Hello CSG

[From Bruce Abbott (941004.1115 EST)]

Greetings PCTers! As a new subscriber to CSG-L I've been sitting back and
eavesdropping on the conversation for the past week, and it's been quite
enlightening. I'll have some comments to make on some of these issues in a
later posting, but first, allow me to introduce myself. I have a Ph.D. in
experimental psychology and teach courses in learning, motivation, statistics,
and research methods at an undergraduate regional campus. Trained in the
experimental analysis of behavior (as Skinnerians like to call their field),
my research efforts have focused on understanding the factors that control
behavior on schedules of aversive stimulation, including both operant and
Pavlovian sources. Lately, however, I have been devoting most of my efforts
to writing textbooks. (I am coauthor of RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A
PROCESS APPROACH, one of the leading texts on research methods in psychology.)

Given my background, you may be surprised to learn that I am a long-time
convert to perceptual control theory. As a graduate student I was
dissatisfied with traditional reinforcement theory as it failed to distinguish
the role of reinforcement in the learning process and in the maintenance of
behavior. My first glimpse of a different way of thinking about behavior came
through reading W. Ross Ashby's AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERNETICS and Herbert
Simon's THE SCIENCES OF THE ARTIFICIAL around 1976. In 1977 I discovered B:CP
in the bookstore, bought a copy, and read it.

Given this early exposure to PCT, you might have expected me to plunge into
PCT-inspired research and theorizing, but for reasons I am not entirely sure
of myself, this has not been the case. PCT itself did not seem to me to
invalidate either the experimental questions I was asking or the procedures I
was using to find the answers. One should have good reason to abandon what
has apparently been a fruitful program of research. At any rate, pressures of
time and tenure and, yes, inertia, kept me plodding along the same path.

At the 1992 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Society I attended a talk
by Wayne Hershberger in which he described some of his PCT-oriented research.
We had a long discussion afterward in which I asked Wayne for his opinion as
to why PCT seemed to have had so little impact on psychology. As I recall, we
were both at a loss for an explanation. Judging from some of the recent
postings in CSG-L, this remains a major concern of PCT proponents.

Recent preparations for writing a new text on learning and behavior have led
me to reexamine PCT in order to determine its implications for the field,
which is currently undergoing major changes owing to the influences of
ethology, biopsychology, and so-called cognitive science. I'm hoping that by
joining this list I can receive the kind of feedback that will reorganize my
behavioral system so as to cancel my perceptual errors.

Bruce Abbott
Department of Psychological Sciences
Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW)
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805-1499
(219) 481-6399
abbott@smtplink.ipfw.indiana.edu