Ecological Validity, Representative Design, and Correspondence Between Experimental Task Constraints and Behavioral Setting: Comment on Rogers, Kadar, and Costall (2005)

Abstract

Using the term ecological validity, in a recent issue of Ecological Psychology, Rogers, Kadar, and Costall (2005) Rogers, S. , Kadar, E. and Costall, A. 2005. Gaze patterns in the visual control of straight-road driving and braking as a function of speed and expertise. Ecological Psychology, 17: 19–38. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] discussed how the simulator they used could provide data by replicating natural road driving behaviors. However, ecological validity, as Brunswik (1956) Brunswik, E. 1956. Perception and the representative design of psychological experiments, , 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.. [Google Scholar] conceived it, refers to the validity of a cue (i.e., perceptual variable) in predicting a criterion state of the environment. Like other psychologists in the past, Rogers et al. (2005) Rogers, S. , Kadar, E. and Costall, A. 2005. Gaze patterns in the visual control of straight-road driving and braking as a function of speed and expertise. Ecological Psychology, 17: 19–38. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] confused this term with another of Brunswik's terms: representative design. In this comment, the authors clarify the distinction between these concepts and also discuss how Gibsonian ideas can strengthen understanding of the correspondence between experimental task constraints and behavioral settings outside the laboratory. The main implication of this theoretical rationalization is for the development of a measurable correspondence between experimental and behavioral contexts, enabling defensible generalization to both organisms and environments beyond the bounds of particular experiments.