Abstract

In this talk, I will present the ecological theory of direct learning, which focuses on perceptual and perceptuo-motor learning, and argue that it meets most of the criteria that post-cognitivist theories of learning should aim to satisfy. Furthermore, I will suggest that its conceptual and methodological tools may offer valuable insights for other post-cognitivist approaches to learning.
Direct learning posits that improvements with practice are guided by information for learning embedded in the dynamic interaction between an organism and its environment. This theory formally characterizes information for learning as a vector field spanning a space of possible perception-action couplings available for a given task. Within this framework, being at a particular location in this space corresponds to engaging in a specific perception-action coupling, while learning can be understood as a process of moving through this space along trajectories shaped by the vector field of information for learning.
Previous research on direct learning has primarily focused on cases where action can be understood through a single perception-action coupling. To conclude, and drawing on Di Paolo et al.’s criteria, I will discuss an extension of the theory to accommodate learning in contexts where multiple perception-action couplings are simultaneously relevant.

About the speaker

Jorge Ibáñez-Gijón holds a B.S. in Biology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, 2005) and an M.S. in Biophysics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM, 2006). He earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics from UAM in 2014, conducting research within the Perception and Movement Group (GIPYM) at the Faculty of Psychology. His doctoral work applied an ecological-dynamical perspective to traditional cognitive psychology tasks.

Following his Ph.D., he pursued postdoctoral research at the Institut des Sciences du Mouvement, CNRS (Marseille, France), where he studied the human factors affecting free-throw performance in professional basketball players. In 2017, he was awarded a Talent Attraction grant, enabling him to continue his postdoctoral research at UAM. He joined the Department of Basic Psychology at UAM as an Assistant Professor in 2021 and was appointed Associate Professor in 2025.
His research is grounded in the scale-based ecological-dynamical approach to human behavior. This approach embraces the complexity of agent-environment interactions and seeks to provide non-reductionist, naturalized explanations of human behavior. Initially, his work was purely fundamental, both in experimental studies and theoretical reflections. During his postdoctoral research, he shifted toward applying this framework to study real-world problems under controlled laboratory conditions. His current focus is twofold: translating these findings into practical applications in real-world contexts and extending the ecological-dynamical approach to bridge higher cognitive functions with fundamental cognitive abilities shared across living organisms.

Free of charge - All are welcome