[from Jeff Vancouver 980806.0911 EST]
to various contributors:
In psychology, choice refers to a type of task, not a special psychological
process. Psychology would love a theory that accounts for findings from
the choice paradigm (i.e., tasks with options, one of which the participant
must pick) that can also explain, say, walking. (By Psychology I am
refering to a community. Individual researchers with their individual pet
theories are a different matter). What is interesting about Bill P.'s post
on the wieghting of the attributes of the various choices is that it is the
normative model of decision making. What decision making researchers spent
most of their time on is documenting when humans deviate from that
normative model. It happens a lot. They then try to develop descriptive
behavioral models of the observed choices, instead of a functional model of
the substructure that might acccount for the observations. This is where
PCT comes in. However, PCT researchers have focused on a different type of
task, tracking. Perhaps tracking epitomizes a greater percentage of the
types of tasks humans face; however, for those trying to understand how we
handle choice tasks, that argument is unpersuasive (although I find it an
important argument to make with psychologists interested in work tasks,
which they have tended to classify as almost exclusively choice or judgment
tasks). Instead, decision making psychologist would be interested in how
PCT would account for their findings. Given their numbers in the
psychology community in general, I think it would also change the face of
psychology. However, if Bill's expressed opinion is how PCT explains how
humans handle choice tasks, it is not surprising the decision making
psychologists are unimpressed - the data do not conform to the model. But
instead of abandoning PCT as an approach to understanding the substructure
that might account for the data, I prefer to attempt to try more
constrained versions of PCT. In other words, I assume with a faith that
control systems are the structure, the question is how they are put
together and how they are allowed to change. This is a substantial
challenge that I believe should not be dismissed with the wave of a hand.
In Jerry McGuire it was "show me the money." In psychology it is "account
for the data."
Later,
Sincerely,
Jeff