Re: Behaviorism vs. evolutionary psychology

On Jul 13, 1:55 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Don Geddis" <d...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

And so-called evolutionary psychologists and ethologists
etc. don't actively study conditioning


Sure, they have different interests. But they don't
claim to explain all of observed behavior.

GS:
On the contrary, their rhetoric is full of such claims.
They actively downplay any ontogenic influence saying
that what is of interest is the "predispositions" which,
without some sort of rigorous treatment is simply
tautology. If an animal can't "do something" no matter
what you do, then it is not predisposed to do it. If it
can, then the claim is made that there was a predisposition,
and the role of the environment is minimized.

JC:
Pigeons are observed to scratch the ground and peck at
things and sure that is an observation and you might say
as a result of this observation they must be predisposed
to act this way. But this not so much a tautology as
a classification of observed behaviors and is not in
itself an explanation.

An interesting case I saw on TV was about the bush hen.
When it cracks out of its egg there are no other hens there
to teach it what to do.

Another behavior in cats has always intrigued me is
the digging of a hole to do their business and the
covering up of the hole.


GS:
Add to that the fact that much of EP is handmaiden to
cognitive "science" and you have a recipe for garbage which
is what most of EP is. Too bad - it needn't be that way.

Here's a good example of something that could be studied
from an EP perspective: schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP).
I don't know how many species it has been demonstrated in
- I know it has been demonstrated in rats and monkeys.

JC:
Have they tested it in humans?

GS:
If you arrange an intermittent schedule of reinforcement
(look it up) some species will come to drink enormous
amounts of fluid (this is one way animals are sometimes
induced to drink ethanol solutions). The drinking has
characteristic temporal patterns - the animals drink right
after the reinforcer is delivered. The amount that animals
drink is a function of schedule parameter. From a natural
selection standpoint, an interesting question is "Why?"

SIP is just one aspect of schedule induction in general.
Pigeons, for example (and probably other species) will
vigorously attack a conspecific that is restrained in
the chamber (if the restrained animal is not protected
adequately, pigeons will sometimes kill it), and the
temporal pattern of attack is similar to that of SIP.
A variety of other response are altered by intermittent
schedules - self-injection of drugs, for example.

My interpretation is that schedule-induced behavior (sometimes
called "adjunctive behavior") is operant behavior. If this is
correct, this means that the schedule of food delivery (and it
probably works with other reinforcers - maybe even shock-
avoidance) alters the reinforcing efficacy of fluid or attack
etc. What might the evolutionary significance of this be?

JC:
Is there anything similar observed under natural conditions?

It may be a useless byproduct of an otherwise useful mechanism
such as with visual illusions.

GS:
This illustrates, I think, the sort of direction in which EP
should move - it recognizes the overwhelming importance of
conditioning processes as a general processes, and categorizes
phenomena in a way that isn't muddle-headed (like cognitive
"science").

[...]

Or you're just deferring that work for some reason until
you completely understand how the environment influences
behavior?

GS:
Behavior analysts are, as I have said before (and not just
in this post), generally interested in what animals can be
trained to do. What is wrong with that?

JC:
Nothing wrong with that. Just not translatable, at this stage
anyway, to machines that can do things that if done by humans
would be said to require intelligence.


.

Relevant Pages

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