[From Bill Powers (951102.1420 MST)]
Bruce Abbott (951102.1325 EST) --
Then why did you say that the behaviors were confronted with the
situation, and so on (as you did)?
Perhaps you could point out the passage. I don't recall saying
anything of the kind.
Bruce Abbott (951030.1715 EST):
He began by noting that the different behaviors observed when the
cat was first placed in the box occurred with different
frequencies, and that some tended to occur earlier than others.
This observation could be accounted for if it were assumed that,
when confronted with this particular combination of conditions
(which Thorndike called the "situation") different sorts of
behavior tended to occur with differing probabilities, which could
be arranged into a hierarchy from most probable (those occuring
often and, usually, early) to least probable (those occuring rarely
and, usually, late.
···
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Bruce Abbott (951102.1115 EST) --
I think your discussion, EXPLAINING THORNDIKE'S OBSERVATIONS, is
reasonable and well-ordered. I wonder, however, if you recognize just
what an enormous mouthful you are biting off.
We can assume with fair certainty that being locked in the box
acted as a disturbance to some system, especially given the fact
that it was near the cat's dinner time and food was available just
outside the box.
So we have a control system whose reference is something like the
perception of being within reaching distance of the food.
If there were nothing to prevent it, this system, acting through
several lower levels of control, would bring the cat by some route
from its current location to the location of the food, avoiding
obstacles along the way as in the CROWD demo.
... so I picture that happening to the cat: it first attempts to
move toward the food, but, unable to reduce that distance
sufficiently, it then moves along the perimeter of the box,
tolerating an increase in distance while other control systems deal
with the problem of finding a way out. But what control systems
will come into play? Why those and not others?
Meanwhile there may be several other control systems whose inputs
have been disturbed from their reference values by the perception
of being in the box. Among these may be a system that detects a
lack of the cat's scent on certain surfaces of the box, and acts to
correct that problem.
Perhaps another system, whose perceptual signal is the perception
of the degree of "familiarity," has also been disturbed; this
perception is brought to its reference ("familiar") by exploration,
which allows the cat to build an internal model of the box and its
features, gradually rendering them familiar and thus reducing this
system's contribution to the ongoing pattern of behavior.
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During this ongoing activity, the door suddenly opened, presenting
the cat an obvious escape route. This immediately satisfied the
reference for the "find-a-way-out" system and thus reestablished
control by the "minimize distance to food" system.
My guess would be some kind of "coincidence detector." Back in the
box for Trial 2, the cat's coincidence detector does not yet have
enough input to narrow down the possibilities.
Each of these paragraphs contains one or more hypotheses about control
processes. Each of these hypotheses must be individually tested to see
if it is correct before it can be used as part of a formal explanation
(i.e., one that we are supposed to take seriously, teach to students,
put in textbooks, make part of the knowledge base of behavioral
science). I don't find any fault with your hypotheses as such; they are
perfectly reasonable, good PCT ideas. But they aren't science yet. I
wouldn't want to admit any of them into a PCT explanation of the cat's
behavior, not an explanation I would want to try to publish. We can't
publish facts that depend on "assuming with fair certainty" something
that has never in fact been demonstrated to be true.
I agree with Shannon Williams' comment that statements like these define
a problem; they don't constitute an explanation. Stating an hypothesis
is not the same as explaining something. Once the hypothesis is stated,
one has to look for a means of testing it directly. Only when the
hypothesis survives experimental challenge does it become part of
knowledge.
In trying to express my objections to Thorndike's (sp: thanks) approach,
I've picked on many peripheral problems that I see, but I think this is
getting me close to my real objections. I think that in constructing his
"simple" experiment Thorndike actually set up an enormously complex
situation which seemed simple only because Thorndike chose to look at it
in a simple way. Your own listing of the possible controlled variables
illustrated exactly what I mean: each item you listed amounts to a
possible objection to the results that must be dealt with. What if being
locked in a box is NOT a disturbance of any variable controlled by the
cat? What if being within reaching distance of the food is not a
controlled variable? What if the cat is not controlling for moving along
the periphery of the box? What if the cat would not avoid obstacles on
its way to the food? What if "familiarity" is not a controlled variable?
If none of those assumptions proves justified, what value is there in
any conclusion that depends on them?
I've listed just five of the variables you propose as being controlled
by the cat; there are more, and more to be found if we consider the
behavior in more detail. Sure, it's reasonable to guess that such
variables _might_ be controlled, but the only way to find out if they
_are_ controlled is to do the Test. What you've done is to list many
experiments that need to be carried out BEFORE we can start explaining
the overall behavior of the cat.
This is my objection to conventional behavioral experiments in general:
they treat as simple something that is far from simple. They try to
leapfrog over all the complexities to arrive at a conclusion without
doing the actual work that is called for. The number of unverified
assumptions that enters into most psychological experiments is hard to
estimate, it is so large. Each one of those assumptions has to be
investigated before it can be taken for granted; otherwise you end up
with conclusions that are contingent on so many unknowns that they are
worthless. In fact, you have outlined a large research project that
would allow us to make some pretty good statements about how some cats
escape from puzzle boxes. The points you have brought up are points that
Thorndike never considered, yet they are things that obviously have to
be established before we can say ANYTHING scientific.
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Best,
Bill P.