Hi Bruce
RM: That question is already answered in PCT: both.
BN: Ah, I assumed you would get the reference.
RM: Still don’t.
RM: I see failed control as the same as no control.
BN: Absence of observable output is not evidence of absence of control.
RM: It’s absence of a controlled variable that is evidence of absence of control.
BN: There’s a value for “V as influenced by d” if V is not controlled…
BN: Concurrently, the investigator is controlling a perception of d. This control of d does indeed conflict with the subject’s control of V. …So far as I know, no one has modeled this purposeful limitation of a deliberately introduced conflict, though I have sketched a diagram:
RM: This diagram is not a correct description of what the observer/experimenter does in the Test. Think about it in terms of my mind-reading demo (Mindreading). In that demo the computer is the observer/experimenter simultaneously testing to determine which of three avatars is being moved intentionally around the screen. The computer is not controlling for anything; it is simply measuring the average correlation between the disturbance to each avatar and the position of that avatar. It is testing for the controlled variable without controlling the hypothetical controlled variables.
RM: What is controlled is a perceptual analog, in the head, of a variable aspect of the world.
BN: And thus, the experimenter is controlling a perceptual signal q.i, a perceptual analog in her head of a variable aspect of the world located inside the subject’s head, a perceptual signal p.
RM: The observer/experimenter is observing the correlation between disturbance and hypothetical controlled variable. If the correlation is low then the observer/experimenter is observing – not controlling – the controlled variable, which is a perceptual variable in both observer and controller.
BN: As good William Shakespeare put it, all of this, and we as well,
… are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
RM: Let’s hope so;-)
Best
Rick