···
Martin Taylor (2013.10.07.23.08)–
MT: My only point was to suggest that the degree of your assurance in
the correctness of your one and only interpretation of a paper you
had not read was perhaps a little extreme. Some humility might
perhaps be more appropriate than a fiat that the results are due
to “this and only this”.
RM: The only point I was assured of was that the causal explanation of the results of this experiment are wrong, from a PCT perspective. If, per PCT, organisms are purposive (control) systems, then the claim that the results of these experiments show that "reading
literary fiction led to better performance on tests of
affective ToM" is based on an illusion. I offered a possible explanation of these results from a PCT perspective, but I never said that “this and only this” was the correct explanation. There are other possible PCT explanations; to know which is right you would have to start doing some testing from a PCT perspective (testing for controlled variables). The only thing about the results that I was not humble about (and remain unhumble about) is my PCT-based claim that the apparent causal relationship between what people read and how well they do on he affective ToM test is an illusion.
MT: You might also have noted that I did not propose any
interpretation of the paper. Nor will I, other than to note the
parallel that the paper deals with learning, and one of the ways
learning is implemented in PCT (the version of PCT contained in
Bill’s writing, I mean) is reorganization. It therefore seems not
unreasonable to suggest that the results reported might have some
bearing on reorganization, specifically reorganization of the
perceptual system.
RM: Perhaps it’s not unreasonable for you to suggest this. But that’s because you appear to be able to note that the paper deals with learning. I don’t see what this study has to do with learning and apparently you’re not going to tell me why you think this study has to do with learning so there we jolly well are. But that seems to me beside the point. Even if this paper is about learning it still doesn’t mitigate the wrongness, from a PCT perspective, of the conclusions drawn by the authors and commentators about what the results mean. If PCT is right – if people are organized as negative feedback control systems-- then, in order for psychology to become a science, we should never more hear researchers imply that their manipulations of IVs were the cause of varaitions in the DV.
This will be a good discussion to continue when we get to the Experimental Methods chapter (16) in B:CP. So I’ll store this away until we get there, which might take a while since my work on the course has been delayed by the arrival of my first grandchild. So I’m kind of preoccupied at the moment.
Best
Rick
Martin
[From Rick Marken (2013.10.07.1845)]
–
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com
Martin Taylor
(2013.10.06.17.04)-
RM: When I look at results like this from a
PCT perspective, the first thing I ask myself
is “what might the subjects’ purpose(s) be in
this study”?
MT: Yes, but there is a universe of possible answers.
RM: Yes, indeed. And those purposes (controlled
variables) are likely somewhat different for different
people, ergo, the statistical nature of the results.
MT: Another question
you might be tempted to ask yourself is “how might the
experimental situation induce reorganization?” And there
would be lots of possible answers for that, too.
RM: Actually, I wouldn't ask myself that question
because I don’t think experimental situations “induce”
anything. But, as you say, I didn’t read the original
article so maybe the experimental conditions did somehow
produce reorganization. I guess they could appear to
'induce" reorganization" if they made it difficult or
impossible for the subjects to control variables that they
were able to control before being exposed to those
conditions. But I can’t imagine what purposes were
thwarted by being asked to read various things. Maybe you
could explain why you think that the experimental
conditions inducing reorganization could explain the
results of the research. Based on the description in the
article and the abstract it seems that what they found was
that people did better on that emotion identification task
after reading Chekhov than after reading something else.
What does this have to do with inducing reorganization?
And isn’t “inducing reorganization” just another causal
explanation of the results, anyway?
RM: Their main purposes are given in the
instructions for the task, which I presume
were something like “read a passage of a book
and then associate an emotion”.
MT: You could read the study. If you did, you might see
that this is not a very good guess.
RM: You appear to have read the paper; I would like to
read it too to see why this guess is wrong and why you
imply that your guess about inducing reorganization is
right. But the point of my guess was not to claim that it
was correct. Rather, it was to show how one would start
trying to understand these results from a PCT perspective.
Because it certainly looks like having people read
different kinds of material causes differential results on
the emotion identification test. And that’s the conclusion
we see in their abstract:
We present five experiments showing that reading
literary fiction led to better performance on tests of
affective ToM (experiments 1 to 5) and cognitive ToM
(experiments 4 and 5) compared with reading nonfiction
(experiments 1), popular fiction (experiments 2 to 5),
or nothing at all (experiments 2 and 5).
