As with must such questions, I doubt that there is a
black-and-white all-purpose answer to this. So let’s take a
PCT-based approach: (1) ask what you are trying to achieve,
(2) Ask how your perception of the situation differs from
how you would like it to be (what you are trying to
achieve), (3) Ask if you have a means to make your
perception closer to its reference value (what you are
trying to achieve). You are starting with question (3),
which leads to a different way of thinking. It is like
saying “I have this thing called a screwdriver . Now what
can I do with it?”. The answer would be “if you have a screw
of the right type, you can use it and the screw to attach
one thing to another.” “But what is ‘the right type’?” “If
the things are wood, you want a wood screw, but if they are
metal, you want a metal screw.”
Enough analogy. The TCV is a tool that can be used for
related but different purposes, and the step-by-step
instructions depend on what you want to achieve. All of them
depend on finding a way to disturb some possibly controlled
perception by way of disturbing a variable in the
environment of the organism that might be responsible for
the perception you hypothesise. But after than, there are
various possibilities. The Runkel sequence that was linked a
while back is one of them. (Bruce Nevin [Bruce Nevin
2018-05-01_08:20:48 ET] reposted it today.
You say you want to know whether a particular variable V in
the environment does or does not correspond to a controlled
perception. You do not say whether this variable lies on a
continuum of similar hypotheses such as V = Xp+Yq ,
where p and q are exponents that may take on a range of
values your theory permits, or whether it is of a category
that differs cleanly from other categories that might
sensibly be hypothesized to be “the” controlled variable
(the wood screw versus the metal screw).
Powers required two preliminary tests as prerequisites to
performing the TCV (or as part of it), so I’ll include them
as steps 1 and 2, in either order. I will call the
hypothesized corresponding controlled quantity in the
environment “V”.
1. Could the subject plausibly perceive the value V?
2. Could the subject act deliberately to influence the value
V?
The answers to these questions may be evident, but if not,
then finding the answers provides two steps of the TCV. For
example, in the case of the speed-curvature relation, it is
not plausible that the subject could perceive the power
relation while acting in a way that produces it, so it
cannot be a controlled variable, and must be a side effect
of controlling something else.
From here on, the steps of the TCV depend on whether the
question is a Yes-No (YN) question, a Forced-Choice question
(FC) or an unforced choice question (UC). These three
choices apply mainly to cases in which the hypothesised
variable is categorical. If V is continuous, the TCV becomes
an optimization problem. In each situation, you need to find
a way of disturbing the hypothesized V, but your choice
depends on the question.
It doesn't matter what your question, the TCV will always
have one or all of three problems. The first problem is that
the subject’s reference value may change for the controlled
perception that is the object of your Test, which has the
effect of adding noise into your measurements; the second is
that the subject may stop actively controlling that
perception during your test; and the third is the contextual
dependence problem that is simplified in the X+Y+Z example
below, so you can never be sure that you have captured all
the inputs to the perceptual function that produces your
target perception.
All three problems are worse in the wild than in the lab,
but there’s really nothing you can do about that. In the lab
you can do what psychologists have been doing for a century
or more – either deliberately increase contextual
variability in a random way or try to keep the context as
stable and as bland as you can. The first increases the
noise, but gives you much more confidence you are right if
you get a clear answer, while the second increases the
likelihood you will get a clear answer, at the cost of lost
generalizability.
Despite these issues, the TCV can still be useful as a
guide, and as an analogy of what we do when interacting with
other people. So let’s look at the steps that follow the
preliminaries, first for Yes-No ("is this particular
environmental variable perceived by a perception that is
being controlled?).
3(YN). Find some action that you are sure will influence V
if it is not being controlled. If you can estimate the
magnitude of the effect your influence should have on V in
the absence of control, so much the better. If not, and you
can measure both the magnitude of your influence as you
randomly change it and the magnitudes of the variable and if
possible the supposed influence of the controller on V, you
are still in good shape, because:
4(YN)a If you apply your influence abruptly, and the value
of V changes rapidly but then tends to return toward its
previous value, then V is related to a controlled
perception. It is controlled. If it returns toward it
earlier value only after you remove your influence, or does
not return at all, it is not controlled.
4(YN)b If the effect of your influence on V is less than
expected, or if the effect of your influence is larger when
you prevent the supposed controller either from perceiving
the magnitude of V or from influencing it, then V is an
environmental variable related to a controlled perception.
It is controlled.
4(YN)c If your randomly varying influence magnitude changes
have a high correlation with the changes in the magnitude of
V, and a low correlation with the influence of the supposed
controller, V is not controlled. If your influence is highly
negatively correlated with the influence of the supposed
controller and only slightly correlated with V, then V is
related to a controlled perception, and is controlled.
In the YN situation, you don't care whether V actually is
the variable perceived by the perception that is controlled.
To say that V is controlled is simply to say that its
variation under disturbances is countered to some extent by
the actions of the controller. That will be the case for
say, V = X + Y + Z if the controlled perception is of X + Y
and the other variable, Z, changes only slightly compared to
the variation in X and Y. But if that’s all you want to
know, YN is your way to go.
The categorical (FC) situation is easier. Your question is
which of a defined list of environmental variables
corresponds to a controlled perception. Implicitly you are
asserting that exactly one of the list is correct.
3(FC) Arrange to disturb all of the hypothesized
environmental correlates of controlled perceptions with a
randomly varying influence that may be the same for all or
may be individualized. If you are correct that one and only
one is the environmental variable corresponding to a
controlled perception, then all but the correct one will
vary in a way highly correlated with the changes in your
influence while the correct one will have a low correlation
with your influence.
In the unforced choice condition (UC), you add the
possibility “none of the above”. If that is the correct
answer, then all of the hypothesized environmental
correlates will have a high correlation with your influence.
Finally you have the continuous variants of FC and UFC.
Here, the form of the hypothesised controlled perception is
assumed, but you don’t know what environmental variable
parameter values correspond to it. Is it X+Y, 1.2X+0.8Y or
something with a ratio between those possibilities? In this
case, you only have to disturb X and Y with independent
random variations of your influence on them, and find the
X/Y ratio of disturbance scale that gives the lowest
correlation between the disturbance and the environmental
variable.
I don't know if these steps are sufficient for your
purposes, but they might serve as a guide. Ask what it is
you want to achieve, ask how your current state differs from
that, and ask whether the TCV is the right tool to allow you
to achieve what you want – or at least get closer than you
are – and if so, which form of the TCV is appropriate.
Martin
