Cognition and Reality: Principles and Implications of Cognitive Psychology

Neisser's central claim is that perception is a continuous, cyclical interaction between anticipatory schemata and information available in the environment—not a linear sequence in which meaningless sensory input is processed, stored, and finally given meaning. He rejects the information-processing framework he himself had helped popularize in Cognitive Psychology (1967), arguing that its practitioners are trapped in specific experimental paradigms, use unpractised subjects and artificial tasks, and fail to tap the true potential of the human mind [citation:1]. As Stuart Sutherland noted in Nature, Neisser had become 'somewhat disillusioned with the progress of the cause he espoused ten years ago,' and his solution takes the form of a synthesis between J.J. Gibson's ecological optics and F.C. Bartlett's schema theory [citation:1].

The book introduced the perceptual cycle as the fundamental unit of cognitive analysis. In this cycle, a schema—an internal structure that is modifiable by experience and specific to what is being perceived—directs exploration of the environment. That exploration samples information, which in turn modifies the schema, which then directs further exploration. Neisser describes perception as 'an ongoing interaction between our schemata and the world,' not an instantaneous happening [citation:1]. He also introduces the closely related notion of the cognitive map, or orienting schema, to account for how perceivers locate themselves within a layout and guide movement through it. The perceptual cycle replaces the linear stage models of information processing with a dynamic, temporally extended account of how organism and environment are coupled.

The reception was mixed and notably critical. Stuart Sutherland, reviewing in Nature, found the book 'not an easy book to understand or to evaluate,' noting that it was 'unclear how far Neisser is putting forward a new thesis rather than merely using a different terminology' [citation:1]. Sutherland suspected that 'the constant flourishing of the magic word schemata serves more to distract attention from the phenomena to be explained than to explain them,' and observed that Neisser's exposition remained at a very general level, with a 'curious reluctance' to give detailed explanatory examples [citation:1]. A review in Perception similarly questioned whether Neisser had 'explained too much, too broadly' . The most severe critique came from Wickelgren, who called the book 'a failure' and argued that the changes Neisser makes are 'either inadequate to the task, or, at best, accomplish only part of what is necessary' [citation:11].

Cognitive Psychology (1967) was an optimistic and clear account that marked the coming of age of information-processing psychology, giving the impression that the mind would eventually be understood in terms of the information-processing operations it carries out [citation:1]. Cognition and Reality (1976) represents a fundamental reversal. Neisser became disillusioned with the field's over-emphasis on specialized information-processing models, its failure to address everyday aspects and functions of behavior, and its excessive reliance on artificial laboratory tasks—a disconnect he called a lack of ecological validity [citation:4]. Where the 1967 book had helped define the field, the 1976 book challenged that field, moving Neisser toward a more ecologically oriented approach influenced by Gibson and Bartlett [citation:17].

Neisser's synthesis combines Gibson's ecological approach to perception with Bartlett's concept of schemata. From Gibson, Neisser takes the idea that perception involves direct pickup of information available in the environment, and that the perceiver must be understood in relation to the world in which they live [citation:1]. From Bartlett, he takes the schema—a portion of the perceptual cycle that is internal to the perceiver, modifiable by experience, and specific to what is being perceived [citation:18]. Neisser does not accept all of Gibson's principles: unlike Gibson, he retains a role for internal mental processes in the form of schemata, which guide exploration and are modified by the information picked up. The result is described by Sutherland as a 'shot-gun marriage' between Gibson and Bartlett [citation:1].

A recurring criticism concerns the vagueness of the central concepts. Sutherland noted that Neisser's exposition of schemata remains at a very general level, and that when he does attempt explanation—as in his discussion of perceiving emotional expressions—the accounts are 'at such a general level that it is hard to see whether any new light has been thrown on the problem' [citation:1]. Wickelgren argued more fundamentally that Neisser, like the behaviorists and information processors he criticized, remains a 'sensory' theorist who buries problems in the stimulus: 'To equate meaning with affordance is to provide no account of it at all' [citation:11]. He also noted that the self as a subject of cognitive activity is absent from Neisser's account, as it is from Gibson's and the behaviorist's [citation:11].