Powers' Model of a PCT-Based Research Program

Included thus by reference to the appropriate topic.

I have asked Henry for comment but I have no indication that “the results from Henry’s lab” include specific investigations of the anterior and posterior cerebellum. I will shortly be asking Frans if he would kindly review my references to our conversation and his chapter in the Handbook. Maybe not right away, it’s a busy day here.

My recollection is that he and Bill called it the configuration of the arm. When I say that we can see it either as configuration or as relationship I mean we as armchair analysts. What level is actually controlled when I take a sip of tea is surely not equivocal, so this purely verbal ambivalence (configuration? relationship?) is a failure to refer to empirical data. I believe Henry’s data suggests it is the lower of those two levels. But which of them is lower, is it always the lower or sometimes the upper of the two levels in hierarchical control, and how do we know? Phenomenologically, I’d say we control the configuration as means of controlling the relationship, and I believe this is what Bill and Henry said. This is confirmed by the illustration of stimulating the monkey’s nerve bundle, because no relationship is involved (there is no target that the monkey is reaching for, and the probe provides the reference signal that would come from a system controlling the relationship of hand to a target).