Misunderstanding Control of Perception

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase "control of perception" has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing "Reconstructing Your Worldview" (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word "perception", which is often taken to mean "a way of
looking at things". This view of perception implies that there are
"things" out there in reality -- things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and "hidden assumptions" (p.11)
This is the "Rashomon" approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a "store" as "part of an integrated
network" rather than as a "stand-alone operation" (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
"perception" corresponds to what most people think of as "reality".
The world we experience as reality -- the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on -- is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality --
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived) world is
based -- is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more "accurate" than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions -- like the perception
of the tree -- are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don't probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the "illusory"
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what's "out there"
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an "inaccurate" perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what's
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the "reality" to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the "wrong" perceptions -- wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict --
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing
this kind of problem -- the problem of controlling the "wrong"
perceptions -- is the job of reorganization. If "perception" is taken
to mean the same thing as "worldview" then reorganization is the PCT
means of "changing your worldview" and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the "environmental correlate" of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it's a
perceptual variable. This is the basis for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
"environmental correlate" of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the "controlled quantity" to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception -- not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don't fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world -- their
perception -- as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too. Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[dmg]

[David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)]

re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

In tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception?

David

···

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase “control of perception” has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing “Reconstructing Your Worldview” (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word “perception”, which is often taken to mean “a way of
looking at things”. This view of perception implies that there are
“things” out there in reality – things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and “hidden assumptions” (p.11)
This is the “Rashomon” approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a “store” as “part of an integrated
network” rather than as a “stand-alone operation” (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
“perception” corresponds to what most people think of as “reality”.
The world we experience as reality – the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on – is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality –
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived)
world is
based – is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more “accurate” than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions – like the perception
of the tree – are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We
could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don’t probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the “illusory”
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what’s “out there”
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an “inaccurate”
perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what’s
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the “reality” to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the “wrong” perceptions – wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict –
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing
this kind of problem – the problem of controlling the “wrong”
perceptions – is the job of reorganization. If “perception” is taken
to mean the same thing as “worldview” then reorganization is the PCT
means of “changing your worldview” and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the “environmental correlate” of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it’s a
perceptual variable. This is the basis for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
“environmental correlate” of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the “controlled quantity” to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception – not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don’t fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of
perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world – their
perception – as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too.
Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1020)]

David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)-
re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)
DG: Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

RM: I think the situation here is similar to that with illusions. We consider such perceptions inaccurate in the sense that such perceptions are inconsistent with many other perceptions. In the case of illusions these "other perceptions" can be had by the person experiencing the illusion. For example, the person seeing the Muller-Lyer illusion seen here:
<http://figuresfictives.free.fr/Divers/Connus/Resources/mullerlyer-illusia.gif&gt;

can take a measuring stick and hold it up against each center line and see that the lines are the same. Since we know (based on other perceptions) that measuring sticks don't shrink and grow to match what is measured we accept that our perception of the different line lengths is an illusion. Also, this illusion would be considered an accurate perception if the upper and lower figures were two dimensional projections of three dimensional figures -- like the edge of a wire frame cube; the upper figure is looking at the frame from the inside and the lower figure is looking at it from the outside. If the distance of the point of observation from the edge is the same in both cases, then the edge of the upper figure must be longer than that of the lower figure in order to cast equal length projections on the two dimensional surface. Again, what is considered the "accurate" perceptions depends on what other information (perceptions) one has regarding the perceptions under consideration.

RM: With hallucinations it's other people who have the "other perceptions" that lead to the conclusion that the perception is a hallucination. If no one else in the room hears the voices a person says they hear then the voices are probably not an accurate perception of what is going on.
>

DG: In tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception.

