Chinatown

[From Rick Marken (960126.1100)]

Bruce Abbott (960125.1600 EST) --

Killeen's theory does NOT assume that incentive deliveries magically produce
keypecking. In fact, he provides a detailed mechanism by which keypecks,
once they occur, would become differentially "incited" by incentive
deliveries, as opposed to such deliveries producing other activities.

Rick Marken (960125.1430) --

Yes. I agree completely. Killeen does provide "a detailed mechanism by which
keypecks, once they occur, would become differentially "incited" by incentive
deliveries".

Bill Powers (960126.0500 MST)--

As far as I can see, he proposes no "mechanism" at all. Everything he
proposes -- association, activation, conversion of memories into a period of
responding -- occurs by magic. He never mentions sensory nerves, the CNS,
muscles, and so on -- the actual mechanisms of behavior.

Ok. I was being a little liberal in my interpretation of the word
"mechanism". I was just hoping that my agreeable approach would allow Bruce
to feel comfortable about signing up to your suggestion that the way to prove
that incentives don't incite keypecks is "to start giving extra incentives by
arbitrarily adding them to the ones being produced by behavior". Clearly, my
strategy didn't work, however, as witness Bruce Abbott (960126.1210 EST) --

I think Killeen would disagree on theoretical grounds.

That is, Killeen would have no problem accounting for a decrease in behavior
with an increase in incentives. So you can scratch non-contingent incentives
as an approach to obtaining data that will reject reinforcment theory.

I think we're back to square one again, with Bruce saying that there really
is no experiment that willreject reinforcement theory.

I feel like Jack Nicholson being led away from the bloody corpse of PCT as
Bill Powers tries to console me, saying "Forget it Rick, it's reinforcement
theory".

Time to relax and turn on the bubble machine;-)

Best

Rick