Eleanor J. Gibson

Eleanor Jack Gibson (7 December 1910 – 30 December 2002) was an American psychologist who focused on reading development and perceptual learning in infants. Gibson began her career at Smith College as an instructor in 1932, publishing her first works on research conducted as an undergraduate student. Gibson was able to circumvent the many obstacles she faced due to the Great Depression and gender discrimination, by finding research opportunities that she could meld with her own interests. Gibson, with her husband James J. Gibson, created the Gibsonian ecological theory of development, which emphasized how important perception was because it allows humans to adapt to their environments. Perhaps her most well-known contribution to psychology was the "visual cliff," which studied depth perception in both human and animal species, leading to a new understanding of perceptual development in infants. Gibson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1971, the National Academy of Education in 1972, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977. In 1992, she was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Eleanor (née Jack) Gibson was born on December 7, 1910, in Peoria, Illinois. Her father, William Alexander Jack, was a businessman who specialized in the wholesale of hardware. Her mother, Isabel Grier Jack, was a homemaker who graduated from Smith College. Gibson had one sibling, Emily Jack, who was born in 1916.

Gibson began attending Smith College at the age of sixteen with the intention of studying languages. She graduated in 1931 with a B.A. degree. While at Smith, she became interested in experimental psychology. Gibson completed her master's degree at Smith, graduating in 1933. In 1935, Gibson began her Ph.D. at Yale University. While attending Yale, Gibson became interested in comparative psychology. Originally, Gibson had asked Robert Yerkes to be her dissertation advisor. He declined, stating that he does not permit women to work in his lab. Clark L. Hull, a behavioural psychologist, became her dissertation supervisor, despite the fact that they did not necessarily have the same theoretical perspective. Gibson completed her dissertation on differentiation using behaviourist terminology. After a year at Yale, Gibson passed the required exams and moved back to Northampton, Massachusetts, where she continued to teach at Smith. She completed her dissertation two years later in 1938, at which point she received her doctorate from Yale.

Gibson began working at Smith College as an instructor in 1932. She took a year off in 1935 to pursue her Ph.D. at Yale University, before returning as an instructor at Smith College. In 1940, Gibson became an assistant professor at Smith. In 1941, James Gibson was requested to conduct perception research in the Flying Training Command of the United States Air Force at which point the family moved to Fort Worth, Texas. After a period of time, they moved to Santa Ana, California. After World War II ended, they moved back to Northampton, Massachusetts. Gibson resumed her position at Smith College in 1946.

In 1949, James Gibson took a job at Cornell University, requiring that the family move to Ithaca, New York. Gibson was unable to obtain a job at Cornell due to anti-nepotism policies prohibiting her from working in the same department as her husband. Thus, Gibson became an unpaid research associate. She continued her research by reaching out to other Cornell faculty, working alongside Howard Liddell, a professor in psychology. Gibson worked in Liddell's Behaviour Farm Laboratory, giving her experience working with and rearing baby animals. Gibson's interest in development grew after working with the animals. Liddell's Behaviour Farm is where the discovery of the behaviour that led to the Visual Cliff took place. After conducting research there for two years, Gibson left the Behaviour Farm upon finding out that her control group of goats was given away. Later, Gibson received funding from the United States Air Force and grants from the United States Navy to work on perceptual learning. In order to further explore this topic, Gibson and her husband, James, co-authored a study on the perception of nonsense scribbles, eventually leading to the differentiation theory. Additionally, when Richard Walk was hired at Cornell University, Gibson and Walk decided to explore discrimination learning on rats who were raised in different environments, eventually leading to the Visual Cliff experiment. Their work together ended when Walk left Cornell University to pursue work at George Washington University.

In 1966, James took a job elsewhere and was no longer employed by Cornell University. With anti-nepotism policies no longer an issue, Gibson became a professor at Cornell with tenure. After her academic partnership with Walk ended, Gibson was asked to join an interdisciplinary project with the goal of achieving a better understanding of the reading processes.

In 1972, Gibson became the Susan Linn Sage Professor of Psychology and was given her own lab. At this point, Gibson turned her focus to perception in infants and turned her new lab into an infant perception lab.

In 1979, Gibson was forced to retire from her faculty position, the same year that her husband, James, passed away. Prior to her retirement, she began visiting other universities, and continued to do so for many years afterwards. Gibson continued to work in her lab until 1987, at which point she moved to Middlebury, Vermont, to live closer to her daughter.