RM: Same thing, I think. From the linesman's perspective the ball looked out, say, but from other perspectives (other perceptions) it looked in. Similar situation to the bent stick in water. What is the most accurate perception depends on what other perceptions (information) one includes in judging accuracy and what one's goals are. One's goals determine what information one includes in determining "accuracy" and how the perception whose accuracy is being assessed is to be used. If the goal is to get the "best" perspective on a "close call" then you use a replay that seems to be taken from what has been determined to give the best perspective, just as you use other (tactile) perceptions to determine whether an apparently bent stick in water is actually bent. Other perceptions being used to determine the accuracy of a perception. But we can't get "past" our perceptions to see if they reflect the reality that is the presumed basis of those perceptions.
RM: This is why I believe that perceptual accuracy never is about how accurately what is perceived corresponds to what is "really" out there. It's because we don't know what's really out there except in terms of our models (of physics and chemistry) which are really attempts to infer what is out there that is responsible for our perceptions. Since there models are, like all models, tentative and not absolute truth, it makes no sense to say that some perception is or is not an accurate representation of something (real reality) that we know only as a hypothesis.
RM: But I don't think we have to get deeply into epistemology to deal with control of perception is a useful way. All we have to do, I think, is be aware of the fact that what we see as the "environment" of other living control systems is not physical reality but out own perception. This means that when we talk about control of perception we are talking about the fact that people are controlling what is, from their perspective (and ours) their environment. When I lift a book I am controlling a perception of the book even though it looks (to me) like I am controlling an object out in the world. It looks that way to you to when you see me lifting the book. Of course, you can make your perceptions of the changing position of the book more precise using cameras and such to measure the changing coordinates of the book. But we are both still dealing with perceptions -- not real "reality. Real reality does put constraints on how we can control these perceptions and we use the models of physics and chemistry to account for the constraints. But when it comes to determining what perceptions are controlled by a control system we talk about the correlates of the system's perceptions in terms of our own perceptions. So the perceptual variables controlled by a controller are essentially equivalent to the environment correlates of these variables -- what Powers called "controlled quantities. A book for the controller is a perceptual variable; the same book seen by the observer is called an environmental variable (because we see it as being in the controller's environment) but it's still a perception in the observer -- a perception of a book.
RM: Hope this is coherent; wrote it in some haste.
Best

···

David

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken <<mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com>rsmarken@gmail.com> wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase "control of perception" has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing "Reconstructing Your Worldview" (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word "perception", which is often taken to mean "a way of
looking at things". This view of perception implies that there are
"things" out there in reality -- things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and "hidden assumptions" (p.11)
This is the "Rashomon" approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a "store" as "part of an integrated
network" rather than as a "stand-alone operation" (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
"perception" corresponds to what most people think of as "reality".
The world we experience as reality -- the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on -- is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality --
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived) world is
based -- is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more "accurate" than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions -- like the perception
of the tree -- are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don't probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the "illusory"
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what's "out there"
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an "inaccurate" perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what's
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the "reality" to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the "wrong" perceptions -- wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict --
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing
this kind of problem -- the problem of controlling the "wrong"
perceptions -- is the job of reorganization. If "perception" is taken
to mean the same thing as "worldview" then reorganization is the PCT
means of "changing your worldview" and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the "environmental correlate" of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it's a
perceptual variable. This is the basis for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
"environmental correlate" of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the "controlled quantity" to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception -- not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don't fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world -- their
perception -- as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too. Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick
--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of <http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Research-Purpose-Experimental-Psychology/dp/0944337554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407342866&sr=8-1&keywords=doing+research+on+purpose&gt;Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[dmg]

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.1650)

Do I understand you to say that the concept of accuracy does not apply to the concept perception? And the reason is that we can never be sure of what is the true state of the world.

Does the concepts of reliability and validity, as used in test measurement, apply to the concept of perception?

David

···

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1020)]

David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)-

re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

DG: Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

RM: I think the situation here is similar to that with illusions. We consider such perceptions inaccurate in the sense that such perceptions are inconsistent with many other perceptions. In the case of illusions these “other perceptions” can be had by the person experiencing the illusion. For example, the person seeing the Muller-Lyer illusion seen here:

can take a measuring stick and hold it up against each cent
er line and see that the lines are the same. Since we know (based on other perceptions) that measuring sticks don’t shrink and grow to match what is measured we accept that our perception of the different line lengths is an illusion. Also, this illusion would be considered an accurate perception if the upper and lower figures were two dimensional projections of three dimensional figures – like the edge of a wire frame cube; the upper figure is looking at the frame from the inside and the lower figure is looking at it from the outside. If the distance of the point of observation from the edge is the same in both cases, then the edge of the upper figure must be longer than that of the lower figure in order to cast equal length projections on the two dimensional surface. Again, what is considered the “accurate” perceptions depends on what other information (perceptions) one has regarding the perceptions under consideration.

