James J. Gibson

James Jerome Gibson , was an American psychologist who received his Ph.D. from Princeton Universitys Department of Psychology, and is considered one of the most important 20th century psychologists in the field of visual perception. Gibson challenged the idea that the nervous system actively constructs conscious visual perception, and instead promoted ecological psychology, in which the mind directly perceives environmental stimuli without additional cognitive construction or processing. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Gibson as the 88th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with John Garcia, David Rumelhart, Louis Leon Thurstone, Margaret Floy Washburn, and Robert S. Woodworth.

James Jerome Gibson was born in McConnelsville, Ohio on January 27, 1904 unto Thomas and Gertrude Gibson. Gibson was the oldest of three children and had two younger brothers, Thomas and William. Gibsons father worked for Wisconsin Central Railroad and Gibsons mother worked as a school teacher. Because his father worked on the railroad, Gibson and his family had to travel and relocate quite frequently, moving throughout the Dakotas and Wisconsin until they finally settled down in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette.

Source: Wikipedia