Gibson’s work sheds light on all this. He suggested that the concept of an “ecological niche” is necessary to properly understand perception. A niche is not quite the same as a habitat. A niche “refers more to how an animal lives than to where it lives.”12 It is not simply the physical surroundings, but the aspects of those surroundings that are meaningful for an animal given its way of life.13 When you live on two wheels, gyroscopic precession is as important a feature of your ecological niche as gravity.