RM: With hall
ucinations it’s other people who have the “other perceptions” that lead to the conclusion that the perception is a hallucination. If no one else in the room hears the voices a person says they hear then the voices are probably not an accurate perception of what is going on.

DG: In
tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception.

RM: Same thing, I think. From the linesman’s perspective the ball looked out, say, but from other perspectives (other perceptions) it looked in. Similar situation to the bent stick in water. What is the most accurate perception depends on what other perceptions (information) one includes in judging accuracy and what one’s goals are. One’s goals determine what information one includes in determining “accuracy” and how the perception whose accuracy is being assessed is to be used. If the goal is to get the “best” perspective on a “close call” then you use a
replay that seems to be taken from what has been determined to give the best perspective, just as you use other (tactile) perceptions to determine whether an apparently bent stick in water is actually bent. Other perceptions being used to determine the accuracy of a perception. But we can’t get “past” our perceptions to see if they reflect the reality that is the presumed basis of those perceptions.

RM: This is why I believe that perceptual accuracy never is about how accurately what is perceived corresponds to what is “really” out there. It’s because we don’t know what’s really out there except in terms of our models (of physics and chemistry) which are really attempts to infer what is out there that is responsible for our perceptions. Since there models are, like all models, tentative and not absolute truth, it makes no sense to say that some perception is or is not an accurate representation of something (real reality) that we know only as a hypothesis.

RM: But I don’t think we have to get deeply into epistemology to deal with control of perception is a useful way. All we have to do, I think, is be aware of the fact that what we see as the “environment” of other living control systems is not physical reality but out own perception. This means that when we talk about control of perception we are talking about the fact that people are controlling what is, from their perspective (and ours) their environment. When I lift a book I am controlling a perception of the book even though it looks (to me) like I am controlling an object out in the world. It looks that way to you to when you see me lifting the book. Of course, you can make your perceptions of the changing position of the book more precise using cameras and such to measure the changing coordinates of the book. But we are both still dealing with perceptions – not real "reality. Real reality does put constraints on how we can c
ontrol these perceptions and we use the models of physics and chemistry to account for the constraints. But when it comes to determining what perceptions are controlled by a control system we talk about the correlates of the system’s perceptions in terms of our own perceptions. So the perceptual variables controlled by a controller are essentially equivalent to the environment correlates of these variables – what Powers called "controlled quantities. A book for the controller is a perceptual variable; the same book seen by the observer is called an environmental variable (because we see it as being in the controller’s environment) but it’s still a perception in the observer – a perception of a book.

RM: Hope this is coherent; wrote it in some haste.

Best

Rick

David

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase “control of perception” has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing “Reconstructing Your Worldview” (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word “perception”, which is often taken to mean “a way of
looking at things”. This view of perception implies that there are
“things” out there in reality – things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and “hidden assumptions” (p.11)
This is the “Rashomon” approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event di
fferently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a “store” as “part of an integrated
network” rather than as a “stand-alone operation” (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
“perception” corresponds to what most people think of as “reality”.
The world we experience as reality – the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on – is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality –
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived)
world is
based – is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more “accurate” than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions – like the perception
of the tree – are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We
could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don’t probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the “illusory”
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what’s “out there”
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an “inaccurate”
perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what’s
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In
that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the “reality” to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does
suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the “wrong” perceptions – wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict –
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing

this kind of problem – the problem of controlling the “wrong”
perceptions – is the job of reorganization. If “perception” is taken
to mean the same thing as “worldview” then reorganization is the PCT
means of “changing your worldview” and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the “environmental correlate” of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it’s a
perceptual variable. This is the bas
is for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
“environmental correlate” of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the “controlled quantity” to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception – not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don’t fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of
perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world – their
perception – as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too.
Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1550)]

···

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.1650)

Do I understand you to say that the concept of accuracy does not apply to the concept perception? And the reason is that we can never be sure of what is the true state of the world.

RM: Right!

Does the concepts of reliability and validity, as used in test measurement, apply to the concept of perception?

RM: Reliability certainly does. Certainly perception of the same situation near the limits of sensory resolution are quite variable. But, yes, I believe the concept of validity, as used in test measurement, does not apply to the concept of perception as it is defined in PCT.

