🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <343C0237.50A5@dial.pipex.com>
           aac88@dial.pipex.com "Howard Snart" writes:

> David Longley wrote:
> > 
> ......
> 
> > To be a breakthrough, a discovery has to be more than one getting
> > excited   about   something  one  learns  -  to  be   a   genuine
> > breakthrough, one needs to know the literature and be working  in
> > the field to know what is and is not new and worthy of attention.
> > How else can one ascertain whether it is indeed a breakthrough?
> > 
> > If you want to make any real progress on "learning machines"  you
> > are  going  to  have  to come to grips with  the  issues  I  have
> > discussed elsewhere, the most important of which is that most  of
> > our psychological idioms, including those of learning and memory,
> > are  intensional idioms, not the stuff a science  and  technology
> > can or should be grounded upon (and to fully appreciate that, you
> > need to know the literature).
> > --
> > David Longley (check end reply line #)
> 
> Agreed, I do not say "I have made a breakthrough" full-stop.
> I have a reasonable understanding of the field, I am not currently
> working in the field. But this does not mean my ideas are necessarily
> invalid. It is my opinion that much of the field has somewhat stagnated,
> if this serves to generate debate, and perhaps explore a different
> direction, then that is to be encouraged.
> 
> I have not made any computational models of my sheme yet. I wanted to
> get peoples thoughts on the ideas I have presented. I have read many of
> the applicable journals, both biological and computational, and talked
> with many researchers in neuro-science and AI, and I have not found this
> learning scheme stated anywhere else. 
> This thread seemed to touch on many of the ideas contained in my
> approach, and so I am inturested to find out what you think.
> To me, my apporach seems not only obvious, but an inevitable consequence
> of what we understand about the human brain. 
> I may well be mistaken in my ideas, and I hope you will correct me if
> this is so.
> There are many issues to be resolved if my scheme is to work, and this
> will require considerable research and experimentation. I therefore felt
> it important to establish the validity of the general appraoch before
> commiting myself to futher research.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Howard Snart
> 

There's a theme under development in the following which is based 
on a number of lines of research and some very practical problems 
of  application. Folk psychology, and its scientific analysis  is 
all  very well, but a professional psychologist needs  skills  in 
behaviour   analysis  and  management  above  and   beyond   such 
folklore,  superstition and induction - no matter how  well  it's 
phrased.  It  may  well be that one needs to  be  a  professional 
tasked  with delivering accountable services to fully  appreciate 
the  practicalities  which  led me to write the  following  -  if 
that's so, I can only ask that it's read with the above in mind.   

FRAGMENTS OF BEHAVIOUR: The Extensional Stance
(see http://www.demon.co.uk for full context & application)

    'I  should like to see a new conceptual apparatus  of  a 
    logically  and   behaviourally straightforward  kind  by 
    which to formulate, for scientific purposes, the sort of 
    psychological  information that is conveyed nowadays  by 
    idioms of propositional attitude.'

	W.V.O Quine (1978)

    'On our view, many of the illusions cannot be  dispelled 
    by  a  "few moments' prompted  reflection,"  or  several 
    months of college teaching; if dispelled, the  illusions 
    seem  to  return in full force the next time  a  similar 
    situation comes along. Such illusions seem to be  rooted 
    very deeply in the human mind.' 

	The Persistence of Cognitive Illusions
	P. Diaconisa and D. Freedman
	The Behavioral and Brain Sciences  (1981),4, p 

    'A  bias  towards  vividness  might  well  mean  that  a 
    powerfully  placed decision maker will act on the  basis 
    of   unrepresentative,   but  highly   vivid,   personal 
    experiences  or anecdotes and ignore the "dull"  results 
    of large, well designed statistical surveys. It is of no 
    practical value to consider whether such behaviour  can, 
    by   some   philosophical  device,  be  deemed   to   be 
    "rational."  It  is  evident  that  such  behaviour   is 
    undesirable,  in the sense that it is likely to  produce 
    inefficient decisions and costly errors.'

