[From Rick Marken (951212.0830)]
Bruce Abbott (951211.1830 EST) imagines:
Reinforcement as defined in EAB is an empirical fact, not a theory.
Bill Powers (951212.0600 MST) describes:
With the contingency present, if (and only if) there is an increase in
the frequency of one of the actions that can produce the critical
consequence, the frequency of delivery of food pellets necessarily
increases because of the contingency, which is an observable causal
path. If the frequency of the behavior that creates the consequence
continues to rise, the frequency of delivery of food pellets also
continues to rise as a result. If that behavior rises to a final level
and remains constant at that level, the rate of delivery of food pellets
also rises to a final level and remains constant at that level. If the
behavior rate fluctuates, the food delivery rate also fluctuates, always
in the way described by the form of the contingency.
the presence of the contingency is associated with increases of the
frequency of occurrance of a particular operant, and thus also with effects
that depend on the operant such as delivery of food pellets. However, merely
establishing a contingency is not enough to predict an increase in frequency
of the operant, so the contingency itself has no causal relation to the
frequency of the operant.
When you deal with actual (rather than imagined) facts, you might be
inclined to try to account for those facts with theories. Bill suggests:
Given this factual account of the observations, there is, of course,
nothing to prevent our proposing mechanisms that might exist inside the
organism which explain the changes in frequency of the operant act. We
might propose, for example, a positive feedback connection inside the
organism, such that when the food delivery rate increases, the average
rate of production of the operant act increases, thus further increasing
the food delivery rate.
This, of course, is reinforcement theory -- which EABers apparently take as
a fact, obviating the need for those pesky experimental tests.
Or we could propose a negative feedback connection inside the organism, with
the frequency of the operant act depending on the difference between
delivered food rate and some reference rate defined by a system constant...
And this is PCT.
We could propose a system that detects both actions and food deliveries, and
goes through a systematic or stochastic search process to find the act that
produces the greatest yield of food.
And "optimizaton" theory.
There is, in short, any number of theories that could be offered to explain
the changes in operant rates. With several theories of equal-appearing
plausibility, we then have to think of experimental manipulations that
should have different effects according to each theory, and use them to
eliminate the theories that predict incorrectly.
What a novel idea! This was the idea behind my suggested human operant
conditioning experiment -- which seemed like a pretty good idea to me, until
I found out that reinforcment theory couldn't be tested -- since
reinforcement is a fact, I suppose. But Bill says to Bruce:
You claim that reinforcement is an empirical fact. It is not.
I am very curious to see whether Bruce will accept this. I have suspected
for some time (and my little disturbances -- also known as posts -- have
convinced me) that Bruce is controlling for the idea that PCT provides the
theoretical explanation for the _fact_ of reinforcement; his recent claim
that "reinforcement as defined in EAB is an empirical fact" increases my
confidence that I'm hot on the trail of a controlled variable. I think Bruce
sees PCT, not as an alternative to, but, rather, as the theoretical
explanation of, reinforcement. Is this a fair description of what you are
controlling for, Bruce?
Best
Rick