Best

Rick

David

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 4, 2014, at 1:19 PM, “Richard Marken” (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1020)]

David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)-

re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

DG: Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

RM: I think the situation here is similar to that with illusions. We consider such perceptions inaccurate in the sense that such perceptions are inconsistent with many other perceptions. In the case of illusions these “other perceptions” can be had by the person experiencing the illusion. For example, the person seeing the Muller-Lyer illusion seen here:

can take a measuring stick and hold it up against each center line and see that the lines are the same. Since we know (based on other perceptions) that measuring sticks don’t shrink and grow to match what is measured we accept that our perception of the different line lengths is an illusion. Also, this illusion would be considered an accurate perception if the upper and lower figures were two dimensional projections of three dimensional figures – like the edge of a wire frame cube; the upper figure is looking at the frame from the inside and the lower figure is looking at it from the outside. If the distance of the point of observation from the edge is the same in both cases, then the edge of the upper figure must be longer than that of the lower figure in order to cast equal length projections on the two dimensional surface. Again, what is considered the “accurate” perceptions depends on what other information (perceptions) one has regarding the perceptions under consideration.

RM: With hallucinations it’s other people who have the “other perceptions” that lead to the conclusion that the perception is a hallucination. If no one else in the room hears the voices a person says they hear then the voices are probably not an accurate perception of what is going on.

DG: In tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception.

RM: Same thing, I think. From the linesman’s perspective the ball looked out, say, but from other perspectives (other perceptions) it looked in. Similar situation to the bent stick in water. What is the most accurate perception depends on what other perceptions (information) one includes in judging accuracy and what one’s goals are. One’s goals determine what information one includes in determining “accuracy” and how the perception whose accuracy is being assessed is to be used. If the goal is to get the “best” perspective on a “close call” then you use a replay that seems to be taken from what has been determined to give the best perspective, just as you use other (tactile) perceptions to determine whether an apparently bent stick in water is actually bent. Other perceptions being used to determine the accuracy of a perception. But we can’t get “past” our perceptions to see if they reflect the reality that is the presumed basis of those perceptions.

RM: This is why I believe that perceptual accuracy never is about how accurately what is perceived corresponds to what is “really” out there. It’s because we don’t know what’s really out there except in terms of our models (of physics and chemistry) which are really attempts to infer what is out there that is responsible for our perceptions. Since there models are, like all models, tentative and not absolute truth, it makes no sense to say that some perception is or is not an accurate representation of something (real reality) that we know only as a hypothesis.

RM: But I don’t think we have to get deeply into epistemology to deal with control of perception is a useful way. All we have to do, I think, is be aware of the fact that what we see as the “environment” of other living control systems is not physical reality but out own perception. This means that when we talk about control of perception we are talking about the fact that people are controlling what is, from their perspective (and ours) their environment. When I lift a book I am controlling a perception of the book even though it looks (to me) like I am controlling an object out in the world. It looks that way to you to when you see me lifting the book. Of course, you can make your perceptions of the changing position of the book more precise using cameras and such to measure the changing coordinates of the book. But we are both still dealing with perceptions – not real "reality. Real reality does put constraints on how we can control these perceptions and we use the models of physics and chemistry to account for the constraints. But when it comes to determining what perceptions are controlled by a control system we talk about the correlates of the system’s perceptions in terms of our own perceptions. So the perceptual variables controlled by a controller are essentially equivalent to the environment correlates of these variables – what Powers called "controlled quantities. A book for the controller is a perceptual variable; the same book seen by the observer is called an environmental variable (because we see it as being in the controller’s environment) but it’s still a perception in the observer – a perception of a book.

RM: Hope this is coherent; wrote it in some haste.

Best

Rick

David

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase “control of perception” has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing “Reconstructing Your Worldview” (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word “perception”, which is often taken to mean “a way of
looking at things”. This view of perception implies that there are
“things” out there in reality – things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and “hidden assumptions” (p.11)
This is the “Rashomon” approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a “store” as “part of an integrated
network” rather than as a “stand-alone operation” (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
“perception” corresponds to what most people think of as “reality”.
The world we experience as reality – the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on – is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality –
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived)
world is
based – is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more “accurate” than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions – like the perception
of the tree – are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We
could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don’t probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the “illusory”
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what’s “out there”
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an “inaccurate”
perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what’s
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the “reality” to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the “wrong” perceptions – wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict –
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing
this kind of problem – the problem of controlling the “wrong”
perceptions – is the job of reorganization. If “perception” is taken
to mean the same thing as “worldview” then reorganization is the PCT
means of “changing your worldview” and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the “environmental correlate” of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it’s a
perceptual variable. This is the basis for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
“environmental correlate” of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the “controlled quantity” to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception – not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don’t fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of
perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world – their
perception – as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too.
Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[dmg]

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.2014 )

Does the concept of reliability of a measurement include the concept of accuracy?