	J. St. B. T. Evans and P Pollard
	The Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1981), 4 p 335

This  paper reviews and analyses  convergent lines  of   research 
which   amount to a radical critique of cognitivism in  its  most 
problematic guise - inductive psychologism. It targets two widely 
accepted dogmas: 

    that  past  behaviour is the best  predictor  of  future 
    behaviour; and 

    that there is practical merit in treating cognition'  as 
    an   independent   variable  when  working   to   effect 
    behavioural change. 

The fundamental objective of this paper is to demonstrate why the 
above  assumptions are false and to present  instead  alternative 
foundations  upon  which  to build  a  professional  science  and 
technology  of  behaviour  (primaily  in  the  applied  field  of 
corrrections (prisons)). This alternative  presents the case that 
the body of normative principles referred to as science comprises 
a  dynamic  web  of belief which is open  to  empirical  revision 
through  a formal  process conjecture and refutation. It will  be 
argued  that  such revisions occur both at the  professional  and 
individual   levels,   and  basically  according  to   the   same 
procedures. As such, what is advocated here as a methodology  for 
best  practice  in  the professional  of  behaviour  science  and 
technology  applies  quid pro quo for change  in  an  individuals 
observable  behaviour. It is the thesis of this paper  that   all 
such  developments  must  therefore  always  be  based  upon  the 
extensional stance, hence the weight given to explication of  its 
modus operandi.
 
Additionally,  it is fundamental to the case being made that  the 
reader appreciates that there is, from this perspective, no means 
of  advancing our current normative scientific standards  outside 
that  of  the naturalistic process of  empirical  conjecture  and 
refutation.  That  is to say, it is fundamental to the  theme  of 
this paper that the evolution of normative laws, including  those 
of  logical and mathematical analysis, have their basic roots  in 
nothing   more  than  what  have  been  identified  to  date   as 
empirically demonstrable best practice.
 
Nevertheless,  to appreciate  why so much weight has  been  given 
to  "cognition"  by  contemporary psychologists,  the  reader  is 
presented  a brief but relevant history of psychology  of  recent 
psychology,  focusing specifically on events which gave  rise  to 
what is now widely referred to as the "Cognitive Revolution". The 
two dogmas listed above, are, it will be argued, a consequence of 
a  simple, but quite radical misinterpretation of the data  which 
inspired  this  revolution and which has  subsequently  adversely 
changed  the  direction  of  much  of  contemporary  research  in 
experimental  psychology  from  the perspective  of  the  applied 
professional. 

To anticipate  the conclusion somewhat, argument and evidence  is 
presented  to  suggest   that  the  only  instances  where   past 
behaviour is said to be the best predictor of future behaviour is  
where  the  referred  to behaviour has not  changed.  Under  such 
conditions,   the  statement is not empirical,  but  tautologous. 
Secondly,  what is widely referred to as  "cognitive"  behaviour, 
invariably   reduces  to  publicly  observable   and   measurable 
behaviours  -  a fact which  renders  the  qualifier  "cognitive" 
redundant  except as a convenient sub-classifier. In  support  of 
this statement, the following heuristics is offered: in all cases 
where  cognitive  skills  are  referred  to  as  independent   or 
dependent variables, the question should be asked: "how are  such 
variables  observed and measured, and reported?". Each  class  of 
behaviour  has  its own merits as foci  for  behavioural  change, 
depending  upon  the objectives of the  specific  programme,  but 
whatever  the class of  behaviour subject to intervention,  there 
are constraints on what one can expect to achieve based upon what 
is now known about the context specificity of learning.

The following critique has practical implications for  programmes 
such  as  "Cognitive Skills Training" in corrections.  The  first 
consequence  is  that such programmes can only aspire  to  change 
context  free  verbal  behaviour. Given the  evidence  which  has 
accumulated   in support of the context specificity of all  skill 
acquisition  and  retrieval,  claims for  the  efficacy  of  such 
programmes'  content   must  be  regarded  with  scepticism,  and 
alternative  explanations  (such as selection  effects)  for  any 
empirically  recorded efficacy of such programmes   (see  Longley 
1997). Resources should be focused on the establishment of  areas 
of   activity  which offer the greatest  scope  for  demonstrable 
skill  acquisition  to  the greatest  range  of  individuals.  If 
efforts   are  not  made  to  enable  maximum   opportunity   for 
acquisition of new skills, there can be little rational basis for 
expecting  behavioural  change except  through  adventitious,  ie 
uncontrolled,  and therefore unmanaged  processes - or aging.  So 
why  do  some  psychologists  give  such  weight  to  "cognitive" 
processes? The explanation lies in a misconception of the  nature 
of psychology.

The impetus for the "Cognitive Revolution" came in the mid 1950s, 
largely through the influence of  the work of  Jerome Bruner, who  
summarised  his  influential series of studies  on  judgment  and 
reporting as follows: 

    'The  most characteristic thing about mental life,  over 
    and  beyond the fact that one apprehends the  events  of 
    the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond 
    the information given'.

    J Bruner (1957)
    Going Beyond The Information Given
    (in H Gulber and others (eds) Contemporary Approaches  to Cognition

These and later  studies  demonstrated that people naturally have 
a tendency to report what  they expect to be the case rather than 
what  objectively  is  case,  making  expectancy,  or  a   priori 
heuristics,  important research phenomena in their own right.  In 
one famous study (later used by T.S. Kuhn in his influential book 
"The  Structure of Scientific Revolutions", playing cards  of  an 
atypical  suit/colour  combination (e.g. a red 5  of  spades,  or 
black  3 of hearts) were standardly reported as convention  would 
expect   (ie  as a standard 5 of spades, 3 of hearts).  In  other 
investigators'  experiments,  conflicts in  accurately  reporting 
name/feature  combinations such as the word BLUE written  in  red 
ink   (the   "Stroop  Effect")  were   widely   replicated,   but 
conventionally  studied  to shed light on levels  of  information 
processing  with  the  objective of  differentially  testing  the 
relative merits of alternative models of memory and attention. In 
all  of  this research, the objective has  always been  to  model 
cognitive proceses - however, in the present context,  the reader 
is  asked to consider such phenomena as testament to the  context 
dependency  and general unreliability of  natural human  decision 
making when compared to formal, normative standards. Whilst there 
are  indubitably  good  reasons to provide  good  and  predictive 
models  of the natural processes of  human judgment and  decision 
making,   such  research  can also be cited as  evidence  of  the 
extent  to which a priori heuristics and  processing  limitations  
influence  accurate observational reporting. Throughout the 1950s 
and 60s, a range of perceptual illusions were cited in support of 
the non-veridical or inferential nature of perception, a  feature 
also  referred  to as perceptual readiness'.  In  other  studies, 
Postman and colleagues provided experimental evidence in  support 
of  the  "Chinese  Whispers" phenomenon -  a  classic  series  of 
experiments   on  serial  reproduction  -  the  propagation   and 
distortion  which  occurs when messages or reports  are  serially 
repeated  from one individual to another. This is the  psychology 
of rumour, but could also be called the psychology of reporting.

In  other  research  programs,  psychologists  studied    related 
phenomena,  first  under the auspices of  "Cognitive  Dissonance" 
(Festinger 1957). The extent to which these processes were  aptly 
described  as  cognitive was challenged at the  time  by  radical 
behaviourists  such  as  Bem (1963) who  urged  psychologists  to 
interpret  the  same phenomna in terms of  adventious  nature  of 
self-perception and operant conditioning. In the late  1960s  and 
1970s  such  work dominated research in  Personality  and  Social 
Psychology,  but  under the new rubric  of  "Attribution  Theory" 
(Kelley  1955;1967) which provided detailed studies of what  came 
to  be known as the fundamental attribution error. Such  research 
provided  a substantial body of evidence in support  of  Bruner's 
thesis that, in making assessments of events and their  relations 
(including  assessments of one's own behaviour), folk manifest  a 
remarkable  tendency  to  "go  beyond  the  information   given", 
resorting  well circumscribed heuristics. From this  perspective, 
the  entire discipline of empirical psychology can be  viewed  as 
the study of the modus operandi of "folk psychology" or  "common-
sense". This being so, a clear distinction must be made between a 
descriptive  account of natural judgmental heuristics on the  one 
hand, and the development and application of normative  standards 
of  science and technology on the other. The  extensional  stance 
outlined  here  explicates  a framework for the  delivery  of  an 
effective applied behaviour science based on the latter. 

Judgmental heuristics are embodied in natural language, and  have 
been  identified,  largely  by philosophers  of  language  (Quine 
1956,1960;  Davidson 1970) as the logically  anomalous idioms  of 
"propositional  attitude".  Whilst anomalous, in the  absence  of 
suitable  alternatives, they remain essential  modi vivendi,  and 
will be retained as part of each culture's natural repertoire and 
be   diseminated   via  the  family,  media  and   major   social 
institutions  as  normal social convention until more  valid  and 
reliable  systems of prediction are identified  through  research 
and  development.  The  natural mode of  distribution  of  social 
convention  is narrative (Bruner 1990), which accounts  for  such 
processes  being  the  focus of so  many  psychological  research 
programmes to date. It is because of the pragmatic daily  demands 
for  a viable folk psychology that it is so difficult to  sustain 
support for research and development based upon the   extensional 
stance  - its whole approach differs quite dramatically from  the 
popular conception of the role of the conventional  psychologist, 
a point which  is particularly marked with respect to the   place 
of  "cognition"  in behaviour analysis and management.  From  the 
extensional stance, "cognition" requires explanation - it is  not 
to be used as explanation.  

In contrast to narrative,  it is only in the latter half of  this 
century that formal language systems, grounded in deductive logic 
have  been  developed to the extent that they can now  be  widely 
deployed in the guise of  relational database. technology.  These 
developments   have been dependent on the widespread use  of  the 
digital  computer,  and,  more importantly,  the  development  of 
programming. Such developments now enable professionals to  build 
formal  models which are reliable enough to replace intuitive  or 
expert opinion. With the support of such  technology, descriptive 
cognitive  psychology and neuroscience are likely to be of  value 
only  to  the  extent  that  they  reveal  limitations  on  human 
competence  and  performance, characteristics which  are  largely 
irrelevant  to the practising behavioural scientist  tasked  with 
providing   analyses  of  distributions  of  data.   The   former 
disciplines  are  more  likely to provide  data  of  interest  to 
cultural anthropologists and biologists than applied  behavioural 
professionals.

In  the wake of the 1879 Fregian revolution in formal logic,  the 
scientific  enterprise  as  the  pursuit  of  truth  became  much 
clearer.  Owing much to the work of members of the Vienna  Circle 
in  the  1930s, three affiliates in particular,  R.  Carnap,  K.R 
Popper and W.V.O Quine, pressed logical empiricism to its  limits 
throughout  the  20th century. Quine, departing  from  Carnap  in 
identifying  intensional idioms  as  anomalous  locutions  within 
ordinary  language,  suggested how and why the pursuit  of  truth 
might  be impeded unless a distinction is made between  a  merely 
instrumental   acceptance   of    the   intensional   idioms   of 
propositional   attitude  as  elements  of  a  theoretical   folk 
psychology  on the one hand, and the formal integrity of the 'web 
of  (scientific)  belief' on the other. The  logically  anomalous 
mentalistic (intensional) idioms, 'thinks that', 'believes  that' 
(the verbs of propositional attitude) can have no formal place in 
a unified science which can be regimeneted within the language of 
the  predicate or functional calculus,  and must  ultimately,  be 
replaced   (in  science  at  least),  by   suitable   extensional 
alternatives.  This Quinean program promises a far more  fruitful 
basis upon which to build a profession of behaviour analysis  and 
management than has hitherto been possible, and provides a  clear 
if  anomalous status to the idioms of propositional  attitude  as 
elements of folk psychology's modus vivendi. 

