From Greg Williams (930410)
The reference is Norman R.F. Maier, FRUSTRATION: THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOR
WITHOUT A GOAL, McGraw-Hill, N.Y., 1949. It summarizes studies previously
reported in several articles published mainly in the JOURNAL OF
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY during the Forties (all listed in the book's
bibliography). Maier worked at the University of Michigan and is most
famous today, I think, for co-authoring a widely used textbook on
comparative psychology with T.C. Schneirla.
Maier's "frustration" experiments utilized the Lashley jumping apparatus,
a small perch from which a rat can jump and a nearby backdrop with two
side-by-side doors on which can be placed patterned cards. On a
particular trial, if a rat jumps to one of the doors, striking it with
its body, the door opens and the rat lands on a platform with food (Maier
labels this "reward"); if a rat jumps to the other door, the (locked)
door doesn't open, and the rat falls, after bumping against the door,
into a net below ("punishment").
25-28 - "When one of the cards is consistently locked and is changed to
both the right and left positions on different trials, the animal may be
trained to develop a preference for one of the pair of cards so that it
consistently chooses the card that leads to reward and avoids the card
that leads to punishment, regardless of the side (right or left) on which
the reward card is placed. Thus if the black card with the white circle
is consistently locked and the white card with the black circle is
consistently unlocked the rat learns to choose the latter. The choice of
responses is determined by the association of a symbol (appearance of the
cards) and the consequence of choices, and responses thus developed will
hereafter be called SYMBOL-REWARD RESPONSES....
When the cards are changed from side to side and either the left or
right card is consistently made correct, the animal is trained to
disregard the symbols and to choose in terms of position. Thus if a
choice of the card on the right leads to reward and a choice of the card
on the left leads to punishment, (regardless of which card appears in the
right and left positions) the rat is trained to choose the card in the
right position. Responses of this type... we shall hereafter refer to...
as POSITION-REWARD RESPONSES.
If, however, the cards are latched in no regular order, (i.e., neither
a particular card nor a particular position is consistently rewarded or
punished) then there is no response that will permit escape from
punishment. In such case the animal normally shows a stage of variability
in its choices and soon thereafter it refuses to jump. This resistance to
jumping may be overcome by giving the animal an electric shock at the
jumping stand, prodding it with a stick, or blowing a blast of air on it.
Under these conditions the animal can be forced to jump. We speak of this
situation as the INSOLUBLE or NO-SOLUTION PROBLEM and regard it as
frustrating both because it is a problem that cannot be solved and
because pressure is applied to the animal to force a response."
With the experimental set-up having been described in some detail, are
there additional comments and/or predictions based on PCT regarding what
the rats do in the "insoluble" situation? My next post will give some of
Maier's findings.
ยทยทยท
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Bill Powers (930409.1145 MDT)
To all those who appear SINGLE-minded in their view of science
(i.e., population description isn't "real"), I say: just try to
use generative modeling of individuals to schedule bread flour
deliveries to Subway shops across the country.
You're beating a dead unicorn. I have always agreed that to study
mass phenomena, mass statistics are appropriate.
No, I was beating (on?) a live Gary Cziko (to whom I sent the original
post, directly), whose comment
I agree. It's called the STATISTICAL method, or the METHOD OF RELATIVE
FREQUENCIES. Pretty useless as real science goes (althought the
behavioral sciences seem to like it alot.
implied to me that HE (NOT YOU, unless you're ghost-writing Gary's
direct posts to me!) thinks that mass statistics are inappropriate to
"real science." Maybe Gary actually agrees with you (and me, too) that
"to study mass phenomena, mass statistics are appropriate." I suppose he
does, even though he didn't answer my questions about his beliefs in this
regard. At any rate, if he does agree with us, it would appear that he
doesn't count studying mass phenomena as "real science."
Please try to keep straight what I object to and what I do not
object to. I'm quite consistent about it.
I try to. Let's see... you object to my criticizing Gary re. "real
science" by acting like I'm criticizing YOU. Do you mean to say that you
consistently misinterpret my posts? 
It appears appropriate to repeat the following.
Avery Andrews 930410.0814
I think it would
be helpful if there was a preliminary phase of questioning, to figure
out whether there is actually any substantive disagreement, before
the argument starts, and more effort to figure out what people are
actually trying to say, once it has.
Right on, Avery!
As ever,
Greg