[From Rick Marken (980214.2310)]
Despite its title, this post is not aimed at excoriating the
defenders of conventional behavioral science;-)
As you may know, there is wind and rain out here in Californiaa
and this rare (for us;-)) natural phenomenon gave me an opportunity
to observe a nice, real-world example of the behavioral illusion.
I was walking with an umbrella during a rather windy part of the
storm and noticed that I was apparently pointing the umbrella
directly into the rain, which was coming at an angle due to the
wind. I say "apparently" because I couldn't really see the angle
of the rain; I knew that the umbrella was pointing into the rain
because I wasn't getting (too) wet.
I then looked out from under the umbrella and saw that other
people were also pointing their umbrellas into the rain. It
looked like the angle of the rain was the cause of umbrella
pointing behavior, but this is an llusion. Someone familiar
with PCT might have seen people controlling the alignment of
their umbrellas with the angle of the rain, but is also an
illusion.
I knew these views of umbrella pointing behavior were illusions,
not because I knew PCT, but because I was doing the umbrella
pointing myself. So I knew that one cannot even see the angle
of the rain from under an umbrella. The perception I was
controlling had nothing to do with the angle of the rain. I
was controlling something more like the angular velocity of
movement of the umbrella relative to my wrist, keeping this
variable at zero. Angular velocity stays at zero most easily
(so I must have been controlling for effort also) when the
umbrella is pointed directly into the wind.
So the variable that is controlled in "umbrella pointing" is
only indirectly related to the variable that might seem, from
simple observation, like the most obvious stimulus or controlled
variable (angle of the rain). The only way to determine what
people are actually controlling when they point their umbrellas
into the rain is with (dare I say it'-) the Test for the controlled
variable -- a special "active" form of observation that, for all
intents and purposes, let's you perceive the world from the
perspective of the behaving system.
Best
Rick
ยทยทยท
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/