Cherry Pie

CSGnet Archive CSG1995
1

[Martin Taylor 950605 11:50]

Bill Leach 950603.23:43 U.S. Eastern Time Zone

to do the test you may need to
create a situation that Johnny would never permit if you did not
overwhelm his control systems. That is, given free control he might
never be willing to eat either apple or cherry pie.

And given free control, I would drive straight from work to home, if my
control systems were not overwhelmed by the difficulty of driving over
kerbs and through houses that intervene. So I control what I can, and
arrive home by a more circuitous route.

The world is full of situations in which the choice is not cake (at least
not now), but apple or cherry pie. And it is in no way wrong to study
such situations.

Martin

2

<[Bill Leach 950605.20:40 U.S. Eastern Time Zone]

[Martin Taylor 950605 11:50]

The world is full of situations in which the choice is not cake (at
least not now), but apple or cherry pie.

True enough.

And it is in no way wrong to study such situations.

Also true as long as you recognize that under most circumstances you are
only kidding yourself and mislead others if you think that you understand
what you are seeing when you don't know why the control system is making
these choices. Ie: "Study" does indicate that the results will
necessarily be either useful nor meaningful.

In your example you gave a reason that is a least a principle that a
real, genuine control system might be using for control action choices.

The problem is that the specific behaviour that might be observed is
(normally - actors & models happen to have as a reference the production
of specific behaviour) irrelevent to the subject. Thus without careful
and explicit application of the test such observations are guaranteed to
be useless because even with specific application of the test, it is
still ridiculously easy to discover that you have reliably disturbed a
controlled perception in then "mislable it" misattribute the extent or
degree of purpose associated with that perception.

-bill

3

[Martin Taylor 950606 11:45]

Bill Leach 950605.20:40 U.S. Eastern Time Zone

...under most circumstances you are
only kidding yourself and mislead others if you think that you understand
what you are seeing when you don't know why the control system is making
these choices. Ie: "Study" does indicate that the results will
necessarily be either useful nor meaningful.
...
The problem is that the specific behaviour that might be observed is
(normally - actors & models happen to have as a reference the production
of specific behaviour) irrelevent to the subject. Thus without careful
and explicit application of the test such observations are guaranteed to
be useless because even with specific application of the test, it is
still ridiculously easy to discover that you have reliably disturbed a
controlled perception in then "mislable it" misattribute the extent or
degree of purpose associated with that perception.

To which, all I can say is: I hope everyone on CSG-L takes this to heart.

I'd go a little further, at the risk of rekindling a thread that expired
before you joined CSG-L: Nobody, ever, can be sure that the controlled
perception(s) of another organism is (are) what they believe it (them) to
be, regardless of how carefully and for how long the Test is applied.
The best that can be done is to determine that the observer's CEV(s) is (are)
well correlated with those of the experimental subject.

That's an issue quite separate from the issue of mistaking side-effects
for control actions.

Martin

4

[From Bruce Abbott (950606.1800 EST)]

Bill Powers (950605.1415 MDT) to Martin Taylor --

Your reply to Bill Leach's comment on choosing between unwanted
alternatives used an inappropriate example:

    And given free control, I would drive straight from work to home,
    if my control systems were not overwhelmed by the difficulty of
    driving over kerbs and through houses that intervene. So I control
    what I can, and arrive home by a more circuitous route.

Bill's comment was that _neither_ choice presented to the rats was one
it would select by itself. A more appropriate example would be, "Would
you rather be able to blow your car's horn or to have it silent while we
shove the car over a cliff with you in it?" Certainly you have a right
to study the effects of that choice if you want to, but it would be
pretty silly.

Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but your example suggests you
believe that all such questions (in which the participant is asked to choose
between alternatives, neither of which would be freely chosen) are ipso
facto "silly." I offer the following counterexample:

You want to know how well people will be able to continue to control a
cursor in a compensatory tracking task when visual input as to cursor
position is blocked. Your participants earn money so long as the cursor
remains within a certain narrow distance of the target. For the "blind
tracking" test you have them wear a blindfold, but you discover that two of
your subjects are cheating by peaking under the blindfold. What should you do?

You should:

(a) allow them to cheat because this is their preferred mode of
      control over cursor position.

(b) prevent them from cheating, perhaps by taking steps to assure
      that they will not be able to peak.

(c) abandon the research because you have determined that the
      question is silly, as the nonvisual mode of control is not
      the one the participants would select for themselves.

As for me, I'd shave their backs. (;->

Regards,

Bruce

5

<[Bill Leach 950607.00:59 U.S. Eastern Time Zone]

[From Bruce Abbott (950606.1800 EST)]

What should you do?

Look for other subjects and rethink your test methods.

Seriously, I recognize the extreme position that I took in a previous
posting. The position was too extreme and failed to acknowledge that
useful information can result from "unnaturally restricted" experiements.

I stand by the idea that it is all too easy to attribute too much
understanding to the results however.

-bill