[from Joel Judd 930426.1130]
Gary (930419) about Bill's summary of behavioral science research:
Re: when reorganization is of main concern, would it make sense
to consider the environment like IV and result of reorg. like
DV. Ex: Language acquisition.
I understood that reorganization doesn't directly modify behavior,
but fiddles with the PC systems which changes can lead to behavioral
modifications. Also, that the outcomes are "unpredictable." However,
we can be pretty comfortable predicting that baby born to Chinese
parents in Beijing and who remains in Beijing for twenty years, will
learn Chinese.
So can we consider the setting an IV? Maybe in some general sense, but
the temptation in doing so is then to sit down and figure what
particular aspects of the environment I (researcher) can reproduce
or manipulate to produce the changes I predict. What aspects of
Beijing are necessary to learning Chinese, which are helpful, and
which are superfluous? Are some of them helpful sometimes and not
others? If so, when and how? In what condition does the organism
need to be in order for a particular configuration of environmentla
variables to be effective in the way I predict? How can I know the
organism is in that condition? How can I "know" what the organism
"knows" at a particular point in time in order to say something
about the reorganization process and the environmental effects upon
it?
It's taken me some time to realize that the test and PCT model have
at their roots providing evidence for perceptual control and a
particular hierarchy of perceptual control. This may be painfully
obvious to others already, but coming from a rather pragmatic field
I have problems separating particular behaviors from the cognitive
systems responsible _for_ such behaviors. IV-DV research seems
to me (speaking with eons of experience, of course) to be so
tied into actual behaviors (although these represent underlying
functioning) that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
see human functioning differently; that is, in other than terms
of variables. It seems to me that if one buys into some sort of
perceptual hierarchy then knowledge and the growth of knowledge
are divided up into kinds of perceptions and the organism's
development of its ability to deal with such perceptions, not
with a particular scientific abstraction of some kind of
perception(s), like "linguistic parameter" or "integrative
motivation."
I'll stop in case this is not where Gary was headed with this, or
its incoherent, or both. (When I don't have a screen editor I lose
track of what's scrolled beyond view).
Regards--Joel Judd
P.S. I meant to attach to my complaint of the other week an offer
to send the paper, reviews, or both to anyone interested, in case
the reviewers' comments I posted were viewed as selective and not
representative of their comments in general.