with the notion of a bridge between perception and knowledge and it is from the theory of the information pickup that closes the perceived divide. Knowing is an extension of perceiving (Gibson 1986, p. 258). Finally, we getting to somewhere.

However, to be clear, ‘awareness’ is not equated to ‘consciousness’, perceptions of the world are not cause by stimuli or sensations triggered by stimuli that come from memory will not do, the visual world is not the environment nor the physical world, the empiricists who perceived meaning and values of things are from past experience will not suffice, affordances is not to classify an object; these assumptions are to foreground Gibson’s theories because there are assumptions that seem to persist. Gibson harkens back to the assumptions of the traditional theorists who assert perceiving is the processing of inputs meaning sensory nerve impulses to the brain. IF Gibson’s theories have any meaning today in the world of technology and ‘information processing’ in a cognitive world, it’s worth finding out.

Pilots visualize the weather to get a bigger picture to be situational aware of what could happen during flight. The mental representations are of the weather products detailing the weather data, the numbers, the reports – they objectify the weather. Perceptions of weather is when they interpret and analyse and make a decision to GO or No Go, but this comes from experience gained over time flying in the weather. They perceive weather from their experience. And from experience, they ‘see’ weather no longer as data but incorporated in their body and realized in how they make good judgement calls, particularly vital when flying in GL’s hostile environment. Perceiving weather is having knowledge of local weather – seeing the ‘missing’ information from the reports (reading in-between the lines), knowing the ‘bad weather routes’, knowing the winds, fog, snow/ice conditions, and knowing the environment during the day to fly at ‘night’.

Decision-making comes from experience and when perceiving the weather, it begins to dissolve the mind/body or objective/subjective dualism. Perceiving the weather through knowledge of the local weather is that ‘preparedness’ needed in a hostile environment.

When considering the machines’ affordances that mediates the perceptions inside and outside the cockpit, I’m left with the question: what is more valued: experience on type or experience of local weather/environment?

How do pilots perceive of their environment? Referring back to Gibson, Gibson in the 1960s substituted a description of the environment for a phenomenology of perception. As noted above and what follows is phenomenology from the perspective of each pilot, subjective, perhaps even dualistic when there is a mediating effect with the machine (s) – the H155 and the B212. The decision-making process comes through when the pilots ‘find solutions’ with their environment. The environment is intertwined and un-separated in all their decisions. Yet as Gibson tried to avoid the subjectivism and dualism, it is in his ecological approach that Gibson reiterates describing the ‘what’ in what is perceived. As I follow through with Gibson’s ecological approach, the description of the weather is the foundation for the ecological ‘reality’ of the environment.

What is perceived is not the shape, colour, size or motion of the weather. Instead it is the ‘medium’ detailed in the atmospheric conditions of the flight environment. It becomes the ‘place’, the place of the settlements, distinct operations, geographical position, geological sediments, and the atmosphere. The atmosphere is the medium in which all the subjectivity takes place, dependent on the pilot’s experiences. When pilots interpret the weather, their interpretation comes from experience. As it is the case, aviation does objectify the weather, making a weather picture of what could be a hazardous weather situation. However, the differences between this thesis and the aviation theories, is that I do not assume an ontology but rather come from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty and Gibson in that the challenge is in describing the facts of reality, the physics weather. Yet, through conversation and dialogue, evident is the significance in their decision-making process to land, approach, take-off, hover, etc.. – referring to Dreyfus’ skillful coping. In describing variations in the weather – in line with an ecological theory of the pilot’s reality – pilots find solutions, work with the machine they currently operate, which allows for a state of preparedness.

To say something about how we manage climate events or emergencies and preparedness, partly has to do with how we perceive the world, as well as what ‘filters’ or shapes our world for us to perceive it[2]. Perhaps our preparedness, or better yet, unpreparedness reflects our risk level. Pilots professionally have a responsibility derived from their personality and aviation regulations, which expects pilots to be prepared for the likelihood of any situation – Pilot just don’t like surprises.

[1] Gibson’s (1986, 115) definition of proprioception can be understood as “egoproception, as sensitivity to the self, not as one special channel of sensations or as several of them.” Proprioception provides information in various ways about the observer’s activities.

[2] Don Ihde (1990), to give an example of ‘embodied technology,’ eyeglasses are referred to as an instrument in which we perceive the world through – the lens.