How we learn to move in the real world: A conversation with Harry Heft.

In this episode of the River Tiger Podcast Marianne is joined by Professor Harry Heft, one of the leading voices in ecological psychology and a scholar deeply influenced by James and Eleanor Gibson. Harry shares how growing up amid the social change of the late 1960s, and his frustration with psychology’s neglect of real living environments, led him into a lifetime of work on environment–behaviour relations.The conversation explores the core ecological idea that perception is not about constructing an inner picture of the world, but about detecting richly structured information in the environment. Harry explains how James and Eleanor Gibson reframed perceptual learning as a process of differentiation and attunement rather than “enriching” impoverished sensory inputs. Using concrete examples, from wine tasting to children learning to move safely, and from driving to riding horses, he shows how organisms become more finely tuned to the affordances of their surroundings.Marianne connects these ideas to equestrian and adventure sports (riding, paddling, surfing, paragliding, mountain biking), where we move through the world as person–animal or person–equipment systems, rather than isolated individuals. Together, they discuss how riders, horses, and other animals co-adapt, how agency and control shape learning, and why allowing animals (and humans) to actively explore is crucial for genuine skill development.The episode broadens out into questions of place, culture, and development. Harry reflects on:- How noise, housing, and urban environments affect children’s perceptual learning.- Why early experiences in rich, structured, but not over-controlled environments are so powerful and hard to “overwrite.”- The importance of situated and joint perception, we learn to see the world through interactions with others, human and non-human.- The social and ethical implications of social media, homeschooling, loss of free play, and reduced face-to-face interaction for children.Finally, Harry talks about his current interests in meaning, culture, and social affordances, how objects and places are never neutral but imbued with significance through shared practices and histories. Throughout, the conversation keeps circling back to a central theme: how we and the animals around us learn to move, act, and live meaningfully in our environments, within both possibilities and constraints.If you’re curious about how environments shape perception, learning, and culture, and what this means for coaching, education, animal welfare, and everyday life, this episode offers a rich, thoughtful, and accessible introduction.My guestHarry HeftLink to Harry’s ResearchGate profile https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Harry-HeftDenison University profile https://denison.edu/people/harry-heft