Folk  psychological  lore, like folk physical  lore,  is  learned 
developmentally   and    inductively.  The   resulting   cultural 
diversity, whilst at one time quite vast, is now more apparent in 
more subtle forms such as individual dialects and local lore, and 
ultimately   individual  "personality".  It  is  shared  socially 
within  human  cultures via narrative processes,  many  of  which 
exert  their influence early in life from parents,  siblings  and 
other significant others. The modus operandi of these fundamental 
social  processes have been studied by psychologists  of  various 
theoretical  persuasions  under the  rubrics  of  "conditioning",  
"learning",  or "attribution". In recent decades they  have  also 
been  studied by a range of academics collectively  referring  to 
themselves (oxymoronically perhaps) as "cognitive scientists".Yet 
there  are  professional  demands which extend  far  beyond  such 
descriptive  accounts  -  a fact which renders  the  majority  of 
professionals  helpless when tasked with providing an accountable 
service  in  the  assessment and management of  behaviour.  Here, 
evidence must play the key role. It is here that the knowledge of 
the  professional  behaviour  scientist meets that  of  the  folk 
psychologist,  and it is here that the former has to  demonstrate 
provision  of  a  service  which can  be  readily  identified  as 
providing good value for money. This paper sets out to  explicate 
how and why when this confrontation takes place the  psychologist 
is  rarely able to provide an effective contribution for want  of 
adequate data and the skills to analyse it.
.  
Whilst psychology strives to provide an account (ultimately  with 
the  help of neuroscience) of  how folk naturally make  sense  of 
the regularities in the world (how folk come to assert and act as 
if  one  event  can  be predicted or expected  on  the  basis  of 
another), it must be understood clearly that such accounts do not 
aim to provide a legitimatization or validation of such processes 
or  events.  Yet,  in an insidious manner, the  blurring  of  the 
difference  between  the descriptive and normative  is  precisely 
what  has  occurred in much of contemporary  applied  psychology. 
What   begins  merely  as  a  descriptive  account  of   "natural 
assessments"  or  judgments,  is  all  too  readily  accepted  as  
validation  of such processes, largely  because professionals  so 
rarely  have access to the distributional data needed  to  permit 
them to do otherwise. This in turn  is a consequence of the  fact 
that  the majority of   professionals are unwilling or unable  to 
identify  quantitative analysis of observations as their  primary  
professional  responsibility. As a consequence, the  professional 
psychologist's role has widely degenerated into one amounting  to 
little more than serving as a folk psychological reference  point 
-  as  expert  folk-psychologist  amongs  many  practicing   folk 
psychologists'. One of  the objectives below is  to explicate the 
practical   differences  between  the  normative   analysis   and 
management  of  behaviour ("The Extensional  Stance"),  from  the 
cognitivist  approach  ("The Intentional  Stance").  Whilst  folk 
psychology  is  the  natural repository of  folk  wisdom,  shared 
through narrative, it is so prone to bias and distortion that  it 
is  effectively  useless  as  a  reliable  data  source  for  the 
professional  behavioural  scientist/technologist.  When  Dennett 
published "The Intentional Stance" in 1987, he outlined it merely 
as an instrumentalist position:

    'The  intentional stance is the strategy  of  prediction 
    and  explanation that attributes beliefs,  desires,  and 
    other  "intentional   states" to systems   (living   and 
    nonliving)   and predicts future behavior from  what  it 
    would  be  rational for an agent to  do,   given   those 
    beliefs  and  desires;  such  systems  are   intentional 
    systems. The strategy of treating parts of the world  as 
    intentional   systems   is  the  foundation   of   "folk 
    psychology"   but  is  also  exploited   in   artificial 
    intelligence  and cognitive science more  generally,  as 
    well   as in evolutionary theory. The  analysis  of  the 
    intentional stance grounds a theory of the mind and  its 
    relation to the body. 

    D C Dennett (1988)
    Precis of The Intentional Stance.
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences; Sep Vol 11(3)  495-546

Yet the demands of the applied professional are different  unless 
the  objective is to record the narrative processes in their  own 
right.  It  is  important that the reader  understands  that  the 
viability  of  Dennett's  "Intentional Stance"  depends  on  "the 
rationality  assumption",  ie,. that it is valid to  assume  that 
'beliefs'  and  'desires'  can  be  analysed  logically.  It   is 
precisely  this assumption that is challenged in the pages  which 
follow. Evidence is presented below which strongly suggests  that 
this  assumption is largely responsible for the minimal  progress 
achieved   to  date  by  'cognitivist'  approaches.   Behavioural 
technology,  is, therefore, not an application of psychology  per 
se, but, from the stanc developed in this paper, an instantiation 
of     'Artificial     Intelligence'.     Applied     effectively 
(computationally),   'Artificial   Intelligence',   has   to   be 
contrasted  with  what Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky  (1982)  have 
called  'natural  assessments' or what Agnoli and  Krantz  (1989) 
called 'intensional heuristics'. The latter are the intuitive and 
inductive (or associative) processes, studied by psychologists as 
conditioning.  Artificial  Intelligence on the other  hand  -  ie 
formal intelligence as measured and technologically  implemented, 
is  always  a  normative  measure  (or  instantiation)  of   non-
psychological skills. These reduce, in any culture fair test,  to 
an  assessment (or instantiation) of formal  logical  operations. 
 
    'History may well record that towards the middle of  the 
    twentieth century many classical problems of  philosophy 
    and psychology took on renewed interest and vigour  with 
    the  emergence  of a new (and not yet  well  understood) 
    notion  of  mechanism.  While the  development  of  this 
    notion  has many roots within philosophy (especially  in 
    studies  of  the foundations of  mathematics  by  Alonzo 
    Church and others) the major milestone was probably  the 
    formalization of the idea of computation by Alan  Turing 
    in 1936. This work, in a sense, marked the beginning  of 
    the  study of cognitive activity from an abstract  point 
    of view, divorced in principle from both biological  and 
    phenomenological  foundations. It provided  a  reference 
    point for the scientific ideal of a mechanistic  process 
    which could be understood without raising the spectre of 
    vital forces or elusive homunculi, but which at the same 
    time  was sufficiently rich to cover  every  conceivable 
    informal  notion of mechanism. It would be difficult  to 
    overestimate  the  importance of  this  development  for 
    psychology.......there  is a growing feeling,  not  only 
    among   those  working  in  AI  but  also   among   more 
    enlightened  experimental psychologists, that the  study 
    of   intelligence  cannot  be  decomposed   along   such 
    traditional lines as those which, say, mark off  typical 
    elementary textbook chapter headings....As Donald Michie 
    (1971) has put it, in speaking of recent developments in 
    AI,  '  ...we now have as a touchstone  the  realization 
    that  the  central operations of  the  intelligence  are 
    ...transactions on a knowledge base'.  ....psychologists 
    have  opted  for a type and size of  parcel  which  many 
    people,  particularly  in AI, are beginning to  feel  is 
    fundamentally wrong-headed.'

    Z. W. Pylyshyn (1979)
    Complexity and The Study of Artificial and Human Intelligence
    in M D Ringle (Ed) Philosophical Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence

-- 
David Longley (check end reply line #)

Longley Consulting                                                  London, UK
Behaviour Assessment & Profiling Technology,
Research, Data Analysis and Training Services,
Small IT Systems                                http://www.longley.demon.co.uk