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Résumé
This chapter argues that overcoming the longstanding zoocentric bias in cognitive science requires placing plant behavior and perception squarely within an ecological‐psychological framework. Drawing on Gibson’s notions of direct perception and affordances, it reviews how plants – far from being passive, insentient objects – possess sensory organs, contractile tissues, decentralized “decision‐making” architectures and exhibit flexible, goal‐directed behaviors (e.g. phototropism, salt‐stress responses, root navigation). After documenting historical misconceptions (“plant blindness”) and countering Gibson’s own exclusion of plants, it develops a neo‐Gibsonian account in which plant–environment systems are unitary ecological agents. A time‐lapse study of Phaseolus vulgaris illustrates how circumnutatory movements may exploit tau‐based timing information to guide climbers to supports, while classical‐conditioning experiments in Pisum sativum demonstrate associative learning beyond mere habituation. Finally, direct‐learning theory is extended to plants, showing that the same invariants guiding perception also underlie ecological learning. By integrating empirical findings on sensory transduction, movement control, affordance perception and memory, this chapter lays the groundwork for a truly universal, non–zoocentric psychology of cognition.