[From Rick Marken (950724.0800)]
The CSG meeting this year was one of the best of all time. Wonderful talks;
great discussions; terrific people. The big news is that there will soon be a
separate CSG list dedicated to applications of PCT. The other big news is
that the meeting next year will be in Phoenix or Flagstaff, AZ.
It was fun to come home to another wonderful piece of satire by Bruce Abbott
(950721.1100 EST). I have never seen the behaviorist approach to dealing
with control exposed with such subtlety and wit. For example:
Ettinger and Staddon (1983) reported the results of an investigation of
"operant regulation of feeding"...
These data appear consistent with a control model for reinforcement rate...
Don't they, though;-)
However...If you plot Seconds/Rft as a function of the ratio requirement a
strange and wonderful thing happens.
Relief is just a circular argument away;-)
Reinforcers/Hour: Predicted Vs. Observed
----C1---- ----C2---- ----C3---- ----C4----
Ratio Pred. Obs. Pred. Obs. Pred. Obs. Pred. Obs.
2 525 504 550 525 561 544 573 563
4 438 442 475 456 490 472 510 506
Even so, I think you'll agree that the fits are impressive.
Yes, it's quite impressive -- if you ignore the fact that it is trivial;-)
First convert a variable, y, to 3600/y; call that variable yc. Then do a
regression of x on yc. Then use the regression equation to find predicted
values of yc; call these yc'. Then "predict" the values of y (y') from
3600/yc'. Since yc = 3600/y then y = 3600/yc, so it is not really THAT
surprising that y' (3600/yc') is as good a predictor of y (3600/yc) as yc'
is of yc.
So what does it mean?
"Nothing" would be my first guess. But a behaviorist would have a field day,
as Bruce illustrates with his usual keen wit.
The simplest interpretation is that reinforcement rate is not being
controlled. As the response requirement increases, the time required to
collect a reinforcer increases in direct proportion. Thus there appears to
be no opposition to the "disturbance" to reinforcer rate produced by changing
the ratio requirement.
This is a GEM! Yes, a behaviorist with a vague understanding of perceptual
control would, indeed, say something like that. Wonderful. A beautiful
example of behavioristic "dodge and feint" tactics. The behaviorist thinks
we'll take our eyes off the controlled variable (rienforcement rate);
but we know their tricks;-)
What does stay the same across all ratio requirements are (a) the time
required to collect the reinforcer and return to the lever (about the same
for all subjects) and (b) the average rate of responding (which differs
across subjects).
Beautiful. Yes, this is where the behaviorist wants to take us; what is
controlled is _behavior_ (time to collect the reinforcer, average rate of
responding). Of course, even if these were controlled, it would be the
perception of these variables that is really controlled. But the behaviorist
is much more comfortable thinking that what is controlled is a response rather
than a result of responses. Of course, if the organism were actually
controlling the time to collect the reinforcer or the average rate of
responding it would be unable to control anything about the reinforcer; and
that would be nice for the behaviorist. The behaviorist doesn't want
reinforcement to be controlled because reinforcement (at least, in the
behaviorist's mind) is busy controlling responses.
This was a wonderful and subtle satire, Bruce. Excellent work!
Best
Rick