[From Rick Marken (2017.10.10.1400)]
···
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Bruce Nevin (2017.10.10.07:15 PT) –
Rick Marken (2017.10.06.1530) –
RM: This led me to think that this inverted pendulum balancing task might be a good one to do using people as subjects. I think it would be easy to set it up this way. Then you could collect data to see how real live living control systems bring the pendulum from hanging below the track to balancing. It could be a tough task but once it’s learned you could start comparing the subjects’ behavior to that of different control models and see which fits best.Â
BN: Unclear to me how to make it easy. There’s a bit of an engineering challenge to craft the apparatus so that the pendulum could swing freely past the track and the cart itself, and then the model would have to include the physics of the cart (inertia, friction).
RM: I meant easy to set it up as a variant of the existing balancing inverted pendulum program where the mouse would be used to move move the cart back and forth. The cart movements made by the human could then be compared to the crt movements made by the model. Science!! 
BestÂ
Rick
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On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 3:31 PM, Richard Marken rsmarken@gmail.com wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2017.10.06.1530)]
RM: Well I was right about that!
RM: And wrong about that. But I was wondering whether there might be a way to do this by having the highest level system control a different perception than the one being controlled in the simulation (the vertical position of the bob). It would have to be a variable that takes the variations in the height of the bob relative to the track into account. Perhaps something like the angle of the bob relative to the horizontal track, which would go negative when the bob falls below the track.Â
RM: This led me to think that this inverted pendulum balancing task might be a good one to do using people as subjects. I think it would be easy to set it up this way. Then you could collect data to see how real live living control systems bring the pendulum from hanging below the track to balancing. It could be a tough task but once it’s learned you could start comparing the subjects’ behavior to that of different control models and see which fits best.Â
RM: Right off the bat I think there are three possible models you could test using your little “kluge” by putting the kluge at the three different levels of your model (you currently have it at the lowest level) and see if there is any difference in the fit of these models to the human data. Another possibility is to see if you can think of a different high level variable that can work and make the if statement approach unnecessary. This would be like doing a test for the controlled variable (a la my 2013 paper “Testing for Controlled Variables” paper, published in Attention, Perception and Psychophysics and reprinted in Doing Research on Purpose).Â
RM: Anyway, it would be great if you could adapt this nice inverted pendulum balancing program to do some PCT research using actual, living perceptual control systems.Â
BestÂ
Rick
Bruce Abbott (2017.10.04.1800 EDT)
Â
BA: I thought we might hear from Rick Marken by now, but apparently he does not wish to hazard a guess, so I’ll just go ahead with the “reveal.�
RM: No! Stop! I was about to write. …I think it’s that you developed a way for the system not to go into positive feedback when the bob goes below “ground level”.Â
RM: I haven’t figured out how you did it. . But you say it’s simple so maybe it’s just a matter of having the perception be something like the absolute value of the angle of the bob relative to ground?
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Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Richard S. MarkenÂ
"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery