[From Rick Marken (980328.1300)]
Bruce Nevin (980327.1650 EST) --
My hypothesis (980326.1934 EST) was that the kid is controlling a
perception of the communicative relationship "you're listening to
what I have to say" and that the kid is controlling particular
conventional means for attaining that relationship.
Ok. Now I have a better idea of what you meant by "clear channel";
it is the perception of someone "paying attention" to what you
are saying. I am _very_ familiar with that perceptual variable
(especially in its "not paying attention" state;-); now I know
how to apply disturbances to that variable to see if a kid
acts to keep that perception in a certain state.
The main point I was trying to make in my comments about CA was
that it is important to remember that the Test is an _iterative_
process. This is _very_ different from the conventional "one shot"
approach to research, where a variable is manipulated, the responses
are measured and the results tallied. The Test is a _process_. The
goal of this process is to discover which of one's _own_ perceptions
corresponds to a the perception controlled by another organism. The
process involves more than manipulating one disturbance to see if
a hypothesized controlled variable is, indeed, under control. If
a hypothesized controlled variable _is_ protected from disturbance,
then you apply _other_ disturbances to see if they also have the
expected effect (none) on the controlled perception. When a
disturbance does not have the predicted effect (none), the hypothesis
about the controlled variable must be revised and new disturbances
applied to see if they have the expected effect. This process
continues until you can confidently and accurately predict which
disturbances will and which will not have an effect on the state of
the controlled variable.
I very strongly recommend "The Coin Game" (B:CP, p. 235) to anyone
who really wants to learn how to study the behavior of a control
system. One should do this game several times with several different
people. Then I think you will see what I mean when I say that
determining the perceptions a person is controlling involves
_iteration_. You will find that you must continually change your
hypothesis about what perception is being controlled and you
will find that you must apply _many_ different disturbances until
you are convinced that you really know what perception is under
control. You will see that there is a _lot_ more to figuring out
what perception an organism is controlling than determining whether
disturbance X influences behavior Y.
Best
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/