[From Bruce Abbott (951110.2030 EST)]
Bill Powers (951110.0900 MST) to Martin Taylor --
It looks as though we agree on the fact that the puzzle-box cats will
cease to reorganize when they find the first variable to control that
will reliably result in escape. This leads to stereotyped behavior. We
also agree that the variables they end up controlling may not have any
connection _known to the cat_ with whatever actually causes the box to
open.
For what it's worth, I concur.
If the box is actually to open, however, something about the controlled
variables being in a certain state or the actions involved in
controlling them must have the required physical effect on the release
mechanism. Since there are many variables a cat could control that would
entail applying pressure to the release mechanism, different cats will
settle on controlling different variables. What all these control
processes have in common is that they entail, somewhere in the process,
applying pressure to the release rod.
Yep.
The very stereotypy of the cat's behavior points us toward the variables
that the cat is controlling. If we rearranged the environment to
interfere somewhat with the stereotyped behavior (but not with its
effect on opening the box), the cat should make countering adjustments
so the same stereotyped behavior is still produced. For example, if the
cat lies on its back next to the release rod, we could require that it
take a circuitous route to that position and see if it still ends up in
the same place and orientation.
Or we could anesthetize the right flank, etc.
Here is how Thorndike described the process in _1898_(Watson, R.; _Basic
writings in the history of psychology_):
Very nice. My source of information was Thorndike's (1914) _Animal
Intelligence_, which came out 16 years after the study was completed. I'd
like to read his original study--a lot of interpretation can creep between
the observations in 16 years. Thanks for the reference.
Actually, this behavior fits Thorndike's description better than many
theoretically-driven paraphrases of his findings seem to do. Being in
the box was itself an unacceptable situation for the cat. Thorndike says
his cat didn't pay much attention to the food outside the box; mine paid
_no_ attention to the food and water _inside_ the box. If the sight and
smell of the food had been the primary motivator, my cat would not have
tried to escape both from the box and the food. It's clear that
Thorndike had the idea that food outside the box would give the cat a
reason to try to escape from the box (why else put it there?), but even
he had to admit that the cat wasn't particularly yearning toward the
food, but was simply attempting to get OUT OF HERE.
If I'm not mistaken, Thorndike always maintained that simply escaping from
the box was sufficient motivation for the cat, although he added the
additional incentive of the milk or fish to be sure.
How could Thorndike have gone from these quite honest observations to
his "law of effect?" I think the answer is that Thorndike's eye was on a
different goal. In the following he reveals that he has a number of
other axes to grind:The cat does not look over the situation, much less _think_ it
over, and then decide what to do. It bursts out at once into the
activities which instinct and experience have settled on as
suitable reaction to the situation "confinement when hungry with
food outside." The one impulse, out of many accidental ones, which
leads to pleasure becomes strengthened and stamped in thereby, and
more and more firmly associated with the sense-impression of that
box's interior. ... Futile impulses are gradually stamped out. The
gradual slope of the timecurve, then, shows the absence of
reasoning. They represent the wearing smooth of a path in the
brain, not the decision of a rational consciousness. (p. 256).There's somebody standing just offstage with whom Thorndike is arguing.
Thorndike is saying "See? The cat does NOT look over the situation. The
cat does NOT think. The escape is NOT purposeful, but an accidental
result of being driven by impulses. The cat is NOT trying to escape from
a terrifying situation, but is being driven to attain pleasure. The cat
does NOT make decisions; the cat does NOT have any rational
consciousness. So you're full of garbage!" When we read Thorndike, we
have stepped into the middle of a fight. Of course his arguments don't
refute any of the contrary notions he seems to be trying to dispel; he
says himself that he knows of no mechanisms to achieve these effects, so
how he knew that these mechanisms don't involve thought etc. is beyond
me. But he seemed to think he had made his case.
The guy standing just off stage is George Romanes, who wrote a nice little
book called _Animal Intelligence_ shortly after Darwin's _Origin of Species_
appeared. Romanes used anecdotes from around the world to support his claim
that animals like dogs and cats showed as least the rudiments of human-like
reasoning. Thorndike believed that his results revealed the operation of a
simpler mechanism, one that operated through a mechanical process of
"selecting and connecting."
The cat is NOT trying to escape from
a terrifying situation, but is being driven to attain pleasure.
You are, I believe, mistaken in your impression that Thorndike thought it
was the pleasure of the food and that alone that was the goal of the cat's
actions, although I don't know that it makes much difference to the
analysis, other than to specify a somewhat different controlled perception.
In fact, in his definition of the "satisfying state of affairs," Thorndike
came close to specifying the Test for the controlled variable:
By a satisfying state of affairs is meant one which the animal does nothing
to avoid, often doing such things as attain and preserve it.
Thorndike (1914, p. 245)
A satisfying state of affairs, then, is some (perceptual) state the animal
will do nothing to avoid (i.e., no error = no action), and does things to
attain and preserve [i.e., error due to momentary disturbance (attain) or
continuing disturbance (preserve) = action]. Being out of the box will work
in this definition just as well as having access to milk; all that is
required is that the indicated relationship be demonstrated (i.e., pass the
Test).
A pity that Thorndike didn't have the concept of a reference signal -- a
"force" that definitely operates prior to the establishment of any
connection. I think we have to keep in mind that Thorndike would have
rejected as mystical any suggestion that the cat _wanted to be out of
the box_. That would have struck Thorndike as a mentalistic explanation,
since he, like most scientists of his time, saw a division between
"mental" and "physical" phenomena. Thorndike would also have scoffed at
the idea that an electrical circuit could prove theorems.
In fact, Thorndike was accused of being "mentalistic" for using words like
"satisfying" and "dissatisfying," but in fact he was ahead of his critics in
specifying objective ways to determine what was or was not satisfying to the
cat. I think Thorndike would have found the similarly objective definitions
of PCT entirely to his liking. He evidently didn't mind using mentalistic
terms so long as they could be rigorously and objectively defined.
Thorndike had most of the pieces to the puzzle laid out before him in 1898.
Unfortunately, he also had a couple of pieces from another puzzle on the
table, and they seemed to fit perfectly with the other pieces to assemble a
coherent picture. The other pieces were from the physiological study of
reflexes, and when put together with Thorndike's observations, the picture
they formed was the wrong picture.
By the way, I am entirely pleased that you and Martin are having this
discussion. It's one I have tried to get going before, but we just couldn't
seem to get past Thorndike's interpretation and focus on what I think are
important lessions to be learned about reorganization from his basic
observations.
Regards,
Bruce