education of attention

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Education of attention is Gibsonian perceptual learning through which an agent becomes sensitive to informative environmental features and invariants. RB2 distinguishes learning which cues to attend to from calibrating judgments to actual abilities. Exploratory activity and differentiation refine information pickup; the term does not mean generic concentration, automatic accuracy or an instruction to ignore bodily and task constraints.

Explanation

RB2 attributes the developmental account to Eleanor Gibson and describes learning as discovering distinctive features through exploration and differentiation. The infant examples involve optical and proprioceptive information relevant to navigating slopes. The account concerns progressively useful perceptual sensitivity rather than simply adding effort to an unchanged selection of cues.

The explicit distinction in the source makes attention education about what information is selected, while calibration concerns its fit to current action capacities. These processes can support one another without becoming synonymous. A person may notice a relevant feature yet still misjudge whether a changed body or tool can act successfully.

Direct learning further describes moving toward more specific, reliable information through practice. This is an attributed ecological emphasis, not proof that every competing theory of learning is false or that appropriate information is always detected. Real affordances and fallible pickup remain separate within the same local discussion.

Scope and attribution

Retain Eleanor Gibson’s attribution and the specific ecological learning distinction.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Cue selection, calibration and direct learning retain their different roles.

Occurrence locators: 73, 74.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Education of attention concerns selecting useful information, distinct from calibration and broad theory comparisons.