[from Chris Cherpas (2000.11.24.1530 PT)]
Give 'em hell, Gary. I read the draft of the article and could
barely finish it. It reminds me of something I would have been
interested in before learning about PCT. All the concern about
"selection as a form of causation" seems so irrelevant in light
of what a focus on control might yield.
Best regards,
cc
Gary Cziko 2000.11.13 01:02 GMT --
···
Does anyone know of any research on how rats or other animals in an
operant conditioning situation vary the force of their lever presses
as necessary to overcome variable resistance in the lever?I am writing a commentary on a Behavioral and Brain Science article
(see below) and I need to straighten the authors out about how
responses or characteristics of responses (such as response force)
cannot serve as units of selection in learning. They use the example
of selecting response force, so it would be nice to find research to
show that this varies as necessary to control the animal's intended
outcome.Hull, Langman & Glenn:
A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SELECTION: BIOLOGY, IMMUNOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.hull.html>