[From John Anderson 01.Nov.02.0915]
I read a review by Bob Sapolsky in this month's Scientific American of a
book about Harry Harlow, who did work showing that when given a choice
between a chicken-wire "surrogate mother" with a milk bottle and one with no
milk but covered in terrycloth, infant monkeys went for the one with
terrycloth, showing that the milk reinforcer was not sufficient to cause the
monkey's behavior, contrary to what behaviorists predicted. (Sorry if that
terminology is not quite right; I'm not a psychologist.) How do PCTers feel
about Harlow and his work?
Thanks
John
John Anderson, PhD
Director, Center for Science and the Public
Assistant Director, Northeast Florida Institute
for Science, Math, and Computer Education
Department of Chemistry & Physics
University of North Florida
4567 St Johns Bluff Road, South
Jacksonville, FL 32224
jeanders@unf.edu
904-620-3988
904-620-3885 (fax)
from David Wolsk (2002, 10.01. 0730 PST)
···
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anderson, John (Natural Sciences)" <JEANDERS@UNF.EDU>
To: <CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 7:01 AM
Subject: Harry Harlow
[From John Anderson 01.Nov.02.0915]
I read a review by Bob Sapolsky in this month's Scientific American of a
book about Harry Harlow, who did work showing that when given a choice
between a chicken-wire "surrogate mother" with a milk bottle and one with
no
milk but covered in terrycloth, infant monkeys went for the one with
terrycloth, showing that the milk reinforcer was not sufficient to cause
the
monkey's behavior, contrary to what behaviorists predicted. (Sorry if
that
terminology is not quite right; I'm not a psychologist.) How do PCTers
feel
about Harlow and his work?
Thanks
John
I've been a big fan of Harry Harlow since he came to the Univ Michigan psych
dept to lecture with his film on "contact comfort" as he described his
surrogate mother experiments. I think it was the emotional impact of that
film which later led to my devising a simple method for moving a monkey from
it's cage to a "research chair" and back on a daily basis. Other
researchers had the monkeys "living" in the chair, sometimes for a month or
so.