Note how the authors say that their results show that
reading literary fiction LED TO better performance on the
affective ToM test (the emotion identification test). A
synonym for LED TO is CAUSED.So the researchers concluded
that the type of reading material CAUSED the level of
performance seen on the affective ToM (emotion
identification) test. All I was doing, with my proposal
for the possible purposes involved in this study, was to
show how the results could be understood from a PCT
perspective. Of course, my proposed explanation is likely
to be wrong about what purposes (controlled variables) are
involved and how subjects control these variables; that’s
why this kind of research is pretty much useless from a
PCT perspective; it ignores the aspect of behavior that is
central to PCT: the purpose of the behavior observed. But
the fact that there is an observed relationship – even
though it’s statistical – between type of reading
material (IV) and score on the emotion test (DV) suggests
that at least some of the subjects are controlling a
variable that is disturbed by the IV and correcting for
that disturbance with an output that result in different
scores on the emotional identification test.
RM: At any rate, the PCT view of what's
going on is not that that different types of
reading material causes different levels of
empathy by that different types of reading
materials are different kinds of disturbances
to the subject’s purposes (controlled
perceptions) resulting in different types of
compensating responses (the answers to the
emotional pictures test).
MT: Would it not be more correct to say "a PCT view" or
“my PCT view”, rather than “the PCT view”? There’s
nothing in PCT that suggests the interpretation of the
results must be wrong, though the route to get that
interpretation is clearly not compatible with PCT.
RM: I would say that what I said about the study is
“the PCT view”, not just mine. This is really just basic
PCT; it’s the “Behavioral Illusion” aspect of PCT. The
“Behavioral Illusion” is the appearance that stimuli (IVs,
like type of reading material) cause responses; this is an
illusion (when observing a control system, according to
PCT) because the apparently direct causal connection from
IV to DV is mediated by a controlled variable; it’s the
existence and nature of the controlled variable that
explains the apparent causal relationship between IV and
DV. When the controlled variable is no longer being
controlled, the apparent causal relationship between IV
and DV disappears, exposing its illusory nature
RM: Clearly, the conventional
interpretation is a lot more fun, even though
it’s completely wrong.
MT: This statement might have more power if there was
evidence that you had read what the experimenters
actually did.
RM: I think the power of my statement comes from
reading B:CP and related work and understanding what the
Behavioral Illusion is.
RM: So, as I said, this study is a good
example of why PCT has a tough time competing
with conventional psychology. The magical
story (as in conventional psychology and the
biblical story of genesis) is a lot more fun
(and easy), for the layman, anyway, than the
scientific story (as in PCT and natural
selection).
MT: Nice polemics.
RM: Again, I really think it's just basic PCT. It's
what I discuss in some detail in my paper Marken, R. S.
(2013) Taking Purpose into Account in Experimental
Psychology: Testing for Controlled Variables, * Psychological
Reports*, 112, 184-201.
MT: PCT must account for learning (as it does in various
ways). This study appears to show some results of
learning.
RM: Since you have read the article it would be great
if you could point out how this study shows some results
of learning; in particular the learning assumed by PCT
that is called “reorganization”.
MT: Might it not be
more useful to suggest a PCT-learning account of the
results, rather than simply assuming what they did and
declaring that you know what was the primary controlled
perception, its reference value, and the disturbance for
all the participants?
RM: It might be. It would be great if you could
describe a PCT -learning account of the results. I didn’t
see anything in the article or the abstract that suggested
that reorganization learning was going on; it looked like
a pretty clear cut case of Behavioral Illusion to me.
MT: After all, one
mantra of PCT is that you can’t know what someone is
doing by looking at what they are doing. Yet, you
apparently DO know what the subjects were doing in an
experiment reported in a study you appear not to have
read.
RM: No, I don't know what the subjects were doing. What
I do know is that the results described in the article and
abstract are a very clear cut case of the Behavioral
Illusion. The appearance of a causal path from Chekhov to
a high score on the emotion identification task is
unquestionably an an example of the behavioral illusion. I
was just suggesting a possible controlled variable that
would result in that illusion.
MT: Magic, as
usual.
RM: Yes, the article and abstract of the paper
described the usual magic involved in conventional
psychological research. Their description of the results
implies a magical connection between what you read and how
you do on the emotional identification test. Sort of like
this:
Chekhov-->And then a miracle occurs--> high score
on the affective ToM test.
The PCT explanation is quite different:
r
|
p ----->C-------- e
| |
___|v
Chekhov-->CV<--choices on affective ToM test
resulting in high score
Best
Rick
Martin
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
[www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)