David

···

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.1650)

Do I understand you to say that the concept of accuracy does not apply to the concept perception? And the reason is that we can never be sure of what is the true state of the world.

RM: Right!

Does the concepts of reliability and validity, as used in test measurement, apply to the concept of perception?

RM: Reliability certainly does. Certainly perception of the same situation near the limits of sensory resolution are quite variable. But, yes, I believe the concept of validity, as used in test measurement, does not apply to the concept of perception as it is defined in PCT.

Best

Rick

David

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 4, 2014, at 1:19 PM, “Richard Marken” (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1020)]

David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)-

re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

DG: Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

RM: I think the situation here is similar to that with illusions. We consider such perceptions inaccurate in the sense that such perceptions are inconsistent with many other perceptions. In the case of illusions these “other perceptions” can be had by the person experiencing the illusion. For example, the person seeing the Muller-Lyer illusion seen here:

can take a measuring stick and hold it up against each center line and see that the lines are the same. Since we know (based on other perceptions) that measuring sticks don’t shrink and grow to match what is measured we accept that our perception of the different line lengths is an illusion. Also, this illusion would be considered an accurate perception if the upper and lower figures were two dimensional projections of three dimensional figures – like the edge of a wire frame cube; the upper figure is looking at the frame from the inside and the lower figure is looking at it from the outsid
e. If the distance of the point of observation from the edge is the same in both cases, then the edge of the upper figure must be longer than that of the lower figure in order to cast equal length projections on the two dimensional surface. Again, what is considered the “accurate” perceptions depends on what other information (perceptions) one has regarding the perceptions under consideration.

RM: With hallucinations it’s other people who have the “other perceptions” that lead to the conclusion that the perception is a hallucination. If no one else in the room hears the voices a person says they hear then the voices are probably not an accurate perception of what is going on.

DG: In tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception.

RM: Same thing, I think. From the linesman’s perspective the ball looked out, say, but from other perspectives (other perceptions) it looked in. Similar situation to the bent stick in water. What is the most accurate perception depends on what other perceptions (information) one includes in judging accuracy and what one’s goals are. One’s goals determine what information one includes in determining “accuracy” and how the perception whose accuracy is being assessed is to be used. If the goal is to get the “best” perspective on a “close call” then you use a replay that seems to be taken from what has been determined to give the best perspective, just as you use other (tactile) perceptions to determine whether an apparently bent stick in water is actually bent. Other perceptions being used to determine the accuracy of a perception. But we can’t get “past” our perceptions to see if they reflect the reality that is the presumed basis of those perceptions.

RM: This is why I believe that perceptual accuracy never is about how accurately what is perceived corre
sponds to what is “really” out there. It’s because we don’t know what’s really out there except in terms of our models (of physics and chemistry) which are really attempts to infer what is out there that is responsible for our perceptions. Since there models are, like all models, tentative and not absolute truth, it makes no sense to say that some perception is or is not an accurate representation of something (real reality) that we know only as a hypothesis.

RM: But I don’t think we have to get deeply into epistemology to deal with control of perception is a useful way. All we have to do, I think, is be aware of the fact that what we see as the “environment” of other living control systems is not physical reality but out own perception. This means that when we talk about control of perception we are talking about the fact that people are controlling what is, from their perspective (and ours) their environment. When I lift a book I am controlli
ng a perception of the book even though it looks (to me) like I am controlling an object out in the world. It looks that way to you to when you see me lifting the book. Of course, you can make your perceptions of the changing position of the book more precise using cameras and such to measure the changing coordinates of the book. But we are both still dealing with perceptions – not real "reality. Real reality does put constraints on how we can control these perceptions and we use the models of physics and chemistry to account for the constraints. But when it comes to determining what perceptions are controlled by a control system we talk about the correlates of the system’s perceptions in terms of our own perceptions. So the perceptual variables controlled by a controller are essentially equivalent to the environment correlates of these variables – what Powers called "controlled quantities. A book for the controller is a perceptual variable; the same book seen by the obser
ver is called an environmental variable (because we see it as being in the controller’s environment) but it’s still a perception in the observer – a perception of a book.

RM: Hope this is coherent; wrote it in some haste.

Best

Rick

David

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase “control of perception” has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing “Reconstructing Your Worldview” (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word “perception”, which is often taken to mean “a way of
looking at things”. This view of perception implies that there are<
br>“things” out there in reality – things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and “hidden assumptions” (p.11)
This is the “Rashomon” approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a “store” as “part of an integrated
network” rather than as a “stand-alone operation” (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Km
art because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
“perception” corresponds to what most people think of as “reality”.
The world we experience as reality – the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on – is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality –
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived)
world is
based – is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more “accurate” than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions – like the perception
of the tree – are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We
could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don’t probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the “illusory”
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what’s “out there”
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an “inaccurate”
perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what’s
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In
that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the “reality” to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does
suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the “wrong” perceptions – wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict –
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing

this kind of problem – the problem of controlling the “wrong”
perceptions – is the job of reorganization. If “perception” is taken
to mean the same thing as “worldview” then reorganization is the PCT
means of “changing your worldview” and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the “environmental correlate” of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it’s a
perceptual variable. This is the bas
is for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
“environmental correlate” of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the “controlled quantity” to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception – not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don’t fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of
perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world – their
perception – as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too.
Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1750)]

···

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.2014 )

DG: Does the concept of reliability of a measurement include the concept of accuracy?

RM: Yes, I think so. And so does validity. They are two different meanings of accuracy. Reliability measures how accurately a test (or perception) measures an unknown entity that is presumably measured by the test; validity measures how accurately a test measures a known entity. The problem for both testing and perception the validity of a test (or measure) cannot really be measured because we have no independent way of measuring the entity that is presumably being measured. Now that I think of it, the concept of measuring the validity of a test (or perception) is kind of naive. All we can do is develop models of the entity that we believe to be the cause of the test (or perceptual) values and see how well the model accounts for the effect of experimental manipulations on these values.

Best

Rick

David

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 4, 2014, at 6:53 PM, “Richard Marken” (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1550)]

–

David Goldstein (2014.11.04.1650)

Do I understand you to say that the concept of accuracy does not apply to the concept perception? And the reason is that we can never be sure of what is the true state of the world.

RM: Right!

Does the concepts of reliability and validity, as used in test measurement, apply to the concept of perception?

RM: Reliability certainly does. Certainly perception of the same situation near the limits of sensory resolution are quite variable. But, yes, I believe the concept of validity, as used in test measurement, does not apply to the concept of perception as it is defined in PCT.

Best

Rick

David

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 4, 2014, at 1:19 PM, “Richard Marken” (rsmarken@gmail.com via csgnet Mailing List) csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

[From Rick Marken (2014.11.04.1020)]

David Goldstein (2014.11.03.1400)-

re.: [From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

DG: Is a person who is hallucinating or deluding not having inaccurate perceptions?

RM: I think the situation here is similar to that with illusions. We consider such perceptions inaccurate in the sense that such perceptions are inconsistent with many other perceptions. In the case of illusions these “other perceptions” can be had by the person experiencing the illusion. For example, the person seeing the Muller-Lyer illusion seen here:

can take a measuring stick and hold it up against each center line and see that the lines are the same. Since we know (based on other perceptions) that measuring sticks don’t shrink and grow to match what is measured we accept that our perception of the different line lengths is an illusion. Also, this illusion would be considered an accurate perception if the upper and lower figures were two dimensional projections of three dimensional figures – like the edge of a wire frame cube; the upper figure is looking at the frame from the inside and the lower figure is looking at it from the outside. If the distance of the point of observation from the edge is the same in both cases, then the edge of the upper figure must be longer than that of the lower figure in order to cast equal length projections on the two dimensional surface. Again, what is considered the “accurate” perceptions depends on what other information (perceptions) one has regarding the perceptions under consideration.

RM: With hallucinations it’s other people who have the “other perceptions” that lead to the conclusion that the perception is a hallucination. If no one else in the room hears the voices a person says they hear then the voices are probably not an accurate perception of what is going on.

DG: In tennis, if the lines person calls the ball one way (in or out) and the playback of the shot

shows a different state of affairs, is not the lines person having an inaccurate perception.

RM: Same thing, I think. From the linesman’s perspective the ball looked out, say, but from other perspectives (other perceptions) it looked in. Similar situation to the bent stick in water. What is the most accurate perception depends on what other perceptions (information) one includes in judging accuracy and what one’s goals are. One’s goals determine what information one includes in determining “accuracy” and how the perception whose accuracy is being assessed is to be used. If the goal is to get the “best” perspective on a “close call” then you use a replay that seems to be taken from what has been determined to give the best perspective, just as you use other (tactile) perceptions to determine whether an apparently bent stick in water is actually bent. Other perceptions being used to determine the accuracy of a perception. But we can’t get “past” our perceptions to see if they reflect the reality that is the presumed basis of those perceptions.

RM: This is why I believe that perceptual accuracy never is about how accurately what is perceived corresponds to what is “really” out there. It’s because we don’t know what’s really out there except in terms of our models (of physics and chemistry) which are really attempts to infer what is out there that is responsible for our perceptions. Since there models are, like all models, tentative and not absolute truth, it makes no sense to say that some perception is or is not an accurate representation of something (real reality) that we know only as a hypothesis.

RM: But I don’t think we have to get deeply into epistemology to deal with control of perception is a useful way. All we have to do, I think, is be aware of the fact that what we see as the “environment” of other living control systems is not physical reality but out own perception. This means that when we talk about control of perception we are talking about the fact that people are controlling what is, from their perspective (and ours) their environment. When I lift a book I am controlling a perception of the book even though it looks (to me) like I am controlling an object out in the world. It looks that way to you to when you see me lifting the book. Of course, you can make your perceptions of the changing position of the book more precise using cameras and such to measure the changing coordinates of the book. But we are both still dealing with perceptions – not real "reality. Real reality does put constraints on how we can control these perceptions and we use the models of physics and chemistry to account for the constraints. But when it comes to determining what perceptions are controlled by a control system we talk about the correlates of the system’s perceptions in terms of our own perceptions. So the perceptual variables controlled by a controller are essentially equivalent to the environment correlates of these variables – what Powers called "controlled quantities. A book for the controller is a perceptual variable; the same book seen by the observer is called an environmental variable (because we see it as being in the controller’s environment) but it’s still a perception in the observer – a perception of a book.

RM: Hope this is coherent; wrote it in some haste.

Best

Rick

David

On Friday, October 31, 2014 2:58 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.31.1200)

I think the phrase “control of perception” has caused a lot of
confusion regarding what PCT is about. This really came home to me
while reviewing “Reconstructing Your Worldview” (RWV) but I have
noticed it over the years in other discussions about PCT. The problem
turns on the word “perception”, which is often taken to mean “a way of
looking at things”. This view of perception implies that there are
“things” out there in reality – things like people, cars, sticks,
trees (as in the example given on p. 5 of RWV ) and so forth-- and
that people will end up perceiving these things differently depending
on their past experiences, biases and “hidden assumptions” (p.11)
This is the “Rashomon” approach to perception, referring to the great
Japanese film where several different people apparently saw
(perceived) the same event differently.

The Rashomon approach to perception creates a problem (in terms of
understanding the PCT meaning of perception) when it is taken to imply
that some ways of perceiving things are better than others. This idea
runs throughout RWV. We see it, for example, in the story of why
Walmart did better than Kmart in retailing. Walmart did better because
Sam Walton was able to perceive a “store” as “part of an integrated
network” rather than as a “stand-alone operation” (p. 12). So Walmart
did better than Kmart because Walton was able to perceive reality
better (more accurately) than Kmart.

But the idea that some ways of perceiving reality are more accurate
than others is not part of the PCT view of perception. In PCT,
“perception” corresponds to what most people think of as “reality”.
The world we experience as reality – the world of people, cars ,
trees and so on – is the world of perception in PCT. Real reality –
the physical environment on which the experienced (perceived)
world is
based – is known to us only in terms of our current models of physics
and chemistry. It is not a world of people, cars, sticks and trees but
(theoretically) of electrons, neurons, electromagnetic waves, etc.

So in the PCT model of perception it makes no sense to say that some
perceptions are more “accurate” than others in the sense that some
perceptions represent real reality better than others because we have
no direct access to what is actually out there. We have to infer what
is out there using the methods of science, which is where the models
of what is out there come from. Our perceptions – like the perception
of the tree – are just one way of mapping real reality into
perception. We
could have mapped the real reality into something
different but we don’t probably because seeing the array of light
projected onto our retinae by the whirling elections out there as a
tree separated from a background is probably an adaptive way of
perceiving it (in an evolutionary sense).

But what about visual illusions? Is that not a case of inaccurate
perception? I would say no, in the sense that the “illusory”
perception is not an inaccurate representation of what’s “out there”
in real reality. But it is inaccurate in the sense that it is a
perception that is inconsistent with other perceptions of the same
situation. For example, a stick placed in water appears to be bent.
This is an “inaccurate”
perception because it is inconsistent with
other perceptions of the stick. Perceptions of the stick as unbent are
more accurate than that of the bent stick but this is because the bent
stick perception is inconsistent with all other perceptions of the
same stick, not because it is an inaccurate representation of what’s
really out there. Indeed, based on the physics model of real reality
the perception of the bent stick is an accurate representation of the
differential refractive characteristics of water and air.

There is one area where it might, indeed, be possible to talk about
the accuracy of perception in terms of the mapping of perception to
real reality as we understand it to be in the physics model. That is
in the area of psychophysics, where we can see how variations in a
perception, such as the perception of loudness, are related to
variations in the physical basis of that perception, intensity of
mechanical vibration. In that case we find that perception is not an
accurate representation of reality since perception apparently
increases as the log of physical intensity. But this is true for
everyone; we can only get a more accurate perception of actual
variations in intensity using measuring devices and using their output
measures as substitutes for the perception of loudness.

All this may seem quite philosophical but I think problems with
understanding what perception is in PCT is the basis for a lot of
disagreements about what PCT is about. The Rashomon view of
perception has led some (like the author of RWV) to conclude that
control can be improved by perceiving reality more accurately. Of
course, the “reality” to which they refer is actually their own
perceptual experience. So the author of RWV concludes that perceiving
a store as part of a network is better because it is a better way of
seeing the world as it really is.

PCT does suggest that some ways of perceiving are better than others,
but not because they are more accurate but because controlling these
perceptions better serves our high level goals. This seems to be the
situation with Walmart and Kmart. Walton had the goal (among others)
of creating a hugely profitable retail empire and he was able to
achieve this goal by controlling for (among other things) a perception
of stores as part of a network. In a hierarchical control organization
higher level systems achieve their goals (bring their perceptions to
their references) by setting the references for the perceptions
controlled by lower level systems. If these lower level systems are
controlling the “wrong” perceptions – wrong either in the sense that
they are unrelated to achievement of the higher level goal or are
similar to other lower level perceptions, resulting in conflict –
then the higher level systems will not achieve their goals. Fixing
this kind of problem – the problem of controlling the “wrong”
perceptions – is the job of reorganization. If “perception” is taken
to mean the same thing as “worldview” then reorganization is the PCT
means of “changing your worldview” and it should occur only when there
are problems controlling.

One final point. When we do the Test for the Control variable we are
typically trying to determine which of our own perceptual variables
corresponds to the perception being controlled by the controller under
study. So when we talk about the “environmental correlate” of the
controlled variable we are not talking about the real reality
correlate of the controlled variable; we are talking about the
variable perceived by us to be in the environment of the controller.
So when we say that the controller is controlling the distance between
cursor and target that variable is not a real world variable; it’s a
perceptual variable. This is the basis for much confusion,
unfortunately. But the fact is that when we talk about the
“environmental correlate” of a controlled variable (what Powers
referred to as the “controlled quantity” to distinguish it from the
controlled variable, which is the perceptual variable controlled by
the controller) we are talking about a perception – not a real world
variable.

Perception is a difficult concept so I don’t fault the author of RMV
for not understanding that accuracy of perception makes no sense in
the PCT view of
perception; or for not understanding that perceptions
are only better or worse in terms of how well control of those
perceptions serves higher level goals. But not understanding these
things creates a lot of misconceptions about what PCT is about.
Sometimes I think it might have been better, for the purpose of
getting PCT understood by a wider, lay audience, if Bill had just
called the book Behavior: The Control of Reality since everyone
(myself included) treats their experience of the world – their
perception – as reality. But Bill was writing the book to an audience
of academic psychologists (like me) who supposedly have a somewhat
sophisticated understanding of perception. But it went over most of
their heads, too.
Perception is a very tricky concept!

Best regards

Rick

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble