Philosophy of Psychology
With 33 Illustrations
Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg
London Paris Tokyo
Mario Bunge Ruben Ardila
Foundations and Philosophy Departamento de Psicologia
of Science Unit Universidad Nacional de Colombia
McGill University Bogota
Montreal H3A lW7 Colombia
Canada
987654321
Explicit principles, in short, are not only guides to research and prac-
tice. They can also become objects of research, in particular of concep-
tual analysis, theoretical systematization, and empirical checking. A goal
of the present study is to ferret out and examine some of the philosophical
hypotheses and methodological rules held or used more or less tacitly by
contemporary psychologists.
Our exercise is not one in academic futility: it should be of some help to
psychologists as well as philosophers. To the former because bad princi-
ples, particularly when hidden, are roadblocks, whereas good ones expe-
dite research and praxis, and they can occasionally reorient them in prom-
ising directions. Our exercise should be useful to philosophers because
the philosophy of mind will continue to be obsolete, boring, and barren, as
long as it remains out of touch with the forefront of research and practice.
Our book, then, is not one of philosophical or armchair psychology but
a work in the philosophy and methodology of psychology. We do not wish
to usurp the job of psychologists but to study it from a certain viewpoint.
In fact, our task will be to analyze psychological research and practice in
the light of philosophy and methodology, and with the hope that such
examination will in turn enrich both philosophY and psychology. We
agree that philosophical psychology is at best the precursor and at worst
the enemy of scientific psychology, but submit that the philosophy of
psychology can be its ally.
This work is the outcome of the joint effort of a research psychologist
(R.A.) and a physicist turned philosopher (M.B.). The former wrote chap-
ters 10 and 12, and the senior author wrote the rest. Each author takes full
responsibility for his own contribution, and neither endorses fully that of
his partner.
The authors undertook this venture on the strength of five beliefs. (1)
Psychology has an extremely rich but largely untapped philosophical and
methodological problematics. (2) Some of the philosophical and method-
ological principles at work in psychology are tacit, and hence are held
somewhat uncritically. (3) All the principles that guide or misguide re-
search and practice in any field should be subjected to thorough investiga-
tion. (4) Because such investigation bears on norms that concern both
research and practice, it should be taken seriously by all students of
behavior, mind, and mental health. (5) Psychologists can make solid con-
tributions to such philosophical and methodological studies provided they
become reasonably well acquainted with contemporary philosophy, and
philosophers can do as much as long as they become reasonably conver-
sant with contemporary psychology. This being a tall order, it is best for
psychologists and philosophers to cooperate with one another.
Mario Bunge Ruben Ardila
Foundations and Philosophy Departamento de Psicologia,
of Science Unit, Universidad Nacional de Colombia,
McGill University Bogota, Columbia
Montreal, Canada
Acknowledgments
M.B.
Contents
Preface..................................................... v
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vll
I PRELIMINARIES
3.1 Approach......................................... 44
3.2 Atomism, Holism, and Systemism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Nonscientific Approaches to Psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4 Toward a Scientific Psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
x Contents
4 METHODOLOGy....................................... 62
4.1 Method........................................... 63
4.2 Observation ....................................... · 66
4.3 Measurement...................................... 71
4.4 Experiment........................................ 76
4.5 Inference.......................................... 81
4.6 Summing Up . . . . .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . . .. . . .. .. .. . .. . ... . 85
5 MENTALISM.......................................... 89
6 BEHAVIORISM........................................ 116
IV BIOPSYCHOLOGY
7 NEUROBIOLOGy...................................... 139
11 CONSCIOUSNESS...................................... 233
12 PSYCHOTECHNOLOGY................................ 251
VI CONCLUSION
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 287
Name Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 309
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 317
I
Preliminaries
CHAPTER 1
baked and inconsistent, often obsolete, and never in sight for critical
scrutiny.
There is a further reason for dealing explicitly with the psychology-
philosophy connection, namely that philosophers consume psychological
products-alas, seldom fresh ones. In fact, nearly every philosopher of
mind is primarily indebted to folk psychology-the ordinary and intuitive
knowledge of self and others-and secondarily to the findings, genuine or
bogus, of previous generations, more often than not armchair psycholo-
gists. Three instances of this regrettable habit will suffice to make this
point.
Ryle's once famous The Concept of Mind (1949) relies exclusively on
radical behaviorism, then a novelty in Great Britain. Strawson's philoso-
phy of mind, in his influential Individuals (1959), boils down to the medie-
val thesis that a person is a compositum of body and mind-with no
precise indication as to either the nature of the components or their mode
of composition. And Popper's contribution to his famous joint book with
Eccles (1977) is a direct descendant of Descartes's interactionist mind-
body dualism, it does not analyze any of the key concepts involved, it
takes no notice of physiological psychology, and it defies the law of con-
servation of energy. Other philosophers have been taken in by Freud's
amusing stories and speculations, or even by Lacan's rhetoric. The list of
philosophers familiar with the contemporary psychological literature oc-
cupies perhaps one line.
In sum, psychology and philosophy interact vigorously, though usually
with a long time lag, in a clandestine fashion, and seldom to one another's
benefit. The same holds for other sciences, particularly mathematics,
physics, biology, and social science. The clearer we become about such
irregular interactions, the better should we be able to control them for the
good of the parties concerned. Such control should result, in particular, in
having science and philosophy march in step and exchange fertile in-
sights.
The present chapter is devoted to substantiating the claim that psychol-
ogy includes some philosophy, and to sketching the kind of philosophy we
deem suitable to promote psychological research and practice. Such a
philosophy will prove be the one centered in the general principles uti-
lized, more or less explicitly, in the more mature sciences.
these deal in immaterial minds and therefore shun experiment and avoid
biology even though they occasionally pay lip service to both.
The humanistic (or spiritualist, or historico-cultural, or historicist)
school has delayed the study of human beings, particularly for erecting a
barrier between humans and nature-or rather by importing that barrier
from Christian theology. The barrier has been crumbling from the moment
it was built. In fact, a number of flourishing scientific disciplines violate
the interdiction to study mind and society employing the scientific
method: physiological psychology (or psychobiology), experimental lin-
guistics, neurolinguistics, anthropology, and others bear witness to this.
However, this obituary would be incomplete and unfair if we neglected
to mention that the humanistic school was right in one important point,
namely in maintaining that the possession of a "spirit" (in contemporary
parlance, "highly evolved brain") puts humans in a very special category,
because it gives them the possibility of fashioning complex material and
conceptual artifacts, as well as a complex artificial environment com-
posed by an economy, a polity, and a culture. (In turn, this artificial
environment, that is, society, molds behavior and mentation.) This im-
plies that biology, though necessary, is insufficient to account for human
nature. To put it positively: Because human nature is not fully natural but
partly artificial (i.e., human-made), the study of humankind concerns not
only natural science but also social science. However, both kinds of study
are methodologically alike.
We must grant, then, that humankind possesses properties and satisfies
regularities (laws and rules) that single it out from the rest of nature. But
1.2. Philosophies of Mind 7
at the same time we can argue that such emergent properties and regulari-
ties do not free humans from the laws of biology and do not make them
unfit as a subject of scientific investigation. In other words, we may admit
the idealistic view of the singularity of human beings provided we conjoin
it with the following theses about those emergent features: (a) far from
being miraculous, they are the outcome of a long evolutionary process
involving only material factors, and (b) far from defying science, they can
be studied scientifically. Thesis (a) belongs in emergentist materialism
(though not in physicalism or vulgar materialism), and thesis (b) is part of
scientific realism. Because materialism is an ontological doctrine, and
realism an epistemological one, we can see that it is not philosophy as
such, but certain philosophies, which are inimical to the scientific study of
man and, in particular, to scientific psychology. Here, as elsewhere, one
grief cures another.
Note: <p stands for body (or the physical) and tjJ for mind (or the mental). Only a few well-known
supporters of each view are mentioned. Adapted from Bunge (1980).
1.2. Philosophies of Mind 9
sion. Thus, whereas Ayer and Quine are empiricists, the former is a
dualist and the latter a physicalist; on the other hand both Popper and
Smart are realists, but the former is a dualist whereas the latter is a
monist. (Recall Table 1.2.)
A third feature to be noted is that most of the philosophies of mind are
sketchy and consequently subject to much unilluminating and inconclu-
sive hermeneutic controversy. (In such an argument, commentators or
critics A and B disagree about what author C "really wanted to say." On
the other hand, in a scientific controversy people disagree on the worth of
a research plan, or the reliability of a method, or the truth of a datum or a
theory-and they are supposed to produce some evidence for their
views.) Let us recall three important cases offuzzy philosophies of mind.
The great Aristotle's view on the mind-body problem was so imprecise
that we have been unable to place it in Table 1.2. (The same holds for
Kant's.) On the one hand he criticized Plato's idealism and nativism,
formulated an empiricist view of learning, and stated clearly that the
human mind has no independent existence but is the "form" of the body.
But on the other hand he filled the body with "animal spirits" and he
admitted the existence of supernatural entities. This ambiguity gave rise
to a split among his numerous followers. There were monists and crypto-
materialists like Theophrastus and Averroes, as well as dualists like Saint
Thomas Aquinas and most of the other schoolmen.
Another case of ambiguity is that of Lenin (1947), who believed himself
to be a materialist but tripped when he stumbled on the mind-body prob-
lem. In fact, he took the materialist philosopher J. Dietzgen to task for
holding that thought is material, and held instead that the mental is the
opposite of the material. He argued that, if this opposition were denied,
there would be no contrast between idealism and materialism. (It would
seem that in this case Lenin sacrificed materialism at the altar of dialec-
tics.) His influence on present-day Marxist philosophy is such that psy-
chophysical dualism seems to be the most popular philosophy of mind in
the nations where Marxist-Leninist philosophy prevails-as elsewhere.
Thus the renowned Soviet historian of psychology Jarochewski (1975, p.
168) rejects as "vulgar materialism" the thesis that "identifies conscious-
ness with physiological processes in the brain."
A third interesting instance of fuzziness is Popper's three worlds doc-
trine (Eccles & Robinson, 1985; Popper & Eccles, 1977). According to it,
reality is composed ofthree "worlds": World 1 (physical), World 2 (sub-
jective experience), and World 3 (culture). World 1 is material, World 2
immaterial, and World 3 a mixed bag of material objects, such as books,
and immaterial ones such as the "contents" of books. Worlds 1 and 2
interact (at the so far unidentified "liaison brain" according to Eccles);
and World 3, a product of World 2, reacts back on World 2. At no place in
their writings on this doctrine do Popper or his coworkers or followers
bother to elucidate (e.g., define) any of the key concepts occurring in the
10 1. Why Philosophy of Psychology?
new trinity. In particular, they do not tell us (a) what kind of objects their
"worlds" are: sets, variable collections, aggregates, or systems; (b) what
a mental state is-except that it is not the state of some concrete thing;
and (c) what the mechanism of the mind-body interaction could be-save
the suggestion that it might be a case of telekinesis.
Interactionist dualism is then as woolly today as it was when Descartes
(1649) explained it. (Actually it is even fuzzier, because Descartes stuck
out his neck and conjectured that the pineal gland was the meeting place
of mind and body, whereas Eccles is still in search of his' 'liaison brain. ")
What is clear about the Popper-Eccles philosophy of mind is this. First, it
is half-baked because its key concepts-notably those of world, mind,
and interaction-are undefined and it does not contain any precise hy-
potheses about the nature of mind or its alleged interaction with the brain.
Second, it violates "a fundamental tenet of physics," namely the princi-
ple of conservation of energy (because it postulates that immaterial mind
can move matter). Third, it violates a tacit assumption of all experimental
science, namely that the mind cannot act directly upon matter-for, if it
could, no instrument reading would be worth anything. Fourth, it as-
sumes that mental states and processes are unlike any other states and
processes, in that they are not states of things or processes in things-
whence it perpetuates the ontological anomaly of classical psychology.
Fifth, it is inconsistent with the tacit presupposition underlying physiolog-
ical psychology, namely that mental states are brain states. Sixth, it is
inconsistent with evolutionary biology, which acknowledges only mate-
rial things. Seventh, the doctrine calls for a bit of parapsychology, namely
the conjecture that the mind is to the brain as the performer to the piano
keyboard (Eccles's metaphor). Eighth, although the doctrine fits in nicely
with mainstream Christian theology, it has been used to accuse material-
ists of dogmatism and even of confusing their science with their religion
(Eccles & Robinson, 1985, p. 36).
Most but not all of the philosophies of mind are sketchy and vague.
Emergentist materialism and its scientific companion, psychobiology, are
fairly elaborate, include some mathematical models, and enjoy strong
experimental support. (See Bindra, 1976; Bunge, 1980, 1981; Dimond,
1980; Edelman & Mountcastle, 1978; Hebb, 1949, 1980; Milner, 1970;
Thompson, 1975; Vttal, 1978). Moreover, unlike dualism and idealistic
monism, emergentist materialism does not postulate the existence of an
immaterial stuff, that is, one exempt from natural law as well as inaccessi-
ble to experimental manipulation. In short, unlike dualism and idealistic
monism, emergentist materialism keeps psychology witbin the fold of
science instead of encouraging it to go back to philosophy or theology.
But, unlike eliminative materialism and physicalist or vulgar materialism,
emergentist materialism admits the specificity of the mental and, conse-
quently, the need to investigate it using the methods of psychology in
addition to those of neurophysiology. (See chap. 13.)
1.2. Philosophies of Mind II
even so with qualifications, for it holds that the mental is a very special
kind of biological process, and moreover one strongly influenced by social
circumstances.
Many materialists object to the strong or emergentist identity hypothe-
sis because they mistrust the notion of emergence, believing that it is a
remnant of obscurantism. (Some epistemologists are to be blamed for this
resistance, for they define an emergent property of a whole as one that
cannot be explained in terms of the parts of the whole and the interactions
among them.) We shall dispell these doubts in sections 3.4 and 5.3. Suffice
it now to recall that emergence is nothing but qualitative novelty, and as
such is pervasive on all levels of reality. In particular, it accompanies
every chemical synthesis and every evolutionary novelty. Indeed, things
endowed with new (emergent) qualities result from assembly or substitu-
tion processes as well as from speciation ones. What a single cell may not
be able to do, a system of cells may achieve; and what an organism of a
given species may be unable to perform, its remote descendants may be
able to do. The leveler will not find mental processes in the single neuron
or in the invertebrate; the emergentist will seek it in large cell assemblies
of the brains of higher vertebrates. Hence the leveler, not the emergentist,
opens the door to obscurantism, which thrives on gaps in science.
The goal of psychobiologists, in particular physiological psychologists,
is to identify the neural systems that control behavior, as well as those
whose specific activity is mental (e.g., affective, perceptual, intellectual,
or volitive). Consistent psychobiologists do not look for the neural "cor-
relates," "equivalents," "subservers," "embodiments," or "represen-
tations" of mental processes, for all this is dualistic talk. Instead, they
intend to discover the neural systems that discharge behavioral or mental
functions, much as the legs do the walking and the digestive tract does the
digesting.
For example, in a psychobiological perspective, perceiving and imagin-
ing are not "represented" in the brain but are brain activities; thinking is
not "equivalent" to a brain process of some kind but is identical with it;
and there is no neural system that "subserves" planning or gets "trans-
formed" into it: planning is identical with the specific activity or function
of certain neural systems. And in all these expressions the word 'identity'
means the same as in mathematics: a = b if and only if a and bare
different names for the same item. (Further, if a = b, then b = a, and if
a = band b = c, then a = c.)
The differences between the two identity hypotheses, and between
these and their rivals, are best realized by spelling them out with the help
of the notation of elementary logic. Let M, N, and P designate the predi-
cates "mental," "neural," and "physical" respectively. Further, call C
the causal relation, x and y events, and t and u instants of time. Finally, let
'fix and 3y symbolize the quantifiers' 'for all x" and' 'for some y" respec-
tively; let:::;' stand for "if . . . then," and 1\ and V for "and" and "or"
14 1. Why Philosophy of Psychology?
respectively. With this notation, the ten best known philosophies of mind
boil down to the following formulas:
Strong (emergentist) identity: Mental events are neural.
(\:fx)(\:ft) [Mxt :::} (3y)(Nyt /\ y = x] [1.1]
Weak (leveling) identity: Mental events are physical.
(\:fx)(\:ft) [Mxt :::} (3y)(Pyt /\ y = x)] [1.2]
Parallelism: Every mental event is accompanied by a synchronous neu-
ral event.
(\:fx)(\:ft) [Mxt :::} (3y)(Nyt /\ y :;fx)] [1.3]
Epiphenomenalism: Mental events are caused by neural ones.
'"
All real objects are material.
I
No real objects are material.
I
subaltern subaltern
I
IN IDEALISM ----compatible-----IMMATERIALISM
!
Some real objects are material. Some real objects are immaterial.
Note: For detailed discussions see Bunge (l967a. 1977a. 1979a. 1983a. 1983b. 1985a. 1985b).
this checking for himself and to look elsewhere (Bunge, 1977a, 1979a,
1983a, 1983b, 1985a, 1985b) for guidance.
1.6 Summing Up
Once upon a time psychology was a member of the philosophical family.
Toward the middle of the nineteenth century it suffered from the illusion
that it had become fully emancipated from philosophy. Now that its strug-
gle for independence is over, and that it is in the process of becoming a
mature science, it can afford to admit that, like any other science, psy-
chology is not disjoint from philosophy.
An examination of any ambitious psychological research project, or of
any psychological breakthrough, suggests that our science is shot through
and through with ontological, epistemological, and moral principles. In
particular, much research into mental phenomena presupposes some phi-
losophy of mind or other. And even more research of the same kind has
been avoided under the pressure of wrong philosophies of mind and of
science. Besides, some of the findings of psychological research ought to
be assimilated by philosophy for, after all, the problems of the nature of
mind, and of how best to study it, are of interest to both philosophy and
psychology.
The point, then, is not to renounce philosophy but to keep it under the
control of science, and to help it develop into a discipline capable of
actively advancing scientific knowledge.
CHAPTER 2
Our definition leaves out of the purview of psychology all of the animals
that are normally incapable of learning. These are the animals lacking a
nervous system or possessing one that is genetically predetermined or
"prewired," as a consequence of which their behavior is rigid. Such
animals compose the vast majority of animal phyla. Their behavior is
usually studied by zoologists and ethologists.
There is some evidence that a few invertebrates, notably bees and
octopi, can learn. However, the attribution of a learning ability (as of any
other ability) depends critically on the definition of "learning." If mere
change of behavior in altered environmental circumstances, for example,
habituation ("adaptation"), counts as learning, then even worms and sea
slugs (Aplysia) qualify as subjects of psychological research-otherwise
they do not. (We shall return to this matter in sections 7.2 and 9.1.)
Because there is no consensus on the definition of "learning, " there can
be none on whether or not invertebrates can learn. Pending a resolution of
this conceptual conflict over the definition of "learning," we may leave
the study of invertebrate behavior to the zoologists and ethologists till
new notice.
As for vertebrates, there is no doubt that all of the higher vertebrates,
namely mammals and birds, can learn, and therefore qualify as subjects of
psychological research. However, other classes, particularly fish, am-
phibians, and reptiles, should be looked into in more detail before disqual-
ifying them. Yet, as in the case of invertebrates, we may leave them for
now to the ethologists and zoologists. In short, the referents of psychol-
ogy are mammals and birds. But, as cautioned previously, this refers only
to current mainstream psychology.
Our definition of "psychology" excludes animal societies from the
referents of our science. The reason is that only individuals of certain
species are capable of learning, and even fewer of being in mental states.
Societies do not learn, feel, perceive, or think. To attribute to societies
psychological properties or abilities is just as mistaken as attributing them
biological properties or functions.
This is not to say that psychologists must ignore society. On the con-
trary, social psychologists are supposed to investigate social behavior,
the social conditioning of learning and mental functions, and the (indirect)
social consequences of ideation (e.g., planning). (See chapter 10.) Still,
the focus of psychology, be it individual or social, is the individual in its
natural or social environment, not society. Societies are studied by social
scientists, not by psychologists. Likewise, geologists study rocks, not the
atmosphere, even though they are also interested in the action of atmo-
spheric processes, such as rain and wind, on rocks. Their central referent
is the lithosphere, not the atmosphere. In like manner, societies are,
alongside natural habitats, the peripheral referents of psychology: the
central referents of the latter are individual animals capable of learning.
2.2. Referents of Psychology 29
other stimulus likely to arouse the will. They will vary the context and the
setup (e.g., placing the peanut in a box while the monkey is looking and
allowing him to reach for it only after a few minutes). All this and more
has got to be described: It is the raw material to be processed, the data to
be explained.
If the researchers are curious they will want to know what the particu-
lar neuromuscular mechanisms of voluntary movement are, and how they
are altered by drugs or by surgery. This will involve the use of more or
less invasive techniques, starting with myography. Nor will this suffice.
They will also wish to identify the neural systems in the frontal lobes that
control those neuromoscular mechanisms. And this will require implant-
ing electrodes in the regions of the brain suspected of effecting such
control.
Having found out the "seat" of will, the psychologists will try to trace
the drives, perceptions, imageries, memories, and expectations that trig-
ger or interfere with the animal's decision to reach for the peanut, or to
refrain from doing so. All this will require further training, electrode
recording, and testing. Finally, our curious psychologists will want to
know how the presence of conspecifics of the same or different sex, age,
and social status alters the process and, in particular, which additional
neural systems are activated (stimulated or inhibited) in such circum-
stances.
In sum, the curious psychologist (or rather the cross-disciplinary team
of curious psychologists) will investigate voluntary movement, or any
other psychological process, on various levels and freely trespass the
frontiers between the various subfields of our science. He or she will
attempt to integrate these subfields because the borders between them are
quite artificial: They have not been erected by the subject of study but by
psychological tradition. Only such integration on the basis of neurophysi-
ology can yield a reasonably complete (pro tempore) picture (description)
and, in addition, a plausible explanation in terms of mechanisms. (We
shall come back to integration in section 13.2.)
Let us insist on the artificiality of the division of psychology into sub-
fields. So far all attempts to classify adequately the various kinds of
behavior and mentation have failed. To be sure, one can distinguish per-
ception from imagery, locomotion from problem solving, and so on. But
there is no clear criterion lfundamentum divisionis) allowing one to parti-
tion the gamut of psychological phenomena in a neat and orderly fashion.
At most there are more or less vague laundry lists. One reason for this
failure may be that all psychological phenomena are mixtures, that
is, they have a number of aspects or components, mainly affective,
behavioral, sensory, and cognitive. In some cases one of these
components prevails whereas the others are far less prominent. But
in other cases, such as those of sensorimotor activities, two or more
components are equally important. For instance, if I am expecting an
2.4. Unification in Action 33
important telephone call, when I hear the phone ring I may rush to it
charged with emotion while at the same time imagining the face of my
expected interlocutor and anticipating the message that I am about to
receive. Such a process is at the same time affective, sensorimotor,
and cognitive.
We may then distinguish behavioral, affective, sensory, and cognitive
aspects, but we may not be able to separate them in all cases. This being
so, there is no partition of psychological phenomena into behavioral,
affective, sensory, and cognitive. The same holds for other proposed
partitions. (A partition of a set is like that of a pie: it is neat, that is, any
two subsets are mutually disjoint.) Hence a person who claims to be
studying, say, a cognitive phenomenon such as inferring, must be under-
stood as saying that he or she focuses on the cognitive aspect of that
phenomenon, feigning that the remaining aspects do not exist. This is just
a useful fiction-useful, that is, until proved otherwise. (See section 9.4
for the nefarious detachment of cognitive psychology from the remaining
departments of the science of behavior and mind.)
The ultimate reason for the impossibility of drawing clear demarcation
lines between the various psychological phenomena, hence between the
corresponding subfields of our science, is this: All psychological phenom-
ena are processes occurring in, or controlled by, the nervous system. And
the latter, though unitary, is composed of a large number of subsystems
intimately coupled to one another as well as to other body systems, such
as the muscular, the endocrine, the immune, and the cardiovascular ones.
Likewise, it would be impossible to understand in detail the motion of a
car if only the intention of its driver, or the mechanical aspect, or the
thermodynamic or the electrical one, were taken into account. An ade-
quate understanding of the car-driver-road system calls for attending to
all those aspects.
Finally, note that the proposed unification of psychology on the basis of
neuroscience is not the only logically possible one. There is an alternative
and far more popular proposal, namely to disregard the nervous system
altogether and construe every psychological phenomenon as an instance
of information processing (or computing). We shall examine this proposal
in section 5.4. Suffice it here to say that we reject it emphatically for
several reasons, among them the following. First, because, by ignoring
the nervous system, it cuts the link between psychology and neuro-
science, and thus fails to explain psychological phenomena. All it does
is to redescribe them in information-language terms. Second, because
the attempted reduction of the wonderful, qualitative variety of be-
havioral and mental phenomena to computation impoverishes psychology.
Psychology is not about general-purpose information processors but
about animals endowed with a nervous system that is the outcome of a
long evolutionary process, that goes through a developmental process,
that learns and unlearns, and sometimes-in the case of the higher
34 2. What Psychology Is About
error, and even fraud are absent from science, but that they can be discov-
ered and corrected. Scientific knowledge is not perfect but perfectible.
As for the subjectivist thesis that facts are not out there but are the
creatures of scientists, it has a grain of truth. In fact, the experimenter can
cause events that do not normally occur in nature. For example, he or she
can train a pigeon to discriminate among certain drawings, or an ape to
use rudiments of the American Sign Language. But such facts occur in the
real world: They are not figments of the scientist's imagination. It is also
true that artifacts can occur in experimental work, but they can eventually
be discovered and corrected for (e.g., by altering the experimental de-
sign). Scientists may alter the world in small ways but they do not create
it: They are born into it and they intend to account for it. On the other
hand, the primary concern of technologists is with controlling and even
remodeling reality. Yet both technologists and scientists admit more or
less tacitly the real existence of the external world. If they did not, they
would not undertake to study it, and they would not test their hypotheses
and their designs. Whether they know it or not, they are scientific realists
(Bunge, 1983b, 1985c).
The opponents of scientific psychology, and even a few practitioners of
it, complain that mainstream psychology neglects the individual. Some of
them go as far as to claim that individuals are so unique that there can be
no psychological laws. The first charge is justified insofar as there is no
science of the (unique) individual (Aristotle). But it is unjustified in that,
except for the universe as a whole, every individual, whether atom or
society, is similar to some other individuals in a number of respects while
at the same time possessing idiosyncrasies. (Were it not for such similari-
ties all general concepts would be idle.) Such similarities make it possible
to categorize (i.e., to group) different things into species, and to hypothe-
size laws satisfied by every member of a given species. True, such gener-
alizations may be suggested by the examination of a handful of cases, as
was usually the case with Piaget. But the test of any generalization calls
for the examination of a representative sample of the species (population).
Like any other science, psychology studies individuals as well as spe-
cies. It studies individuals in the hope of finding general patterns, and it
uses the latter to account for idiosyncrasies. There is a constant concep-
tual flux between individuals and species and conversely. But, whereas in
basic research the flux from individuals to species is strongest, in applied
science and technology the inverse current is strongest. Indeed, whereas
in the former the study of the individual is a means in the search for
pattern, in applications the pattern is a means to understand and treat the
individual. For example, the finding (law) that all cases of mental disorder
X are caused by deficiency of chemical Y would allow the psychiatrist to
treat individual cases of X with doses of Y.
As for the controversy over explanation, the situation in psychology is
as follows. Traditional positivists, all the way from Comte to the Vienna
36 2. What Psychology Is About
(c) a hypothesis or theory testable with the help of items of types (a)
or (b);
(3) alethically valid if X is a datum, prediction, hypothesis, or theory,
found to be sufficiently true by using methodologically valid items
(i.e., satisfying the previous condition);
(4) ecologically valid if X is of interest to more than the particular investi-
gator(s) who handle X, and X is relevant to real life situations;
(5) practically valid if it is both effective and efficient.
For example, whereas the neuropsychology of learning is valid on all
five counts, parapsychology has only some methodological validity, psy-
choanalysis and humanistic psychology only some ecological validity,
and philosophical psychology has none whatsoever. (See section 5.5 for a
methodological criticism of pop psychology.)
2.6 Summing Up
To sum up, psychology is supposed to study the behavior and mental life,
if any, of animals capable of learning. Such study has three cognitive
aims-description, explanation, and prediction-and one practical goal,
namely the treatment of behavioral and mental disorders. Our next ques-
tion is how best to attain these goals.
II
Until the turn of the century mental functions were widely regarded as
mysterious. There was even a theologico-philosophical industry of mental
mystery mongering. Its motto was ignoramus et ignorabimus: We ignore
and will always ignore what mind is. The echoes of this obscurantist
attitude can still be heard today.
Scientists dislike mysteries and miracles. They are after problems and
laws. So, as psychology developed into a science, the would-be mystery
of mind was gradually transformed into a system of more or less clearly
stated problems. Moreover, some of these problems have been solved at
least to a first approximation (e.g., those of motor control, of classical and
operant conditioning, and ofthe treatment of phobias and drug addiction).
Actually, even a few much bigger problems may be regarded as having
been solved once and for all (e.g., those of the very nature of mind, of the
existence of racial memories, and of the possibility of paranormal phe-
nomena such as precognition).
However, it would be foolish to deny that most psychological problems
remain unsolved, or have been solved only to a first approximation. For
example, we have only sketchy ideas about the mechanisms of vision,
thinking, and consciousness. In other sciences a few chapters have al-
ready been written in all essentials. For instance, nobody expects any
breakthroughs in trigonometry or in wave optics. Not so in psychology:
Here nearly everything remains to be done. It still is, and will remain so
for a long time, the land whose moving frontiers are in sight, so that even
beginners and serious amateurs can make contributions to it.
What has been accomplished in psychology over the past hundred
years or so is to be credited to some of their practitioners having adopted
the right approach and rejected a sterilizing tradition. This is the tradition
of philosophical psychology, divorced from biology, alien to both experi-
ment and mathematics, skeptical of the possibility of finding general pat-
terns of behavior and mentation, and sure that, mind being immaterial, it
could not possibly be studied scientifically. Let us examine the approach
44 3. Approaches to Behavior and Mind
that has made the progress of psychology possible, and contrast it to some
of its alternatives.
3.1 Approach
In this section we shall analyze the concept of an approach. (For details
see Bunge, 1983a). To put it roughly and metaphorically, an approach is a
way of looking at things (e.g., people) or ideas (e.g., conjectures), and
therefore also of handling problems concerning them. This loose charac-
terization will shortly be replaced with a formal definition.
We shall distinguish eight broad types of approach to the study and
handling of things or ideas: the vulgar, empirical, doctrinaire, and human-
istic; and the mathematical, scientific, applied, and technological.
The vulgar approach rests on ordinary knowledge, tackles both basic
and practical problems, is mainly interested in practical results, and em-
ploys exclusively procedures from daily life, in particular routines and
trial and error. The empirical approach rests on both ordinary knowledge
and the knowledge gained in the practice of some art or craft, tackles only
practical problems, is interested exclusively in practical results, and em-
ploys procedures from both daily life and artisanal practice. The doctri-
naire approach rests on some rigid doctrinal body (e.g., an ideology or a
pseudoscience), tackles both basic and practical problems, is primarily
interested in practical problems (including the defense of the doctrine),
and resorts to authority, criticism, and argument. The humanistic ap-
proach is based on the body of knowledge concerning human culture,
handles cognitive problems concerning intellectual and artistic prob-
lems, aims at understanding its referents, and uses primarily heuristic
methods.
The mathematical approach is characterized by a formal basis (logic
and mathematics), formal problems, the aim of finding patterns and con-
structing theories, and conceptual methods, in particular the method of
formal proof. The approach of basic science rests on a fund of mathemati-
cal and experimental knowledge, as well as on a scientific worldview, it
deals with basic problems, aims ultimately at understanding and forecast-
ing facts with the help of laws and data, and employs scientific methods,
in particular the scientific method. The approach of applied science
shares the basis and methods of basic science, but is restricted to special
basic problems, and aims at supplying part of the cognitive basis of tech-
nology. Finally, the technological approach is like that of applied science,
but its basis includes also the fund of technological knowledge, its prob-
lems are practical, and its aim is the control of natural systems as well as
the design of artificial ones.
In general, an approach (Sl) may be defined as a body B of background
knowledge together with a collection P of problems (problematics), a set
3.2. Atomism. Holism. and Systemism 45
science, and the atomistic methodics boils down to analysis into compo-
nents (or the top-down method). Examples: associationist psychology
and faculty psychology.
The holistic (or synthetic) approach rests on a holistic or organismic
ontology, according to which the world is an organic whole that may be
decomposed into large partial wholes that are not further decomposable.
This ontology comes together with an intuitionistic epistemology accord-
ing to which such ultimate wholes must be accepted and grasped as such
(on their own level) rather than analyzed and tampered with. The goal of
holism is to emphasize and conserve wholeness and emergence (the quali-
tative novelties that accompany the formation of some wholes); and its
method (or rather nonmethodical procedure) is often intuition rather than
reason or experiment. Examples: the view that the brain is an undifferen-
tiated (unstructured) whole, and Gestalt psychology.
Finally, the systemic (or system-theoretic) approach rests on a systemic
ontology according to which the world is a system composed of subsys-
tems belonging to different levels, and an epistemology that recommends
combining reason with experience in order to understand the formation
and dismantling of systems in terms of their components, the interactions
among these, and the environment. The aims of systemism, like those of
science and technology, are description, understanding, prediction, and
control. Its methodics includes analysis as well as synthesis (in both cases
conceptual and empirical), generalizing and systematizing (in particular
mathematical modeling), and empirical testing (of hypotheses, theories,
and methods). Examples: the view that the brain is a system composed of
mutually interacting subsystems, and the hypothesis that every mental
process has affective and cognitive components, as well as sensorimotor,
visceral, and endocrine concomitants.
Because every approach is in part characterized by its own problem-
atics (section 3.1), each of the just mentioned approaches can handle only
certain problems. Thus the atomistic approach can tackle only questions
regarding individual behavior: Because it does not admit the existence of
wholes with emergent properties, it sees no point in looking for patterns
of global behavior (i.e., for laws of systems as wholes or units, such as the
so-called molar laws of perception). Likewise, the problem system of
holism is limited. It is hardly interested in finding out, say, the details of
the long chain of events triggered by a visual stimulus and ending up in the
experiencing of an image. By contrast, systemism retains the positive
aspects of atomism and holism; it studies both the whole and its parts, and
it admits the occurrence of emergence, or qualitative novelty, as well as
the possibility of explaining it. Therefore, of the three approaches sys-
temism is the one that best fits in with the scientific approach. Actually
the latter includes the former.
We shall now introduce a completely general model of concrete sys-
tems of any kind, living or nonliving. Call Cf6(s,t) the composition, ~(s,t)
3.2. Atomism, Holism, and Systemism 47
~~~~~~~
~EJ@EJ@88
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (9)
FIGURE 3.1. Differences among systems resulting from changes in their composi-
tion, environment, or structure. (a) Different composition, same environment and
structure; (b) different structure, same environment and structure; (c) different
environment, same composition and structure; (d) different composition and
structure, same environment; (e) different composition and environment, same
structure; (j) different structure and environment, same composition; (g) different
composition, environment, and structure.
48 3. Approaches to Behavior and Mind
concept of scientific research. (See, e.g., Bunge, 1967a, 1983b.) The mo-
ment a domain offacts is declared lawless, it is placed beyond the reach of
science and within the province of mythology or religion.
Not all philosophers have remained content with adopting some scraps
of vulgar, empirical, doctrinaire, or humanistic psychology. Some ofthem
have tried their hand at armchair psychologizing, in recent years particu-
larly of the information-processing kind. The outcome has a been a num-
ber of philosophical psychologies, most of them tacitly or explicitly dual-
istic. (See e.g., Dennett, 1978; Haugeland, 1981; Hofstadter & Dennett,
1981; Pears, 1975; Popper & Eccles, 1977; Searle, 1983.) There is of
course nothing wrong with speCUlating about matters of fact: Without
speculation we would have neither science nor technology. But specula-
tion, to be fruitful, must be disciplined or sound, not wild; it must be
testable (at least in principle) and it must be compatible with the bulk of
our scientific background knowledge (Bunge, 1983c). Thus it is unprofit-
able to speculate on worlds other than our own and with which we could
never exchange any signals. It is equally unprofitable to speculate
on minds that could be neither studied nor modified by experimental
means.
Regrettably, most philosophical speculations and many philosophical
arguments about behavior and mind are wild. Thus one well-known objec-
tion to the psychoneural identity hypothesis is that there can be no such
identity, for genuine (or "necessary") identities hold "in all possible
worlds"-whatever these may be. And it might be the case that, in a
world other than ours, minds have nothing to do with brains, just as heat
might not be the same as random atomic or molecular motion (Kripke,
1971). Those psychophysical dualists who have realized that postulating
interactions between mind and brain would involve a violation of the
principle of conservation of energy have persuaded themselves that this
should be no cause for worry because, after all, that principle might tum
out to be false (e.g., Popper & Eccles, 1977). Still others (e.g., Broad,
1949), anxious to defend parapsychology and realizing that telepathy,
precognition, telekinesis, and the like would violate all the ontological
principles underlying modem science (section 1.4), have said frankly: So
much the worse for those principles.
The authors of such wild speculations expect to be taken seriously.
Occasionally, when they are not, they get angry and abusive (e.g., Met-
zinger, 1985). But why should one take them seriously at a time when
behavior and mind are being studied scientifically with some success?
Philosophical psychology need not be taken more seriously than philo-
sophical bacteriology or philosophical metallurgy if there were such.
Speculative metaphysics lost the right to exist the moment modem sci-
ence became established three centuries ago. Now is the time for scien-
tific metaphysics (Bunge, 1971, 1977a).
3.4. Toward a Scientific Psychology 51
Mentalism
Background
Mentalism, which is very much in evidence in contemporary cognitive
psychology, can be scientific or nonscientific. If the former, its B will not
contain the views that minds are disembodies entities, or that they can
interact with bodies, for these are at best untestable dogmas without any
empirical support. Only nonscientific mentalism contains these wild spec-
ulations; and, not being scientific, it makes no use ofthe scientific method
to test them. Scientific mentalists need not take sides in the mind-body
controversy: one may just declare that he or she is only interested in
discovering, describing, and explaining mental events. The scientific men-
talist's B is made up of a number of the ontological, epistemological, and
moral principles underlying any mature science (section 1.3). An impor-
tant exception is Principle 02, "The world is composed exclusively of
things (concrete objects)." In fact, if the mentalist psychologist is com-
mitted to some version of psychophysical dualism, he or she will explic-
itly reject that principle. But whether he or she will be able to do scientific
research on disembodied minds, is another matter. Actually, if the men-
talist psychologist proceeds scientifically he or she will handle exclusively
concrete things, even though he or she may adopt dualism while theoriz-
ing. The Wiirzburg school was a good example of such double talk (see
Marx & Hillix, 1973). (Double standards are not infrequent in science:
Consistency is hard to come by.) As for the morality of mentalist investi-
gators, in principle it can be as strict as any. However, being methodolog-
ically naive, they are more exposed to self-deception and dogmatism than
others. Finally, mentalism has no specific scientific background to speak
of; in particular, it makes no use of mathematics (except perhaps some
rudimentary statistics) and biology. In this regard, that is, in its isolation
from other fields of knowledge, it resembles pseudoscience and ideology.
In short, the background of mentalism is extremely small; it is literally
nearly groundless.
Problematics
Mentalists make a point of showing that, unlike others, they tackle most if
not all of the traditional problematics of psychology. This is certainly the
main virtue of mentalism. Regrettably, this problematics is rather narrow:
It disregards most of the problems about behavior and about the neural
"correlates" of mental processes.
3.4. Toward a Scientific Psychology 53
Aims
The declared aim of mentalism is to describe and understand human
mentality. The most progressive among the mentalists, in particular the
members of the Gestalt school, have searched for patterns (laws). In fact,
they have found a handful of generalities of a qualitative kind. But, be-
cause they disregard both overt behavior and the nervous system, they
cannot find any precise quantitative regularities.
Methodics
Nonscientific mentalism is typically speculative, metaphorical, dogmatic,
nonexperimental, and nonmathematical. On the other hand, scientific
mentalism, as practiced by Wundt and his successors, is sober and partly
experimental. However, its main method is introspection, which is hardly
an instance of the experimental method. And practically the only piece of
apparatus needed to do experimental mentalistic psychology is a stop-
watch. Such modest equipment looks medieval by comparison with the
sophisticated electronic paraphernalia found in a behavioral or neuro-
physiological laboratory .
Behaviorism
Background
The general outlook or world view of behaviorism is thoroughly naturalis-
tic; in particular, it denies the existence of an immaterial mind. But the
outlook is narrow because it discounts nonbehavioral phenomena such as
emotion, imagination, and consciousness. The epistemology of behavior-
ism is realistic, for it endeavors to account for an aspect of reality, the
existence of which it admits the moment it demands that research be
objective. However, this realism is rather primitive because it shuns hy-
pothetical constructs such as desire and intention. Behaviorism can make
do with a primitive epistemology because it avoids deep hypotheses and
theories (i.e., constructs that do not represent immediately observable
features). Moreover, it deals only with molar events, such as the organ-
ism's response to the nth presentation of a stimulus of a certain kind.
Finally, it makes no reference to mental states or, ifit does, it attempts to
handle them exclusively by means of intervening variables-intervening,
that is, between stimulus and response. On the other hand, the morality of
behavioristic basic research is strict. We should be grateful to the found-
ers of behaviorism for having introduced such a rigorous code of conduct
into psychology, where illusion and deception (usually unwitting) were
not uncommon. Finally, the specific background of behaviorism is ra-
ther narrow; although it makes some use of mathematics (in particular
54 3. Approaches to Behavior and Mind
of the probability calculus), it makes none of biology. Its main link with
science is by way of output, not input: It consists in the contributions
it has made to the scientific description of molar animal and human
behavior.
Problema tics
The problematics of behaviorism is complementary to that of mentalism;
it is exclusively interested in behavior, and uninterested in mind. There
would be nothing wrong with this restriction if behavior could be satisfac-
torily understood without making hypotheses about neural mechanisms,
motivation, expectation, and all that. The curious scientist cannot re-
main satisfied with finding out that a rat is willing to undergo a mild
electric shock in exchange for the possibility of exploring its surround-
ings. But asking whys is forbidden in the land of behaviorism: Only de-
scriptions of phenomena and their relations are permitted there. At most,
halfway explanations are allowed, such as "Animal A produced response
R on cue S because A was conditioned to associate S with R." The
curious scientist wishes to find out the mechanism of such conditioning;
this will lead him or her to inquire into the corresponding neural mecha-
nism-which is out of bounds for the behaviorist.
Aims
The aims of behaviorism are to describe, predict, and control animal and
human behavior. The description is supposed to include general (cross-
specific) laws of behavior, in particular oflearning. Explanation is written
off for either or both of two reasons. First, because it is not regarded as
possible or even desirable. Second, because any correct explanation of
overt behavior is to be sought in the neuromuscular apparatus and, in the
case of higher vertebrates, also in the brain mechanisms that control that
apparatus. Trying to understand behavior solely on the strength of obser-
vations of behavior is like trying to understand television by looking at the
screen and abstaining from theorizing about electromagnetic waves and
electrons.
Methodics
The methodics of behaviorism is as scientific and as narrow as its aims. It
employs observation, measurement, experiment, and statistics, all of
which is fine. But it is narrow because it rejects theorizing or restricts it to
the construction of models involving only stimuli, responses, and inter-
vening variables. These models are superficial because they are of the
black box type, such as classical thermodynamics. Moreover, they are in
line with the Aristotelian conception of change, according to which the
cause (stimulus) suffices to produce, and thus explain, the effect (re-
3.4. Toward a Scientific Psychology 55
sponse) regardless of the inner structure and state of the system. A nar-
row background suggests a narrow problematics and a narrow range of
aims, which in turn calls for a narrow methodics. The harvest is meager
compared to the enormous effort invested in the design and execution of
experiments over the better part of our century.
Psychobiology
Background
Psychobiology adopts the full scientific world view summarized in section
1.3, plus the identity hypothesis that mental processes are brain pro-
cesses. Because it makes use of mathematics-albeit on a rather mo-
dest scale for the time being-we may count mathematics too in its
background. And, of course, it is based on biology, in particular neuro-
science, which in turn presupposes chemistry and physics. In short,
psychobiology has the broadest basis of all three approaches. For this
reason it is the one most firmly entrenched in the system of scientific
knowledge.
Problematics
The problematics of psychobiology is the full range of behavioral and
mental facts. It excludes no problem of this kind that can be handled
scientifically, not even the problems of the nature of consciousness and
free will. Hence the problematics of psychobiology includes that of be-
haviorism and a large part of that of mentalism. It drops some of the
problems of mentalistic psychology, such as where the mind goes in deep
sleep or in coma, or at death. But on the other hand, it adds the entire
problematics of developmental and evolutionary biology, which mental-
ism had ignored. In particular, it asks at which stage in individual devel-
opment consciousness starts, and poses problems about the origins of
cerebrallateralization, language, and rationality.
Aims
The aims of psychobiology are those of behaviorism and more. Indeed,
in addition to describing behavior, psychobiologists attempt to explain
it in neurobiological terms. However, this task has only begun. The
ultimate aim of psychobiology must be the building of theories, both
broad (general) and narrow (specific) ones capable of explaining and
predicting behavioral and mental facts in biological terms. We need not
just descriptive theories, but theories capable of explaining behavior and
subjective experience as processes involving the nervous system and
possibly other systems as well-preferably theories formulated mathe-
matically.
56 3. Approaches to Behavior and Mind
Methodics
Unlike mentalism, which is short on measurement, and unlike behavior-
ism, which is short on theory, psychobiology makes full use of the scien-
tific method: problem-hypothesis (or, even better, theory)-logical pro-
cessing-empirical operation-inference-evaluation of hypothesis (or
theory)-new problem-and so on. Unlike mentalism, which records (in-
trospectively or by questioning) mental phenomena, and behaviorism,
which pays no attention to them, psychobiology is in a position to monitor
and alter mental processes in a direct manner because it identifies them
with processes in the brain. It is then in a position to make full use of the
experimental method, which can nowadays be implemented by a number
of sophisticated and accurate techniques. In fact, psychobiology employs
not only the methodics of neuroscience but also the methods invented by
the psychophysicists and behaviorists, and even introspection. (The latter
is useless for testing purposes but it is indispensable as a source of infor-
mation and even insight.)
In conclusion, we note a progressive movement toward the constitution
of psychology as a full-fledged science: from mentalism to behaviorism to
psychobiology. This movement has been accompanied by a shift in the
underlying philosophies, namely from idealism to positivism to natural-
ism. The mentalist and the behaviorist approaches proved to be deficient
by having excessively narrow backgrounds, particularly in borrowing
very little from other fields of knowledge. The strongest point of mental-
ism is its problematics, that of behaviorism its methodics. The aim of
mentalism is grandiose but unattainable with introspection and armchair
speculation alone. On the other hand, the aim of behaviorism is far too
modest-whence its meager achievements relative to its research effort.
The biological approach to behavior and mind shares the virtues but not
the shortcomings of its predecessors. It has the broadest background, it
handles the vastest problematics, it has the most ambitious aims, and it
makes full use of the scientific method. For these reasons the inception of
psychobiology must be counted among the great scientific revolutions of
this century. And, like every other scientific revolution, far from erasing
its predecessors it has incorporated whatever valid elements they contrib-
uted. (See Bunge 1983b, chap. 13, sect. 3, for the concepts of epistemic
evolution and revolution.)
research, and they are committed to moral guidelines, deriving from the
Hippocratic oath, that do not apply to animal research. However, these
differences do not prevent applied psychology from being scientific or
from interacting vigorously with basic research.
3.6 Summing Up
One and the same item of psychological interest may be approached in a
number of ways, some of which are mutually compatible. The crucial
distinction between approaches is that between the scientific and the
nonscientific ones. But it is not the only one; we must also reckon with the
holistic, the atomistic, and the systemist approaches.
This century has seen a progression from mentalism to behaviorism to
psychobiology. This movement has been accompanied by a shift in the
underlying philosophies-idealism, positivism, and naturalism (material-
ism) respectively. It has also been accompanied by a shift from holism to
atomism to systemism. The upshot has been an increase in methodologi-
cal rigor as well as a broadening in background, problematics, and aims,
all of which has enhanced the scientific status of psychology.
These changes have not consisted in total replacements, ruptures epis-
temoiogiques, or scientific revolutions a la Bachelard (1938), Kuhn
(1962), or Feyerabend (1975). Instead, they have been phases in an evolu-
tionary process that has conserved some features of the research enter-
prise while altering others. There is no science without some tradition.
The point is not to destroy tradition but to promote its evolution.
CHAPTER 4
Methodology
other hand, the sophistication of some of the new techniques calls for the
formation of specialists in a single technique. This development is not
healthy because the point of having multiple access to a domain of facts is
to look at it from different angles and to check the results of one proce-
dure with the help of another. As it is, the specialist in mental testing
tends to overlook the results of the EEG expert, who in turn may ignore
those of the psychopharmacologist, and so on. Some methodological re-
flection would teach researchers that they should not allow any technique
to dictate their ideas, for techniques are supposed to be means, not goals.
Some of the methodological problems faced by psychologists are em-
pirical, such as how to obtain information from a given region of the brain;
others are conceptual, such as how to compare two rival theories.
Whether empirical or conceptual, every problem about method tackled by
psychologists is bound to share some features with problems in other
sciences. Consequently both the methodics and the methodology of psy-
chology have a general part-common to all of the factual sciences-and
a specific one, peculiar to psychology. For example, the problems of
characterizing measurements and theories in general belong to general
methodology, whereas the questions of defining concepts denoting mental
abilities, and of devising objective indicators of the latter, belong in the
special methodology of psychology.
In this chapter we shall only sample the rich general methodics of
science and, in particular, that of psychology. (For the former see Bunge,
1967a, 1967b, 1983a, 1983b; for the latter see Bredenkamp & Feger, 1983;
Sarris, 1986.)
4.1 Method
A method is a prescription for doing something, that can be formulated in
an explicit manner. It is a rule, or set of rules, for proceeding in an orderly
fashion toward a goal. A method can then be formalized as an ordered n-
tuple every member of which describes one step of the procedure: First
do this, then that, and so on. (Contemplation, intuition, and guessing are
procedures but not methodical ones because they are not rule-directed.)
Introspection, or self-observation, is a good example of a procedure
that passes for a method without being one. It has occasionally been
claimed that introspection does not even exist for, strictly speaking, it is
impossible to turn one's gaze inward. But this is sophistry. There is no
denying that we can register and examine some of our own mental pro-
cesses: What else is consciousness? However, such monitoring and re-
flection are haphazard, not methodical, even though they can be some-
what disciplined. (Guessing, seducing, and other activities can be
educated, but there are no methods for carrying them out successfully.) In
short, introspection exists even though there is no such thing as the intro-
64 4. Methodology
4.2 Observation
The oldest, and still most basic, of all data-gathering procedures is obser-
vation. Observation can be casual or methodical. If the latter, it can be
scientific or nonscientific. A scientific observation is one conducted in an
TABLE 4.1. Three typical problem types in psychology.
Step Empirical problem: measure Theoretical problem: explain Practical problem: treat patients
I What is the value of X? Why does X have the value x? How can the value of X be altered?
2 Which is the measured value of X to within Which premises entail that the value of X is What kind of treatment is capable of alter-
error e? x? ing the values of X?
3 Does experimental arrangement Y help to Do theory Y, subsidiary hypotheses h, and Is treatment Yeffective in altering the
measure X with error less than e? data d imply that the value of X is x? values of X?
N
"""
4 Perform measurement of X with means Y. If Compute the value of X with the help of Y, Use treatment Y. Should there be no im-
the result is implausible, go to Step 5, h, and d. If the result is inadequate, go to provement, go to Step 5, otherwise to 7. ocr"
otherwise to 7. Step 5, otherwise to 7. CJ)
(1)
5 Design new technique Y'. Invent new theory Y' or new subsidiary Design new treatment Y'. :2
hypotheses h'. ~
6 Use Y' to measure X. Compute the value of X with the help of Y' Employ treatment Y' in a pilot study. O·
:::I
and h'.
7 What does the outcome of Step 6 imply or suggest?
8 Evaluate the new results. If they are unsatisfactory go to Step 9, otherwise to 10.
9 Look for systematic errors, and correct Look for possible sources of error, and Look for flaws in the design or the test of
them. correct them. Y', and correct them.
10 How does the new result affect knowledge or practice, and what new problems does it pose?
~
68 4. Methodology
group B. The result of averaging over the two groups is y = 0.) For these
reasons the case study or idiographic method is now coming back, though
with a vengeance. In fact, it is experimental rather than exclusively obser-
vational, quantitative rather than qualitative, and it uses finer categories,
sometimes exemplified by a single subject (Shallice, 1979).
The second feature of clinical studies that we pointed out is incomplete-
ness. Normally the patient is a newcomer to the clinic. The psychologist
(or neurologist) does not have a reliable record of the patient's behavioral
and mental abilities before the onset of the disorder ("pathology").
Hence he or she cannot evaluate the patient's behavioral or mental deficit
except by comparison with normal subjects of the same category (age
group, sex, educational background, etc.) and, consequently, may be led
to believe that the patient has a pronounced deficit of a given kind, with-
out being able to ascertain whether the patient had the same deficit,
though perhaps in a less pronounced manner, long before he or she was
seen at the clinic.
Even a knowledge of the initial and final state of the patient is insuffi-
cient, because it does not tell us anything about the time pattern of the
disease or treatment for different groups of patients. Such patterns must
be known because different patients respond differently to apparently
identical insults as well as to one and the same treatment. For example,
drugs have different effects on different patients, if only because no two
subjects have exactly the same metabolism or come to the clinic in ex-
actly the same state. For these reasons it is desirable to combine case
studies not only with statistical techniques but also with time series analy-
ses (Keeser & Bullinger, 1984).
Having emphasized the limitations of observation, and particularly of
the spotty observations conducted in the clinic or the hospital ward, let us
now note the indispensable role of studies of behavior in natural settings
such as the home, the school, the workplace, the club, or the street
corner. In such natural settings the subject is less likely to wear a
"mask," is not particularly anxious, and faces real-life problems rather
than the problems invented by the experimenter. In such situations it is
possible to watch the way the subject behaves most of the time: when
alone or in his or her relations with relatives, friends, coworkers, supervi-
sors, strangers, and so on. The problematics tackled by field studies is
thus richer and less arbitrary than the one accessible in the laboratory, or
even the clinic or the hospital ward. See Table 4.2.
The problem with field studies is that they are hard to conduct in a
scientific manner, because the student can hardly measure, much less
control, the relevant variables. The use of hidden cameras and the collab-
oration of confederates, well-known techniques in social psychology,
may be necessary but is insufficient. Unless some behavioral and physio-
logical variables are controlled in artificial settings, the results will be
ambiguous. To be of scientific value, naturalistic studies should corne at
70 4. Methodology
the beginning and at the end of research cycles that include experimental
stages. At the start, to supply problems and data; at the end, to test the
hypotheses conceived in an attempt to solve the problems, and to provide
new data, particularly those gathered in the laboratory or the clinic to
check the hypotheses. In short, field and clinical studies supplement
rather than rival experimental research. (For the characteristics and prob-
lematics of field research see Tunnell, 1977; Patry, 1982.)
So much for the observation of others. What about self-observation, or
introspection, a major tool of classical psychology? Behaviorists and
neobehaviorists have vigorously criticized the use of introspection in psy-
chology. Some of them have gone to the extreme of denying its existence,
arguing that a person cannot observe that which is doing the observing.
This would be true only if there were no parallel thought processes-but
there are. The truth is that introspection provides neither the best nor the
worst access to the mind. It is as indispensable as it is imperfect. Let us
explain.
Among the valid criticisms of introspection we find the following. First,
introspection is a procedure but not a rule-directed one: It is not a method
proper in the sense of section 4.1. Second, introspective data are unrelia-
ble. For example, reports on motives for certain deeds are just as suspect
as memories of episodes in the distant past. Third, many psychologically
relevant data are unavailable to introspection for not being conscious.
4.3. Measurement 71
4.3 Measurement
Measurement is quantitative observation, or the observation of quantita-
tive properties such as frequencies and concentrations. Therefore a me-
thodical treatment of measurement must start with quantitation, or the
formation of quantitative concepts (such as that of distance) representing
quantitative properties (such as that of separation).
Most properties come in degrees or intensities, objective, such as volt-
age, or subjective, such as pain intensity. Call S the collection of such
degrees, and assume that it is simply ordered by a relation:::;). That is, if x
and yare in S, then either x :::;) y or y :::;) x, and both statements hold just in
case x - y. For many purposes this comparative concept is insufficient,
and we are required to form a quantitative one. We achieve this by map-
ping S on to a set T of numbers in such a way that (a) each degree
(member of S) is assigned a single number in T, and (b) the order in S is
preserved in its numerical image T. In short, the quantitation of S consists
in introducing a mapping or function M from S to T, or M: S ~ T for
short, where T is included in the real line, and such that, for any x and yin
S, x ;:$ y if, and only if M(x)s M(y). Any function M with these charac-
teristics is called a magnitude.
(In general, it is possible to form different magnitudes representing one
and the same property: Think of the different temperature scales. More-
over, in general, the domain S of M is not made up of single items but of n-
tuples, such as (a, b, c, d), where a and b name physical objects, c a
reference frame, and d a distance unit. In other words, in general, the
domain S of M is the Cartesian product of certain sets. For example, the
72 4. Methodology
4.4 Experiment
We all know what an experiment is, namely an observation or measure-
ment involving a controlled change in some of the features of the object
being studied. We also know that the goal of an experiment can be to find
new facts or to test a hypothesis-or both. However, the evidence sug-
gests that many psychologists make blunders in the design or in the inter-
pretation of experiments, because they overlook the conceptual basis of
every experiment. A few examples will suffice to confirm this claim.
Tversky and Kahneman (1971) found that a large percentage of psy-
chologists commit the gambler's fallacy, believing, for example, that the
regular sequence HTHTHT of coin tossings is more probable than
HHHHHH. Others believe that any sample, regardless of size and mode
of obtainment, will do. Still others believe that computer simulations are
experiments, whence computers could replace laboratories. And many
attempts to teach monkeys and apes to perform certain cognitive tasks
failed for not posing the question to the animal "in a way that was mean-
ingful or worth the animal's effort [. . . J so that it might be missing the
point of the experiment" (Weiskrantz, 1977, p. 432). For example, it had
been assumed that, unlike human infants, monkeys are incapable of
cross-modal matching. But when offered chow prepared into different
shapes, some tasty and others adulterated with quinine and sand, the
monkeys that had tried the morsels in the dark, using only their sense of
touch, were able to recognize them in the light (Cowey & Weiskrantz,
1975). Given the importance of the assumptions underlying any experi-
ment, it will be useful to examine this matter.
4.4. Experiment 77
CONCEPTUAL
CONTROLS
~
Hypotheses .
Methods . EXPERIMENTAL
New data
Data .. SET·UP
t
EXPERIMENTAL
CONTROLS
(4) Randomness: All the variables involved in the experiment are subject
to some random fluctuation, both intrinsic and due to external pertur-
bations. (Otherwise we would be unable to explain the statistical scat-
ter of many results.)
(5) Insulation: Objects other than the object of experiment, the experi-
menter, and his or her experimental means, can be neutralized or at
least monitored during the experiment. (Otherwise no significant
changes could be attributed exclusively to changes in the control vari-
ables.)
(6) Disturbances or artifacts: It is always possible to correct to some
extent, either empirically or theoretically, for the "artifacts," distur-
bances, or contaminations caused by the experimental procedures. (If
such partial corrections were impossible we could not legitimately
claim that the thing for us-as it appears to us-resembles closely the
thing in itself, such as it is when not subjected to experiment.)
(7) No psi: It is always possible to design experiments in a manner such
that the experimenter's mental processes exert no direct influence on
the outcome of the experiment. That is, the experimenter can be
shielded or uncoupled from the experimental setup, so that his or her
bodily and in particular brain processes do not alter the experimental
results. (Otherwise the outcome of the experiment could be produced
at the experimenter's whim, and the experimenter would be testing
nothing but his or her own mental, for instance, psychokinetic, abili-
ties.)
(8) Explicability: It is always possible to justify (explain), at least in out-
line, how the experimental setup works, (i.e., what it does). In other
words, it is possible to form a conceptual model of the experimental
device using well-confirmed hypotheses and data. (Otherwise we
would be unable to draw any conclusions.)
every thing interacts with some other things. Sixth, the condition (6)
regarding environmental disturbances and experimental "artifacts"
makes it possible to retain objectivity even while altering the object of
experimentation. Seventh, the no-psi condition (7) suggests that believers
in psychokinesis, if consistent, should have no faith in their own experi-
ments. Finally, the condition (8) of explicability is a requirement of ration-
ality: Scientists should pay no heed to blind manipulation. In other words,
one must know a lot before proceeding to design and perform an experi-
ment. Consequently experiment cannot be the ultimate source of knowl-
edge.
The last point is related to the problem of choice of experimental ani-
mal. Experimenters have an understandable tendency to choose animal
preparations that are easily accessible and comparatively easy to work
on, such as the neurons of Aplysia for being large and specialized, squid
axons for being long and tough, rats because they are aplenty and compar-
atively easy to train, Japanese macaques for being sedate and coopera-
tive, and college students for being abundant and easy to communicate
with.
However, the choice of experimental animal should also be guided by
some idea of what kind of thing one would like to find, and what kind of
means might do the trick. Thus, if one wishes to investigate cognitive
processes one may start working on people because of the advantage of
language, but if one wishes to perform electrophysiological measurements
below the scalp, and a fortiori if one wishes to make lesions on normal
animals, one will have to switch to nonhuman primates for ethical rea-
sons. However, it is unintelligent and immoral to tamper with animal
welfare by applying invasive stimuli in a haphazard way. Blind manipula-
tion is alchemy, not science. Science is empirical but not empiricist: Ideas
play in it as important a role as experiences.
Experiment is neither the alpha nor the omega of science; it lies right in
the middle of it, as a synthesis of experience and reason. Experiment is
most useful when designed with the help of some items of scientific
knowledge and when yielding data that will either motivate the invention
of new ideas, or that can be fed into existing theories for the purpose of
explanation, prediction, or testing. However, one can often learn even
from experiments that fail to yield any conclusive results; at least one can
learn that there was a flaw in the design or in the execution. Unsuccessful
experiments are thus more valuable than no experiments at all-that is,
provided they are analyzed with the intention of improving on their design
or execution.
However, there are antiexperimental schools in psychology, notably
psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology. The antiexperimentalist of-
fers several reasons for this attitude: that you cannot measure the imma-
terial soul, that there are no laws of behavior or mentation to be found
(e.g., because no two individuals are identical, or because no experimen-
80 4. Methodology
tal situation can be exactly replicated), or that you must not manipulate
people. The real motive, though, is a deep mistrust of the scientific atti-
tude combined with a bookish attitude towards learning. In any event,
what little solid knowledge of behavior and mentation we do have has
been obtained with the help of experiment. (See e.g., Estes, 1979; Par-
ducci & Sarris, 1984.)
Let us finally dispel a dangerous mistake that has become popular
among those who take literally the brain-computer analogy. We refer to
the belief that computer programs are experiments, whence computer
simulation can replace authentic laboratory experiment on real animals or
people. Thus Newell and Simon (1981, p. 36) have claimed, "Every new
machine that is built is an experiment. . . . Each new program that is
built is an experiment." They do not say just that one can tryout, or
"experiment" with, every new release of the computer industry, but that
every artifact of this kind, whether hardware or software, is an experi-
ment proper. This is a serious mistake because, whereas genuine experi-
ments yield more data than they consume, computer programs are insatia-
ble data guzzlers; and, whereas the former allow us to test hypotheses,
computer programs use both explicit and tacit hypotheses. The mistake is
dangerous because it is a tacit invitation to replace laboratories with
computers, experimentalists with programmers, and the scientific method
with apriorism.
An example of the danger of exaggerating the power of the computer is
the collection of computer models of cerebral lesions and mental ill-
nesses. Take a mathematical model of a neural system characterized by a
connectivity matrix C, and set equal to zero all the matrix elements Cmn
for a fixed m. The resulting matrix will represent the neural system from
which the neuron (or the subsystem) labeled m has been eliminated (e.g.,
by surgical procedures). One can then hope to discover the corresponding
mental or behavioral deficit. This method works only if one has got a
mathematical model, involving the connectivity matrix, that has success-
fully passed some experimental tests. Otherwise the exercise proves
nothing. Unfortunately this caution is not always being observed.
For example, Wood (1982) found that, by simulating lesions in the
Anderson et al. (1977) distributed (nonlocalized) model of memory, cate-
gorization, and other functions, only a quantitative impairment results.
That is, the effect of the lesion is what Lashley's ill-fated "mass action"
(or "equipotentiality") pseudo-law would have predicted: Only the
amount of nervous tissue, not its location, would matter. But given the
nature ofthe mathematical model, this result was to be expected. Indeed,
a tacit assumption of the model is that every neuron in the system is like
every other neuron. That is, no specialization was assumed to begin with,
so that the removal of anyone neuron produced a deficit that, on the
average, was equivalent to that of any other neuron. The computer simu-
lation could not possibly have contradicted any of the hypotheses incor-
4.5. Inference 81
porated in it. Hence it could teach us nothing that we did not know before.
On the other hand, actual ablation experiments do teach a lot-provided
one is careful in "drawing conclusions." But this is a matter for the next
section.
4.5 Inference
Once the experimental data are in, they are supposed to be cleansed and
organized with the help of mathematical statistics. The result will be the
elimination of some outlying data (for being suspected of resulting from
systematic errors in the design or the execution of the experiment), as
well as the correlation or the aggregation of the remaining ones. Having
performed this data reduction job we are confronted with the far trickier
problem of "drawing conclusions" from the results of that processing.
The double quotes around the expression 'drawing conclusions' was
intended to suggest that, strictly speaking, no (logical) conclusions can be
drawn except for the trivial one that some things, when in such and such
circumstances, behave in such and such a manner. On the other hand, the
data may confirm or infirm (and occasionally refute altogether) previously
known but not tested (or at least not well-confirmed) hypotheses or theo-
ries. The data may also suggest new hypotheses-to those prepared to
"see" the underlying pattern. We will not make a methodical study of
such "inferences"-again the wrong word, because there are no infer-
ence rules for performing such leaps. Instead, we shall deal with a sample
of common pitfalls in experimental psychology.
One much debated problem concerns the legitimacy of extrapolating
animal findings to humans. On the whole, the behaviorists have taken it
for granted that all the findings concerning rats, dogs, cats, and even
pigeons, can be extrapolated to humans without further ado. In a way
they were justified in this belief because of the similarity, in many basic
regards, between the nervous systems of all the higher vertebrates. This
similarity, in other words, is the objective basis of the behaviorist goal of
finding cross-species (i.e., non-species-specific) behavior patterns. The
strategy paid off handsomely: A lot was learned from the use of animal
"models" (a further misnomer).
However, there are limits to such extrapolations. For one thing, hu-
mans possess certain neuronal systems (e.g., those that "mediate" ab-
stract thinking and language) that are absent or only very rudimentary in
other animals. For another, some of the neuronal systems common to
man and other higher vertebrates, such as the olfactory bulb, are either far
more or far less evolved in humans than in our relatives. Third, humans
live in an environment that is largely man-made, namely human society,
complete with institutions and artifacts. For these reasons only some
results of animal experimentation can be extrapolated to humans, namely
those that do not involve institutions or artifacts. However, this condition
82 4. Methodology
D~D
LIGHTS SAMPLE (G)
PRESS
SAMPLE KEY
DELAY
(NO LIGHTS)
PRESS
ONE KEY:
IF G, REWARD
D LIGHTS
FIGURE 4.3. Delayed matching to sample (DMS) task. The panel shows four
buttons that turn off lights of different colors: Green, Blue, and Red.
4.6 Summing Up
Psychological research raises a far richer methodological problematics
than that treated in the standard literature on the subject, which is all too
often limited to statistics or to repeating uncritically the opinions of phi-
losophers who have never stepped into a laboratory.
86 4. Methodology
Brainless Psychology
CHAPTER 5
Mentalism
edge of the latter was held to be irrelevant to any efforts to account for the
former.
We shall study some philosophical and methodological aspects of the
most interesting versions of mentalism: classical psychology, the Gestalt
school, and information-processing psychology. Finally we shall take a
cursory look at pop psychology.
FIGURE 5.1. The wallpaper effect. After staring for a few moments at the drawing
one sees a triangle.
5.1. Subjective Experience 91
w,
FIGURE 5.2. The world (W) as the (physical) sum of the external worlds WI and W2
of subjects SI and ,\'2 respectively.
92 5. Mentalism
The third, or emergent materialist, view clears the way to a fully scien-
tific approach to subjectivity. In fact it shows that an account of subjec-
tive experience need not be itself subjective and therefore untestable
with the help of scientific methods. Thus, when explaining someone's
doing B because he or she wants something, we refer to a complex
process in a real animal, which starts with the subjective or mental
experience of wanting that something, and ends up with performing
behavior B.
Moreover, at least in principle we can test our account by monitoring
physiological or behavioral indicators of such neural and muscular activ-
ity. For example, we can conjecture that an animal is about to perform a
voluntary movement the moment the readiness potential in the parietal,
precentral, and vertex areas starts to exceed its normal value. And we can
affirm that a human subject is dreaming if the subject is asleep and his or
her eyes move in ajerky way or the individual's EEG shows beta waves.
In short, the identity hypothesis makes it possible to study subjectivity in
an objective manner.
Our view is in apparent contradiction with the realist philosophy of
physics, which demands that the cognitive subject be kept out of the
picture because, by definition, the task of physics is to study physical
things, not thinking ones. (See Bunge, 1973b, 1985b.) Actually there is
complementation rather than contradiction. Indeed, psychologists are
supposed to study animal subjects as objects (i.e., things in the world
external to themselves). For example, they will study personal prefer-
ences and subjective values (utilities) in an objective manner. The fact
that subjects a and b assign different values to item c is as objective as
rain. Differences in valuation only prove that not all valuation is univer-
sal. It does not prove that the study of valuation is necessarily subjective.
Although every scientific finding is the work of a person, or a team of
persons, if scientific it is impersonal in the sense that it can be reproduced
by anyone who bothers to master the necessary knowledge and adopt the
scientific attitude.
Although the identity hypothesis suggests the most fully scientific ap-
proach to subjectivity, we owe many important advances to mentalist
psychologists. Thus Fechner, Wundt, Kohler, at times Piaget, and many
other distinguished psychologists were dualists: To them mental phenom-
ena happen in the mind, much as light can propagate in a vacuum. This
belief makes it possible to study mind in its own right, independently from
any explicit reference to its neural "basis," "substrate," or "corre-
late"-though of course not independently from the minding animal.
True, but the mentalist strategy is crippling, for it isolates psychology
from biology and therefore overlooks the intimate couplings between
mental processes and other bodily processes.
Quite aside from the restricted fertility of psychophysical dualism, is it
true or false? Does the hypothesis of the immateriality of the mental have
5.1. Subjective Experience 93
cesses (pleasure, pain, love, hatred, anger, anxiety, etc.) would occur
mainly in the limbic system; and the cognitive processes (perception,
imagery, thought, etc.) would be the specific functions of the cortico-
thalamic and corti co-limbic systems.
Our grouping is not a partition, because there are mixed processes
(e.g., sensorimotor ones). Nor is it a classification. A classification proper
is a conceptual hierarchy in which classes are ordered by the relation of
class inclusion: See Figure 5.3. (See Bunge, I983a for the rules of classifi-
cation.) A possible strategy for building a classification of behavioral and
mental processes is the following, in three steps. First, group abilities and
dysfunctions by their gross manifestations (e.g., aphasia). Second, ferret
out the neural' 'correlates" of such abilities or dysfunctions and, if neces-
sary, regroup them in the light of the neurophysiological evidence. A
result will be a species such as semantic aphasia. The gross manifestation
would be the genus, and the neural "correlate" the species. Third, try to
find some new principle capable of linking together the various families.
Look into the possibility of finding such principle in evolutionary consid-
erations. For example, in the beginning there may have been a single
sensorimotor faculty that evolved eventually into distinct capabilities,
such as chemical sensing-motility (as in bacteria), light sensitivity-motility
(as in Euglena viridis), and so forth. Much later, some senses became
separable from motility. And much, much later some faculties, such as
visual imagery, evolved from sensory ones.
So much for mental faculties. We shall come back to them, construed
as specific functions of neural systems, in chapters 8 and 9. Let us now
address the question of introspection. As we saw in section 4.1, introspec-
tion is a procedure but not a methodological one. Whatever it is, intro-
spection is not what "the little man in the head" sees or says. (The
homuculus hypothesis leads to an infinite regress: The homunculus needs
another of its kind in order to see what it sees, and so on.) We submit that
what passes for introspection is nothing but consciousness, and we ex-
plain the latter as the monitoring of the activity of one neural system by
another. (For details see chapter 11.)
FAMILY
Z ....Jz
0 «Q
wf= UCIl
~~ GENERA -::J
(!J....J
f=~ Ou
c.. ....Jz
~
SPECIES
FIGURE 5.3. A program for classing behavioral and mental abilities and dysfunc-
tions.
5.2. Classical Psychology 99
The Gestalt school of Wertheimer, Koffka (1935), and Kohler (1929) flour-
ished in Europe in the 1920s while behaviorism was taking over in the
United States. The two schools were at odds in every regard except for
their trust in experiment and their mistrust of reason. Whereas the Gestalt
school focused on subjective experience, made ample use of introspec-
tion, and embraced psychophysical dualism, behaviorism disregarded the
mind, abhorred introspection, and denied the existence of the mind-body
problem. Whereas Gestalt psychology was holistic, behaviorism was ana-
lytic; where the former was inclined to theorize, the latter saw no reason
to do so; and whereas the former was strongly influenced by holistic
metaphysics and intuitionistic epistemology, behaviorism was thoroughly
positivistic.
The password of the Gestalt school was of course Gestalt. Whatever it
found was pronounced to be a Gestalt or a law of Gestalten; and whatever
it attempted to explain, it did so in terms of Gestalten held to be unanalyz-
able. Regrettably, not being given to conceptual analysis, the members of
the school often employed the term Gestalt in three very different senses:
whole or system (Ganzheit) , structure or configuration (Struktur) , and
emergent or systemic property (Gestalt-quaIWit). Not surprisingly, a co-
lossal conceptual muddle resulted. Understandably, many philosophers
hailed Gestalt psychology not so much for its genuine findings as for its
obscurity-whereas others rejected it out of hand for the same reason.
Let us attempt to disentangle the concepts designated by the ambiguous
term 'Gestalt'.
A whole, totality, or system, is a complex object the components of
which are coupled, as a consequence of which the object has a definite
structure. A whole differs then from an amorphous aggregate. We must
distinguish systems of three different types: conceptual, material, and
functional. A conceptual system, such as a hypothetico-deductive one, is
made of constructs (e.g., propositions) held together by logical relations
(e.g., that of deducibility). A material system, such as a brain, is com-
posed of material things (e.g., cells) held together by links or bonds of
some kind (physical, chemical, biological, or social). A functional system
is composed of properties that are mutually related by laws.
At this point we are not interested in conceptual systems, such as
theories, which are studied by logic, mathematics, and epistemology. As
for the concept of a material or concrete system, we have elucidated it in
section 3.2. There we defined the structure of such a system as the collec-
tion of all the relations (in particular the bonds or couplings) among its
components, plus the relations among the latter and the relevant environ-
mental items. (A coupling, link, or bond is a relation that makes some
difference to the relata. Causal relations are bonds, spatiotemporal rela-
5.3. Gestalt Psychology 101
tions are nonbonding: See Bunge, 1977a.) It follows then that there are no
structures in themselves, separate from things; every structure is a prop-
erty of a (complex) thing. In other words, 'structure' is an adjective, not a
noun. Consequently it is not synonymous with 'whole,' 'totality,' or 'sys-
tem.'
Let us now clarify the notion of a functional system, which is central to
Luria's thought (Luria, 1973, 1979), and the one that the Gestalt psycholo-
gists, as well as Piaget and Vygotsky, seem to have had in mind when
writing rather obscurely about 'psychological Gestalten (or wholes, or
totalities).' Both Piaget and Vygotsky held that such Gestalten emerge
abruptly in the course of individual development, and in tum give rise to
further wholes. But whereas Piaget saw such emergence as a necessary
outcome of biological maturation, Vygotsky emphasized the action of the
social environment. With hindsight we may find it obvious that the endog-
enous and exogenous factors intertwine. (More on the nature-nurture
issue in section 6.2.) However, our present concern is not with this thesis
but with the concept of a functional system.
We stipulate that a collection of properties is afunctional system if, and
only if, it is a collection of properties of a concrete (material) system such
that, given any member of the collection, there is at least one other
member of it that depends upon the former. A possible formalization of
this concept with the modest resources of the predicate calculus is this. If
IP is the collection of all possible properties of concrete things, then F is a
functional system if, and only if,
F = {P E IP I (3x)(VP)(3Q)
[x is a concrete system /\ Px /\ Q E IP 1\ (Px ~ Qx)]} [5.1]
o _ NO
~
FIGURE 5.4. Examples of emergence through assembly.
\/1;\
• STIMULUS OBJECT
o
Synthesizer
storage. " The illusion that this translation into informationese constitutes
an explanation could have the effect of blocking research into the neural
mechanisms of formation, loss, and recovery of long-term memory.
(More on explanation in section 13.3.)
Furthermore, computationalism involves a confusion between science
and technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). The ultimate goal
of AI is not to explain cognition in terms of natural laws-the job of
cognitive psychology-but to design efficient, fast, reliable, and inexpen-
sive machines and programs likely to successfully mimic or replace cer-
tain cognitive processes. The resulting artifact cannot be a good guide to
psychologists because they study animals, which are products of blind,
opportunistic, and tortuous evolution, not intelligent design-whence
such animals are likely to operate in complex, slow, unreliable, and ex-
pensive ways.
Because psychologists wish to understand animals, not machines, they
have little to learn from AI. (On the other hand, whoever wishes to imitate
a human activity must start by becoming acquainted with the latter.) If
they come under the spell of AI, psychologists risk forgetting much: for
example, that animal memory is not a matter of storage and retrieval, for
it is fading and constructive rather than faithful (Bartlett, 1932); that hu-
man thought, far from being always rule-directed, is often erratic and
occasionally original-to the point that it has come up with computers
and robots, whereas no machine is known to have created or studied
humans; and that original problem solving does not proceed according to
rules, whence it cannot be translated into a computer program: Instead,
when faced with a novel task we search and research, we proceed in zig-
zags with the help of scraps of knowledge, visual models, occasional
flashes of intuition, and impelled or blocked by emotions and expecta-
tions. For these reasons, taking the advice of AI fanatics, that empirical
research in psychology should come only after computer programs imitat-
ing mental processes have been devised (Sloman, 1978b), can only cripple
psychology and discredit AI. In fact, that advice has already done consid-
erable harm.
Last, let us dig up the philosophy of mind underlying information-
processing psychology. In the old days mentalism was the enemy of mate-
rialism and, in particular, of mechanistic materialism. Whereas the former
extolled immaterial, immortal, and omnipotent mind, the latter held that
all animals, including humans, are mindless robots, though some more
skillful than others. Knowledge engineering has made it possible for the
former enemies to marry on the basis of the thesis that, far from being a
collection of special brain functions, mind is a collection of programs
detachable from hardware (machine or body). This is of course old psy-
chophysical dualism in fashionable garb.
Indeed, information-processing psychology conceives of mind as an
entity in itself, distinct and separate from the brain, and capable of work-
5.5. Pop Psychology 111
ing autonomously and even looking into itself. Thus Marr (1982, p. 6):
"Modem representational theories conceive of the mind as having access
to systems of internal representations; mental states are characterized by
asserting what the internal representations currently specify, and mental
processes by how such internal representations are obtained and how
they interact." Because information-processing psychology conceives of
mind as self-existing, it explains the mental by the mental (e.g., the
change in an internal representation as a result of the interaction of two
internal representations). The brain is not even mentioned, and the ex-
pression 'interaction of two internal representations' is not defined.
The idea that any given mental process can have different "embodi-
ments" (McCulloch, 1965) or "instantiations" (Pylyshyn, 1984), now in
the flesh, now in the machine, or even in disembodied spirits (Fodor,
1981), goes back to Plato's idealism. Its methodological consequence,
that psychology does not need any neuroscience for being a very special
autonomous discipline (Fodor, 1975), goes back to philosophical or arm-
chair psychology. For all its revolutionary rhetoric, information-process-
ing psychology is then, on the whole, a scientific counterrevolution. Sci-
entists are supposed to push forward, not backward. In particular, the
genuine advances in psychology have progressively estranged it from
mentalism and integrated it with biology, medicine, and social science.
(Forfurther criticisms see Bindra, 1984; Bunge, 1956, 1980, 1985b, 1985e;
Estes, 1984; Hebb, 1980; Paivio, 1975; Weizenbaum, 1976.)
mental evidence, and alienation from science. Worse, unlike folk psychol-
ogy, psychoanalysis and parapsychology want to be taken for sciences.
(The recent French variety of psychoanalysis, as represented by Lacan, is
an exception; it wishes to pass for a kind of humanistic clinical psychol-
ogy.) Indeed, psychoanalysis passes for being the science of the uncon-
scious and sexuality, and parapsychologists parade their experiments. In
fact, both are prime examples of pseudoscience. Let us give a few reasons
for this claim, focusing on only a few features of these doctrines. (For
details see Bunge, 1985b, 1985c.)
Psychoanalysis is conceptually fuzzy. In particular, psychoanalysts
have made no effort to elucidate the concepts of ego, id (or rather it), and
superego, of repression and resistance, of instinct and consciousness-
not to speak of those of racial memory and the collective unconscious.
None ofthese concepts is a variable in the sense of experimental psychol-
ogy. Consequently they cannot be functionally related to one another, as
is normally done in science. This is why nobody has succeeded in measur-
ing them or in mathematizing even a small fragment of psychoanalysis. In
these regards-measurement and mathematical modeling-psychoanaly-
sis compares unfavorably with behaviorism, neobehaviorism, psychophy-
sics, and physiological psychology.
Conceptual woolliness makes for poor testability. Psychoanalysis con-
tains untestable as well as testable hypotheses, but many of the latter have
never been put to the test; there are no psychoanalytic laboratories.
Freud (1962, p. 4) declared his theory of repression to be irrefutable, and
regarded this feature as a merit. He was right in one respect, for if a
subject fails to manifest complex X, then X is declared to be repressed
rather than nonexisting. Likewise, if the manifest content of the patient's
dreams is not sexual, then the latent or symbolic content is pronounced to
be. The same with aggression: if not overt, then latent. Here the psycho-
analyst's position is as impregnable to fact as is the theologian's.
However, when taken one at a time, some psychoanalytic hypotheses
tum out to be testable and, moreover, false (Bunge, 1967a). For example,
anthropologists and developmental psychologists have found that aggres-
siveness is more learned than innate, and that the Oedipus complex is
anything but universal. Personality experts have found no correlation
between personality type and early toilet training, hence no basis for
Freud's classing of personality types into anal and oral. Clinical psycholo-
gists have found no evidence that all neuroses are caused by repressed
sexuality; moreover, hypersexuality is regarded as morbid. Social psy-
chologists have found that violence and the watching of violent scenes,
far from having a cathartic effect, stimulate aggression. Sociologists and
political scientists laugh at the claim that the root of all social conflict is
the parent-child relationship. And scientific dream researchers have
learned that dreams have no purpose or "meaning," whence they are not
"the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious" (Freud)-that conven-
5.5. Pop Psychology 113
5.6 Summing Up
Mentalist psychology conceives of the mind as a self-contained entity
divided into a number of compartments. It describes these compartments
with hardly any reference to the properties of the subject as an animal; it
attempts to account for the mental by the mental. As a consequence
mentalism places itself deliberately outside natural science and it refuses
to learn from it, particularly from neuroscience.
Moreover, mentalism deals primarily with humans, neglecting other
animals, as well as the processes of development and evolution. And,
except for psychoanalysis, which focuses on affect, mentalism deals al-
most exclusively with cognition, neglecting affect and behavior. In addi-
tion, except for the Gestalt school, mentalism divides cognition into a
number of mutually unrelated faculties.
Because of its detachment from biology, mentalist psychology is at best
semiscientific, at worst pseudoscientific. The two most pernicious ver-
sions of mentalism nowadays are psychoanalysis and computational
psychology, often wrongly equated with cognitive psychology. Unlike
classical psychology and the Gestalt school, psychoanalysis and
computationalism are speculative and dogmatic, and do not care for ex-
periment. Both abuse metaphors (e.g., the censor and the computer),
neither offers genuine explanations, and neither is effective in treating
mental disorders. The explanation as well as the repair of a system call for
some true knowledge of its mechanisms.
Psychoanalysis was counterrevolutionary at the time when classical
psychology was becoming increasingly experimental and getting closer to
physiology. Computationalism came as a counterrevolution six decades
later, when behaviorists were beginning to take an interest in the internal
states of the animal. Yet, for some reason, both psychoanalysis and com-
putationalism were hailed as scientific revolutions. Actually their main
accomplishment has been to propose simplistic solutions to some tough
problems, and to shift attention away from the nervous system as well as
from behavior.
CHAPTER 6
Behaviorism
FIGURE 6.1. Three models of behavior. (a) Stimulus-response, or S-R; (b) stimu-
lus-organism-response, or S-O-R; (c) stimulus-organism-response-feedback, or
S-O-R-F. The spring symbolizes the inner mechanisms that mediate b'ttween S
and R.
This explains the many exceptions to the alleged laws of learning found
by the behaviorist researchers. The only invariable pattern seems to be
the so-called zeroth law of rat psychology: "Any well-trained animal, on
controlled stimulation, will behave as he damn well pleases." In other
words, external stimulation is insufficient to determine behavior, hence to
predict it. The reason is not so much that there are no two identical
animals: All of the factual sciences face a similar diversity. The main
reason is that the output of any system, living or nonliving, is a function of
both the input and the internal state. And, because an animal is not
usually in the same state on different trials, it is unlikely to produce the
same output each time. In short, there are no general S-R laws. Lawful-
ness exists only for S-O-R triples.
A second consequence of the neglect of internal variables is that S-R
psychology has nil explanatory power. In fact, by definition, to explain
event A in system B is to exhibit or conjecture some mechanism C, in
system B, that, when triggered by stimulus D, will produce A (Bunge,
1983b, 1985g). Because black-boxism eschews mechanisms, it is at best
descriptive and predictive (like Ptolemaic astronomy), never explanatory
(like Newtonian astronomy). We shall return to the matter of explanation
in section 13.3.
S-R psychology cannot even account for the simplest motor act. In-
deed, every single motor act is the outcome of a complex process occur-
ring inside the organism, and none is the result of mere external stimula-
tion. For example, the maintenance of upright equilibrium and walking
involve a delicate control mechanism including sensors that detect minute
deviations from the equilibrium, (i.e., "errors"). Thus, far from being an
input-output box, the organism is an error-correcting device, that is, one
endowed with feedback mechanisms. (Recall Figure 6.1, part (c).) It is
then closer to a control mechanism, such as Maxwell's governor, than to
a stone. In fact, it does not act in the direction of the stimulus but in the
direction that decreases the "error" or imbalance. (Animal behavior ex-
emplifies Le Chatelier's principle, not Aristotle's mechanics.)
From a biological point of view, then, overt behavior is a manifestation
or external outcome of processes occurring inside the animal. In the case
of animals endowed with nervous systems, behavior is a manifestation,
hence an indicator, of processes occurring in their neuromuscular system.
Shorter: For these animals the organ of behavior is the neuromuscular
system.
The methodological consequence is obvious: If we wish to explain
behavior, not just to describe it in superficial terms, we must study the
neuromuscular system. This holds both for simple behavior, such as turn-
ing the head on hearing a tone, and for complex behavior, such as writing
a poem. The more complex the behavior the more its understanding calls
for a study of its source in the neuromuscular system. In other words, the
study of behavior cannot be confined to behavior; it must embrace all the
120 6. Behaviorism
6.2 Environmentalism
Environmentalism is the thesis that animal behavior is exclusively deter-
mined by environmental circumstances. To put it negatively: Environ-
mentalism denies that inheritance and internal processes are relevant to
behavior. It is the opposite of nativism, according to which we are mainly,
if not solely, the actualization of our genetic blueprints.
There are two main environmentalist schools in psychology: classical
behaviorism and ecological psychology-for which see Gibson (1950).
Both hold that behavior is the sole effect of environmental stimuli; both
model the organism as an empty box. The difference between them is
that, whereas ecological psychology focuses on perception, behaviorism
is mainly interested in overt behavior.
The environmentalism inherent in behaviorism explains the stand that
this school has taken with regard to instinct, intelligence, personality,
education, and social programs. According to classical psychology and
ethology, behavior can be either of two kinds: instinctive or learned. The
former would be inborn, automatic, and unmodifiable by experience.
Moreover, it would be the same for all the members of a species, and it
6.2. Environmentalism 121
have kept an embarrassed silence about it, have an explanation for it.
Physiological psychology can explain the phenomenon in terms of neuro-
nal habituation or fatigue. It is well known that, if a neuron is subjected to
a constant stimulus, it becomes "used" to it; its rate of firing dies off. The
gestalt switch can be explained by assuming that there are at least
two neuronal systems involved, which are activated alternatively by
the ambiguous figure. As one of the systems has become habituated,
the other one is ready to take over. An even simpler experiment
indicates the importance of context (frame of reference), experience,
and expectation. Subjects are shown the symbol '0.' Whereas some
of them read the letter 0, others read the numeral zero. All of them
sense or detect the same stimulus, but each subject perceives it dif-
ferently, according to the immediately preceding circumstances and
the current context. (More on the sensation-perception difference in
section 9.2.)
There is one case, though, where even higher animals do seem to be-
have in a behavioristic manner. This is the case of animals that have had
their hippocampus excised. Their behavior is completely controlled by
external stimuli, and they learn only gradually by reinforcement. In fact,
the behavior of "hippocampally ablated animals is held to be everything
which the early S-R theorists could have wished" (Hirsh, 1974, p. 439).
Not so the behavior of normal animals; theirs is controlled not only by
current stimuli but also by their memories, drives, and expectations. For
this reason Bandura (1978) rejects environmentalism and favors "triadic
reciprocal determinism," where environment, thought, and behavior in-
teract.
The idea that thought might be involved in learning and problem solving
was of course anathema to behaviorists and reflexologists alike. The idea
was suggested by the physiological psychologist Karl Lashley (1929) and
put to the test in rats by Krechevsky (1932) and Tolman and Krechevsky
(1933). They fouhd that the rat does not behave haphazardly during the
early stages of a problem-solving process, but proceeds quite methodi-
cally, "attempting various solutions and giving them up when they fail,
until he hits finally upon the 'correct' one" (Krechevsky, 1932). This
work was severely attacked by such behaviorists as K. Spence, as a
consequence of which it was forgotten by American psychologists for
nearly a quarter of a century.
The hypothesis that the higher animals learn by making hypotheses and
putting them to the test resurfaced in the United States with the influential
book by Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1956), and was subsequently
investigated both experimentally and mathematically (e.g., Levine, 1974;
Mayer, 1977; Restle, 1976). One finding of this research is that human
learners are not passive; their response depends upon their learning his-
tory and their expectations. Another finding vindicates the Gestalt thesis
that in some learning tasks the subject can learn at a single trial. Both
6.3. Operationism 125
results refute the behaviorist learning theory, which has always been the
centerpiece of the behaviorist movement.
In sum, observation and experiment have refuted environmentalism,
particularly with regard to learning and development. This was to be
expected on the mere strength of an elementary knowledge of physics,
which shows that nothing in the world behaves passively and solely in
response to external forces. For example, the curvature of the path of an
electron entering an external magnetic field depends not only upon the
intensity of the latter but also upon the initial momentum of the electron.
What is strange is that anyone in our century could believe, following
Aristotle, that external forces are omnipotent. Moral: Ignore the neigh-
boring sciences, and the ontologies compatible with them, and you are
bound to embrace some archaic myths.
Nevertheless, by emphasizing, nay exaggerating, the weight of the en-
vironment and denying that of heredity, behaviorism has exerted a benefi-
cial influence on educational psychology, educational policies, and social
programs, both in the United States and in the Soviet Union. (See e.g.,
Suppes, 1978.) Moreover, it has acted as the theoretical bulwark of egali-
tarianism and the bugbear of racism and social elitism. On the other hand,
nativism has always justified social and educational inequalities, and con-
tributed to preserving them wherever it has been dominant, for example,
in the United Kingdom. (See Kamin, 1974 and Gould, 1981.) Presumably,
a more balanced view of the nature-nurture issue will eventually result in
less naive (though hopefully no less fair) social policies aiming at match-
ing the genetic endowment with education, social opportunity, and social
responsibility. However, the nature-nurture controversy is likely to re-
main an ideological hot potato even after it is given a scientific solution.
We shall return to this debate in section 7.3.
6.3 Operationism
Operationism is the semantical and methodological doctrine according to
which "the concept is synonymous with the corresponding set of opera-
tions" (Bridgman, 1927, p. 5). For example, intelligence is declared to be
that which is measured by intelligence tests, and competence is conflated
with performance.
Operationism, a chapter of logical empiricism (or positivism), was pop-
ularized in psychology by Stevens (1935), Pratt (1939), Skinner (1945),
Spence (1948), and a few others. They all followed Bridgman (1927), who
in turn had been preceded by Dingler and others. It has been a constant
companion of behaviorism (Zuriff, 1985). In fact it is the behaviorist pre-
scription for scientific concept formation, as well as the behaviorist se-
mantics, which answers every question of the form 'What is X?' with
another question, namely 'How is X observed, measured, or controlled?'
126 6. Behaviorism
the latter. Such data are often somewhat removed from the theory. For
example, they may consist of behavioral information, whereas the theory
T is about brain processes.
In other words, the indicator hypotheses I bridge the theory-experi-
ence gap, for they allow us to "read" observable (e.g., behavioral) events
in terms of unobservable ones (e.g., brain events). We may call this a
translation of the available raw data E into the language of the theory.
These translated data E* , that follow logically from (are entailed by) E and
I are then fed into the model M of the referent(s), to yield what may be
called the translated model M*. Finally, this result is translated back into
the language of experience by means of the indicator hypotheses I. That
is, M* is joined to I, to entail T*, the operationalization ofthe theory Tor,
rather, of the model M. Hence not T itself but some consequences of T
together with the subsidiary assumptions S, the data E, and the indicator
hypotheses I, face whatever fresh experience may be relevant to T. See
Figure 6.2. (For details and examples see Bunge 1973b.)
A few examples will show how indicator hypotheses can be used and
misused in psychological research. All vertebrates seem to have been
making use of indicators from time immemorial. In particular, they have
been "interpreting" (reacting to) postures and gestures of con specifics as
guides to social behavior. Mating and fighting rituals are only the most
salient and best studied cases. But we use plenty more indicators in daily
life to "read" moods, attitudes, and intentions off gestures and facial
expressions. (Some of our pets do the same with us.) Of course, such
T s E
indicators are highly ambiguous. For example, blushing may indicate an-
ger, excitement, or embarrassment.
Scientific indicators, unlike those of folk psychology, are supposed to
be unambiguous. Or, if ambiguous, they are supposed to come in batches,
so that ambiguity can be minimized or even totally removed. An early
example of a scientific indicator in physiological psychology was Pavlov's
use of the number of drops of gastric juice secreted by a dog on presenta-
tion of a bit of food, or of a stimulus associated with it, as an objective
indicator of the effect of the stimulus. (Presumably, he was measuring the
strength of the animal's expectation to sate its hunger.)
Psychological indicators are oftwo types: behavioral and physiological.
The former are seldom any good to disclose mental processes for the
simple anatomical reason that most neuronal systems do not innervate
any muscles. This is why we are forced to supplement behavioral indica-
tors with physiological ones, such as the frequency of firing of certain
neurons.
Finally, we must warn against two common methodological mistakes.
One is the belief that one has set up an "operational definition" just
because the terms occurring in the definiens (or defining formula) are
observational or nearly so. For example, some behaviorists have claimed
that the following is an operational definition of the concept of a rein-
forcer:
Stimulus x is a positive reinforcer of behavior y = df the presentation of
x increases the probability of the occurrence of y.
However, this is an ordinary definition, (i.e., an identity). Moreover, it is
not the only possible definition of "reinforcer"; in fact, one could think of
an alternative definition, in terms of neurophysiological processes.
Another common confusion is that between a mental process or ability
and an objective test or criterion for it. For example, Moore and Newell
(1974) ask how the computer program MERLIN understands, and reply
with this alleged definition:
x understands y = df X uses y whenever appropriate.
But according to this "definition" anyone, animal or machine, that per-
forms an adaptive action, uses a rule, or follows an instruction, can be
said to understand it. Thus a frog uttering a mating call would be said to
understand it, and the psychologist using his or her brain to solve a
problem would be said to understand the brain.
In conclusion, there are no operational definitions, whence any reason-
able version of behaviorism must give up operationism. Instead, there are
objective indicators of unobservable (in particular subjective) properties
and events. Such observable-unobservable (e.g., behavioral-mental) re-
lations are testable hypotheses, not conventional identities. The experi-
mental test of any scientific theory involves the use of such indicator
130 6. Behaviorism
The methodological motivation was far more clear: It was the wish to
find S-O-R laws (Zuriff, 1985). A paragon and an example will help under-
stand this point. The ohmic resistance in a direct current circuit may be
said to "mediate" or "intervene" between the input e (the electromotive
force) and the output i (the current intensity), which Ohm's law relates in
the form: e = Ri. In the classical theory, R is an uninterpreted parameter
measurable, for example, via e and i. It is not explained in terms of the
particular structure of the material. On the other hand, solid-state phys-
ics, which analyzes the metal as a network of atoms inside which the
charge-carrying electrons move, does explain R as a particular property
of the system. That is, it regards R not as an intervening variable but as a
hypothetical construct-on which more in the next section.
Our example is this. If stimulus SI sometimes elicits response fl and at
other times response f2, whereas S2 is sometimes paired off to f2 and at
other times to fl, there is no apparent pattern. Lawfulness is restored by
introducing an intervening variable i and conjecturing the correspon-
dences
(SI, i l) ~ fl , (SI, i 2) ~ f2
(S2, i l) ~ f2 (S2, i 2) ~ fl
:. r = f(g(s)) = h(s)
f with s E S, i E /, and r E R.
h
time, or as vague but specific as a habit strength or a drive. The only way
to remove such arbitrariness or indefiniteness is to abandon the purely
formal or syntactical construal of an intervening variable and have it
represent some specific state of the organism. But this passage from inter-
vening variable to hypothetical construct deserves a new section.
S'-IIQ06O\t:r, or r,
s,_. . r, or r,
(a) (b) (e)
FIGURE 6.3. Three stages in the account of overt behavior. (a) Direct S-R relation,
e.g., number of hours offood deprivation~rate of bar pressing; (b) Interposing an
intervening variable (e.g., hunger), with no definite neurophysiological interpreta-
tion; (c) Hypothesizing or finding the neural system possessing the property rep-
resented by the intervening variable in (b). The spring in the box suggests that the
latter, far from being black, contains a mechanism that makes the organism be-
have now in one way, now in another (e.g., press the bar when hungry, but not
press it when hungry and curious about a novel stimulus). (From Bunge, 1985b.)
6.6 Summing Up
In retrospect behaviorism appears as the culmination of the protoscienti-
fic stage of psychology. It was a mixture of revolution and counterrevolu-
tion. Indeed, it was very progressive in methodics for enhancing experi-
mental rigor, and it was also a step forward with regard to the universe of
discourse of psychology for studying all animals, as well as for investigat-
ing the elementary forms of behavior, which had been disdained by men-
talism. But behaviorism was definitely regressive for eliminating the mind
from the purview of psychology, for discouraging theorizing (hence expla-
nation), and for refusing to look into the sources of behavior, namely the
nervous system. This refusal solidified the wall that mentalism had
erected between psychology and biology. And the rejection of the mental-
ist problematics left a vacuum that was promptly filled by pseudoscience.
(Culture abhors a vacuum: The vacua left by science or technology are
filled with junk.) In short, the behaviorist legacy is ambivalent.
However, since the emergence of cognitivism and generative grammar
in the late 1950s, the great merits of behaviorism have tended to be over-
6.6. Summing Up 135
Biopsychology
CHAPTER 7
Neurobiology
blood flow can be imaged, e.g., by having the subject inhale radioactive
xenon. An increase (decrease) in the level of radioactivity indicates an
increase (decrease) of overall activity in the brain region that is being
studied. In this way it has been found, among other things, that the
forebrain (or executive center) of a subject sitting with eyes closed and
doing nothing, is between 20% and 30% more active than the average of
the entire brain. Using the same technique it has also been shown that,
when faced with tough problems, nearly all of the regions of the brain
become equally active; the cognitive centers muster all the support they
can get. (The matter of localization of functions will be taken up in sec-
tion 7.5.)
There are dozens of interneuronal "messengers," from light atoms
such as sodium and calcium to heavy molecules such as serotonin and
dopamine, and even heavier ones such as the brain peptides. Calcium is
the Hermes of them all; it is light and swift, it activates nearly everything
it touches, and-unlike the heavier neurotransmitters-it can penetrate
cellular membranes. (Actually Ca++ can do all this.) In particular, calcium
activates enzymes and, because of its capacity to cross neuron mem-
branes, it acts as a mediator between neurotransmitter molecules and
target cells. If calcium is added, a number of processes occur; if put out
of action (by adding substances that combine with it), neural activity
decreases. Moral: If you wish to keep a sound mind, watch your Ca
diet.
As for anatomical changes in the brain, the most spectacular recent
findings are those concerning dendritic branching and axon regeneration.
Modern methods of imaging in vivo have made it possible to observe
directly, and even to film, some of the changes in neuronal connectivity
that had been hypothesized to explain learning and other facets of mind.
For example, Purves and Hadley (1985) succeeded in visualizing the same
neurons in young adult mice at intervals of 3 to 33 days. They found that
some dendritic branches formed de novo, others elongated, and still
others retracted over intervals of two weeks or more beyond the develop-
ment period.
As for neuron repair, it has been known for a long time that peripheral
nerves can regenerate, but it had been assumed that injured cells in the
mammalian CNS could not regenerate. Ramon y Cajal doubted this belief
and put it to test. He inserted segments of peripheral nerves into the brain
and observed that they become temporarily innervated. He even ex-
pressed the hope that experimental neurology might one day remedy
artificially the deficiencies caused in the eNS by injury or disease. Recent
experimental work has strongly confirmed Cajal's conjecture and given a
basis to his hope. In fact, Aguayo (1985) and others have shown that
injured neurons of certain kinds in the mammalian CNS can elongate their
axons when peripheral nerve segments are grafted; those neurons grow
144 7. Neurobiology
through the graft toward the target. The in vitro manufacture of living
neural prostheses is getting close. (However, see Rakic, 1985.)
The permanent activity of the brain on various levels is relevant to the
question of whether humans are naturally active or passive. This question
can only be decided scientifically, but it is also philosophically and ideo-
logically interesting. In fact, if humans are naturally passive, then envi-
ronmentalism-one of the assumptions of behaviorism (section 6.2)-
cannot account for the phenomena of boredom, impatience, and
rebellion. And if the majority are really passive, then racism and classism
become vindicated in their claim that progress calls for the domination of
the many by the few.
There is plenty of behavioral evidence against the natural passivity
thesis. Healthy animals are naturally active. This explains our dislike for
monotonous tasks, eagerness for novelty (in moderation), and the various
ways in which humans and other animals manage to keep busy even when
they are not ordered to work (e.g., by playing, strolling, tinkering, and
daydreaming). Such behavioral evidence is explained by the permanent
activity of the brain. Only the sick or undernourished brain may never get
bored or impatient; the healthy brain seeks stimulation and action.
Brain dynamism is due not only to the spontaneous activity of the
neurons but also to the interactions between the brain and other body
systems, such as the endocrine one. The latter synthesizes some of the
molecules used by the brain, which in tum stimulates or inhibits the
endocrine glands. Something similar holds for other body systems; the
brain is distinguishable but inseparable from them. It acts upon, and is
influenced by, the rest of the body. In particular, the homeostatic regula-
tion of the milieu interieur-without which, as Claude Bernard noted, we
would be totally at the mercy of the environment-takes a lot of brain
work. In sum, brain activity can only be understood by regarding the
brain as a subsystem of an animal immersed in its environment. (By the
way, this refutes the strong modularity thesis discussed in section 5.2.)
All this now sounds trite, but every time an interaction between the
brain and some other body subsystem is discovered, it comes as a great
surprise. After all, sectorial or nonsystemic thinking, fostered by hyper-
specialization, usually prevails. Two recent episodes will drive home this
point. The first concerns what used to be called 'visceral learning. ' The
so-called autonomic nervous system is in charge of such functions as the
regulation of breathing and the heartbeat. That system was assumed to
function independently of the brain, so that an animal could not possibly
learn to slow down breathing or metabolizing. It has now become routine
laboratory practice to condition a number of animals to do precisely this,
though not exactly in the conditions described in the early publications.
(See Dworkin & Miller, 1986.) Yogis, who had previously been regarded
with suspicion, were tested and found to be able to teach themselves to
7.1. Brain & Co. 145
lower their own metabolic and heartbeat rates. The popular explanation
was of course that this was evidence for the power of mind over matter.
The fact that similar results were attained with rats and pigeons, without
any obvious intervention of consciousness and willpower, refuted the
popular explanation. In any event, the moral is clear: No subsystem of the
body is fully autonomous.
The second finding is of similar philosophical import. It concerns the
action of higher brain functions on the immune system. It is an old tenet of
folk medicine that changes in mood affect sensitivity to pathogens and, in
general, resistance to illness. For example, recently bereaved people are
more likely to get sick than others, cancer patients deteriorate more rap-
idly if they are pessimistic, and generally a decreased "will to live"
lowers the natural (immune) defenses. By the same token, "positive"
feeling and thinking help healing. When Harvard paleontologist Stephen
Jay Gould learned that he was suffering from a rare incurable cancer, he
asked Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar what the best prescription was.
His answer: "A sanguine personality. "
Such cases were hardly investigated because they seemed to be nothing
but old wive's tales in support of the myth that mind can move matter.
Most scientists tend to believe that the mental is an epiphenomenon that
cannot react back on the somatic. Only those who adopt explicitly the
psychophysical identity hypothesis in either of its forms understand that
mind can move matter because it is material or, rather, a process in a
material thing. In any event, recent work has altered the opinion accord-
ing to which illness will follow its course regardless of the way one feels or
thinks about it. (See Locke & Hornig-Rohan, 1983 for a bibliography of
neuroimmunological research.)
Indeed, it has been found that there is an intimate coupling between the
nervous system and the immune system. This coupling is effected not
only by products of the immune system, such as interferon and inter-
leukin, that affect neurons. It is also effected by nerves that control the
thymus gland (where lymphocytes mature), the lymph nodes, the spleen,
and even the bone marrow. (Apparently these innervations had escaped
earlier anatomists. Perhaps they were not looking for them.)
One of the most spectacular experimental findings on the action of the
nervous system upon the immune one is this: Immune responses in rats
can be altered by conditioning to the point of extinction. Thus, rats given
cyclophosphamide, which causes nausea and also suppresses immune
responses, were fed a saccharin solution. Predictably, they quickly
learned to avoid the latter. After a while they resumed drinking saccha-
rine solution-an indicator that they were forgetting their taste aversion
experience. But as they did so, unexpectedly they started to die at an
unusually high rate. The "conclusion" (hypothesis) is that they had be-
come conditioned to suppressing their own immune responses (Ader &
146 7. Neurobiology
Cohen, 1985). Such experiments as this help explain clinical findings such
as the one that stress produces immune suppression, and that the recently
widowed exhibit lower resistance to sickness. In the cases of stress the
mechanism seems to be this: Hypothalamus ~ pituitary ~ adrenal
glands ~ immune system. In the case of bereavement the pathway is
bound to start higher up, namely in the cortico-limbic system. In any
event the so-called psychosomatic disorders involve the brain, not the
mythical immaterial psyche. (See e.g., Fox & Newberry, 1984.)
In emphasizing the interactions between the brain and other bodily
organs we should avoid the holistic fallacy that, because the brain cannot
work in isolation, it cannot be said to be the organ of mind. The fallacy
inheres in the neuromuscular model of mental activities, which involves
Watson's thesis that thinking is silent speech (McGuigan, 1978). The fact
that some mental processes have muscular inputs or outputs does not
make them into neuromuscular processes. Likewise, the fact that all men-
tal processes depend on support systems, such as the cardiovascular and
the gastrointestinal ones, does not entail that mentating is a neurocar-
diovascular or a neurogastrointestinal process. There is such thing as the
specific function or activity of an organ (i.e., that which the given organ,
and none other, can perform-though of course not in isolation from all
other bodily organs). The body is a system composed of numerous sub-
systems-among them the brain-and everyone of them has its specific
function(s).
7.2 Plasticity
The boundless variety of human experience and creativity seems to con-
tradict the psychoneural identity hypothesis. After all, the number of
neurons in the human brain, though huge (roughly 10 12), is finite; it would
seem that there are not enough of them "to do all that." Although this
argument has been repeated ad nauseam, it is invalid because it rests on a
false presupposition. This tacit assumption is that neurons, like the ele-
mentary components of a switching circuit or a computer, can be either
on (firing) or off (not firing), and consequently can combine with one
another in a finite number of ways. True, a system composed of two
switches connected in parallel can be in any of only four different states-
if the infinitely many transient states are neglected. But a system of two
neurons connected in parallel or in series can be in any of a nondenumera-
hie infinity of states, because the synaptic junctions can change in a con-
tinuous manner, either spontaneously or under the action of stimuli. Let
us have a quick look at this matter.
Any neuron in a neuronal system can make contact with its neighbors
through a thousand synaptic junctions. The human brain contains at least
10 14 synapses. The collection of connections of a system of neurons is
called its connectivity, or also its wiring, by analogy with the manner in
7.2. Plasticity 147
Inhibitory or H
TIME t
H
FIGURE 7.1. Three types of synaptic junction: elastic E (retains no trace of stimu-
lus); excitatory plastic L (or learning); and inhibitory plastic H (or habituation).
After stimulation, E goes back to its initial state, L is strengthened, and H is
weakened. The three cases are covered by the following equation for the rate of
change S of the synaptic strength S under the action of a stimulus of intensity e:
T S+ S - ae = 0,
where T is a time constant, and a a real number. For a type E synapse, a = 0; for
L, a > 0; and for H, a < O. If a constant stimulus is applied suddenly at t = 0 (i.e.,
if e(t) = M(t), where b > 0), the synaptic strength decays exponentially:
Set) = [S(O) + ab le- tlr + ab [V(t) - 1],
where U is the unitary step function. If the inertia lIT of the synapse is small, the
asymptotic value S(O) + ab is reached promptly. In the figure we have assumed
S(O) = o.
7.2. Plasticity 149
must distinguish at least three different though related kinds, hence con-
cepts, of plasticity in our field of inquiry: neural, functional, and behav-
ioral.
Neural plasticity is the ability to modify the strength of synaptic junc-
tions, be it by changing the rate at which neurotransmitters are released
into the synaptic clefts, or by budding (or destroying) synaptic boutons, or
by sprouting (or pruning) dendrites. Functional plasticity is the ability to
recover certain functions after stroke, injury, surgery, or infection. And
behavioral plasticity is the ability to either habituate or learn.
In our view neural plasticity, or the ability to change the interneuronal
connectivity, explains (is the mechanism of) both functional and behav-
ioral plasticity; the last two would occur only as a result of massive
neuronal changes. However, the kind of evidence (relevant data) favor-
able to one kind of plasticity may not be the same as for the other, whence
the fundamental oneness of plasticity may not always be recognized. For
example, observing synaptic or dendritic growth, particularly in vitro,
tells us nothing about learning unless the latter occurs in an experimental
group but fails to occur in the corresponding control group. And func-
tional recovery can occur either through morphological changes in large
numbers of neurons, or through' 'rewiring" (reorganization of the neural
"circuitry"), or through reallocation of functions of certain neuronal sys-
tems. Let us say a few words about these three kinds of process.
Synaptogenesis, or the budding of new synaptic boutons, can be spon-
taneous or induced (i.e., endogenous or in response to external stimuli),
and has been observed in vivo as well as in vitro (Baranyi & Feher, 1981;
Bliss, 1979; Bliss & L~mo, 1973; McNaughton, Douglas, & Goddard,
1978). Such observations have refuted once more the obsolete idea that
neurons are just as passive as the elementary components of a computer.
As for induced synaptogenesis, it has been observed to occur as a result
of electrical or chemical stimulation, as well as in response to experimen-
tal lesions (Flohr & Precht, 1981). The nervous system repairs itself not so
much by whole-cell regeneration (which seems to occur only in the pe-
ripheral nerves) as by synaptogenesis and "rewiring" (i.e., qualitative
changes in the neural connectivity).
It may be speculated that synaptogenesis and "rewiring" are some-
times adaptive responses to an adverse alteration of the way in which the
stimuli impinge upon the animal. For example, normally if a person ro-
tates his head to the right, his eyeballs move automatically to the left with
the same velocity, so that his outside world remains stable. This inborn
reflex is called the vestibulo-ocular reflex. (There is no auditory analog
because we do not have earballs. Hence, when rotating the head, the
sound source appears to rotate around us. Beware of appearances.) If
now a subject is made to wear horizontally reversing prism goggles, in the
beginning he continues to rotate his eyeballs in the customary reflexive
way. Consequently he now sees the outer world moving in the direction of
7.3. Development 151
7.3 Development
Development is the process that starts at conception and goes through
stages until adulthood and beyond. From a neurobiological viewpoint,
development is a process of maturation and reorganization of the nervous
system, particularly the brain. In the early stages neurons grow in size
and number, and at times millions of them die and are replaced by others.
In all stages they change shape through variations in the numbers of
152 7. Neurobiology
synaptic boutons and dendrites, and they make new connections and cut
off old ones. These processes are manifested in the successive acquisition
and loss of abilities and skills.
U ntiI recently, development was defined as the process that starts at
birth and ends on reaching adulthood. This convention presupposed that
the embryological process is automatic (i.e., regulated exclusively by
genes). In recent years we have learned that the chemical environment
exerts a powerful influence on the fetus: Witness the deficits exhibited by
children of drug-using mothers. The intrauterine environment, particu-
larly the sex hormones and toxic substances in it, is so important that it
may account for some cerebrallateralization patterns (Geschwind & Ga-
laburda, 1985).
As for the length of the development process, it has recently been
shown that the human brain continues to be plastic throughout life. There
are parallel processes of growth and involution at all ages-barring senil-
ity. In particular, whereas the number of dendrites of some neurons in-
creases, that of others decreases. And animal experiments confirmed
what could have been suspected from human learning, namely that an
enriched environment favors dendritic growth. In short, development
spans the entire life of the higher vertebrate.
One tends to say that the neuronal systems "subserving" reflex or
automatic activities, such as the visceral functions, are prewired, or es-
tablished once and for all from birth. This is certainly the case with the
neuronal systems of simple invertebrates, but it does not apply to verte-
brates. In the latter the development of the nervous system does not
follow a genetically predetermined path; instead, it is a process of rear-
rangement of synaptic connections determined by internal and external
factors. The decisive internal factor seems to be interneuronal competi-
tion; neurons compete for synaptic contacts, and only those that establish
a minimum number of contacts survive (Rager, 1981). The other factor is
external; the rearrangement of contacts is influenced at first by the intrau-
terine chemical milieu, and after birth by environmental inputs. In short,
it is not true that each axon "knows" beforehand in which direction it has
to grow, and that each synapse "knows" where it has to form (Easter,
Purves, Rakic, & Spitzer, 1985).
As the brain develops, a number of new faculties or skills emerge while
others submerge. For example, as infants grow their motor coordination
improves, whereas their prehensile reflex becomes all but extinct. But of
course on the whole the period between birth and the end of adolescence
is the one of fastest behavioral and cognitive growth-environmental
circumstances permitting. The human neonate is a vegetative, motor,
affective, sensory, and precognitive animal. Neonates detect a number of
stimuli but they may not be able to perceive ("interpret") them. They are
aware of a variety of external and internal stimuli but not conscious of
anything. And, pace Freud and lung, they are not born with images,
7.3. Development 153
concepts, or symbols. But by the time they are four months old human
infants have learned to perceive, locate, and discriminate objects of vari-
ous kinds, from toy and food to human faces. Cognitive development, an
aspect of neural development, proceeds from lower to higher and, in
particular, from iconic to abstract and from specific to general ideas.
However, if the nervous system and its maturation are lost sight of, it may
be possible to interpret the results of certain experiments on infants as
confirming the view that development goes from higher to lower-as
suggested by Bower (1974).
The developing brain is remarkably plastic, as suggested by the pace of
learning and as shown by some experiments. For example, if frontal
lesions are performed on adult monkeys, they exhibit a permanent and
serious deficit in performing delayed response tasks. But if the same
lesions are performed on young monkeys, no impairments result (Gold-
man 1971). This finding has been confirmed by operating on monkey
fetuses. Postmortem anatomical examination shows that unilateral abla-
tions in utero are followed by radical reorganizations of the nerve fibers.
In particular, the callosal fibers deprived of their normal targets in the
contralateral hemisphere become redistributed, so that a shift of function
occurs (Goldman-Rakic, 1982). A last example of plasticity is this. It
appears that we learn to speak with the two hemispheres, lateralization
(usually in the left hemisphere) being a rather slow process that may not
be completed until the age of about to. In fact, hemispherectomy per-
formed on children under 10 years old does not seem to impair severely
their speech; and, when impaired, the right hemisphere can gradually take
over the language functions. But beyond that age the right hemisphere
seems to be mute in most cases.
However, there are limits to plasticity. In fact, many psychologists
have suggested that there are critical periods (i.e., periods comprised
between definite ages for each animal species), during which learning of
certain kinds is possible (or at least fastest), and before or after which it is
impossible (or at least slowest). Language learning is a case in point.
Foreign languages can hardly be mastered if studied beyond adolescence.
However, behavioral observation or even experiment is inconclusive, for
it may be interpreted in alternative ways.
Only a biopsychological study involving an examination of nervous
tissue may be able to decide whether or not certain qualitative changes do
occur at certain ages, that make it possible (or impossible) for an animal to
learn something. In this respect the classical experiments of Hubel and
Wiesel (1962) on visual deprivation in kittens are decisive. They reveal
that there is a critical period for learning to see (roughly the first three
months), past which the animal cannot perceive certain objects. There is
an olfactory analog of that experiment (Van der Loos & Woolsey, 1973).
The existence of critical periods supports Piaget's well-known hypothe-
sis that cognitive development is not continuous but proceeds through
154 7. Neurobiology
But the most sensitive area where the nature-nurture controversy has
been raging from time immemorial is of course that of intellectual ability.
The nativists (e.g., Eysenck, 1971) hold that intelligence is wholly inher-
ited, whereas the environmentalists (e.g., Kamin, 1974) claim that it is
entirely a matter of training. The genetic evidence for nativism is nonex-
istent: (a) no genes controlling intelligence have been discovered, (b) the
gross features of the brain, such as size and the shape of the convolutions,
do not correlate with intelligence, and (c) Burt's celebrated results con-
cerning identical twins reared apart were shown to be fraudulent. How-
ever, this does not entail that intelligence has nothing to do with the
genes-as it should if mind were immaterial. No doubt, genes regulate the
development of the brain, as of every other part of the body, but they do
so in cooperation with the environment. We are not born intelligent, any
more than we are born tall, nimble, or talkative. But we are born with the
genetic potential to become intelligent or stupid, tall or short, nimble or
clumsy, talkative or taciturn, and so forth.
The genetic makeup of an individual fully determines his or her life
history only in the case of serious genetic disorders affecting the organiza-
tion of the brain, such as the Down syndrome. (There are about 3,000
known genetic diseases.) Except in such cases, which are comparatively
infrequent, what will become of a newborn depends as much on his or her
environment as on his or her genes. In sum, we subscribe the report ofthe
ad hoc committee of the Genetics Society of America on genetics, race,
and intelligence, which rejected "doctrinaire environmentalism" and
warned strongly against "the pitfalls of naive hereditarian assumptions"
(Russell, 1976).
7.4 Evolution
The neuroscientist and the psychologist who experiment on nonhuman
primates usually wish to learn from them something about humans. They
assume that apes and even monkeys are adequate "models" or analogs of
man in some respects (e.g., in motor behavior and vision). This assump-
tion is well-founded. It rests on a huge body of observations and experi-
ments showing that, in fact, all primates are kindred. In other words,
experimental work in neuroscience and biopsychology presupposes evo-
lutionary biology and in turn contributes to it even when it does not
engage in tracing family trees.
At first sight evolutionary neurobiology and psychology are impossible
for lack of fossil records of nervous tissue and behavior. Although this
lack is a serious obstacle, it is not an insurmountable one, for we can
"see" evolution by studying homologous systems, and their functions, in
phylogenetically related species with living representatives. One result of
such comparative study is the explanation of "fossil" neuronal systems,
that is, systems left over from earlier stages in evolution and which are
156 7. Neurobiology
but also by vertical columns. It is more likely that, with evolution, the old
systems got reorganized, hence changed their functions in some respects,
and that the newer systems sometimes got the upper hand, as shown by
the fact that we are able to control emotions and correct perceptions.
The difficulties besetting the reconstruction of our family tree become
staggering when it comes to cognitive, linguistic, and moral abilities.
From a biological viewpoint there can be no doubt that these abilities have
evolved from more primitive forms of behavior and mentation, and that
their evolution is only one aspect of the general process of evolution.
Moreover, in some cases we can put forth plausible evolutionary hypoth-
eses. For example, it is likely that all the specialized sensory systems
except for the sense of balance have evolved from primitive tactile sys-
tems, that is, that they are specializations of the skin. And one may
conjecture that human language evolved on the basis of a few rather
general (i.e., cross-specific) neural mechanisms plus a limited set of spe-
cific mechanisms and constraints that differentiate the manner in which
we get to communicate among ourselves (Lieberman, 1984, 1985). How-
ever, we must always keep in mind the speculative nature of such ac-
counts, and guard against two pitfalls.
One pitfall is the rather widespread belief that cognitive development
recapitulates cognitive evolution, so that both our remote ancestors and
the modern primitives feel, think, and act like children. This view is an
application of Haeckel's "law" that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. If
this "law" were true we would be able to infer the way our remote
ancestors behaved from watching the behavior of our own children. For
better or worse, the "law," though still popular, has been refuted long
ago. Hence its application to cognitive evolution must be written off, the
more so because we must suppose that the hominids were capable of
doing many things that no young child can do, such as procreating, fash-
ioning tools, and defending themselves.
Another possible mistake is forgetting the social component of human
evolution. Unlike ferns and snails, hominids were gregarious. Conse-
quently, in order to reconstruct our remote past we must use not only the
categories and principles of the synthetic theory of evolution, such as
those of genetic mutation and recombination, natural selection, and sex-
ual competition, but also those that account for social evolution. These
include psychological categories, such as those of empathy, thinking, and
planning, as well as sociological ones, such as work, social organization,
and defense.
We are ignorant of almost everything about the evolution of the brain
and its functions. However, we can no longer ignore that it did occur. The
mere existence of evolutionary biology has changed the way many psy-
chologists view behavior and mind. It has transformed psychology into a
natural science-or nearly so. On the other hand, the disregard for the
evolutionary perspective has a number of negative consequences on the
7.4. Evolution 159
tal functions. This explains why, whereas holists have usually been
dualists, most localizationists have been monists of the materialist
variety.
The nineteenth-century holistic tradition is still going strong in neuro-
psychology. There are two arguments in its favor. One is that the normal
brain works synergically when tackling complex tasks-at least when it
does so successfully. A second forte of holism is the remarkable func-
tional recovery some patients make after having sustained severe lesions,
particularly if they are young. However, all this proves is that the brain is
a tightly knit system, some components of which are plastic. It does not
prove the "equipotentiality" of all the regions of the brain, or even of the
cortex, any more than the remarkable integration of the various compo-
nents of a car disproves the principle that everyone of them performs a
specific function. We feel, think, and move as units, just as a car moves as
a whole. But this only shows that, although brains and cars have many
components, these are well coordinated; they are systems, not aggregates
or structureless wholes.
There is plenty of experimental and clinical evidence for the localiza-
tionist hypothesis, and it is mounting steadily. One of the earliest was P.
Broca's discovery in 1861 that strokes or lesions in what is now known as
Broca's area (i.e., the foot of the third frontal convolution of the left
hemisphere), can cause severe impairments of speech delivery. Some
years later C. Wernicke (1874) discovered that speech formation and
understanding is in the charge of what became known as Wernicke's area
(i.e., the posterior part of the first temporal convolution of the left hemi-
sphere). A stroke or injury in this area may cause the subject to process
auditory information 10 times slower than normal, and may even render
the subject incapable of understanding what he or she is being told, or of
uttering meaningful sentences. Lesions in different parts of the speech
areas cause aphasias of different kinds. For example, cerebral atrophy in
a certain area can cause a patient to have serious difficulties with verbs,
although she may retain her ability to handle nouns. There are even
different brain areas for short "connecting" words (articles, pronouns,
and prepositions) and for "content" words (nouns, adjectives, and
verbs). In fact, patients who have sustained lesions in certain parts of the
motor cortex find it difficult to handle words of the former kind but not of
the latter. Almost every issue of the journal Neuropsycho[ogia contains
reports of this kind. In short, neurolinguistics has amply corroborated the
localizationist view.
What holds for speech holds, mutatis mutandis, for one of the most
basic and ancient of all mental functions, namely emotion. In 1927 W. R.
Hess found that he caused rage and attack by electrically stimulating the
hypothalamus of a cat. Later on, J. Flynn found that, by stimulating a
nearby region (the central grey), rage without attack ("sham" rage) was
caused. And in 1954 J. Olds and P. M. Milner discovered that pleasure too
162 7. Neurobiology
is deep in the brain and, more precisely, in the anterior medial hypothala-
mus. Pain is also in the brain even when felt elsewhere.
Another example: Face recognition is the task of a distinct population
of neurons, which in the macaque is contained in the inferior temporal
cortex. The response of those neurons is roughly independent of the
position and size of the stimulus, and not greatly reduced if some of the
components of the latter, such as the eyes, are removed from the image.
On the other hand, the scrambling of the internal features of the face, in
the cubist style, greatly reduces the response. (See e.g., Desimone, Al-
bright, Gross, & Bruce, 1984.)
Recent laboratory and field studies have shown that skill learning and
conscious recollection of the learning process are the jobs of different
memory systems located in different regions of the brain. For example,
amnesics who cannot recall recent events can use some of their skills and
even acquire new ones while being unable to remember the circumstances
of the learning process. (See e.g., Schacter, 1983; Squire, Cohen, & Zou-
zounis, 1984; Squire & Cohen, 1985.) Thus an amnesic golf player in the
early stage of Alzheimer's disease can playa good game but cannot re-
member, after half a minute's delay, where her ball landed. Others can
learn to read mirror-inverted words without recollecting how they learned
this skill; the learning "center" of that skill is different from that of
"episodic memory." Neurological patients of a different type can draw
the things they see but cannot name them. This suggests that their visual
system has become disconnected from their speech areas. (See Ges-
chwind, 1974.)
In short, localizationism has been amply vindicated. However, it will
continue to be challenged, if only because the task of locating mental
functions involves tricky logic. The basic assumption of localizationism is
that every mental process is the specific activity of some subsystem of the
brain. It follows that, ifthe neural system malfunctions or is destroyed, or
is absent from birth, the corresponding function is abnormal or even
nonexistent. (In symbols: If F, then S. Now, not-So Hence, not-F.) How-
ever, if the normal function is absent, it does not follow that we can blame
the corresponding brain system. It may well be the fault of some other
system connected with it, even of a support system such as the cardiovas-
cular one, which may not be supplying the required amount of blood to
the brain. (In symbols: If F, then S. Now, not-F. Nothing follows.) The
absence of normal function-or, in neurological terms, the appearance of
a symptom-is merely an ambiguous indicator of the possibility of a
lesion in the corresponding subsystem of the brain. (For more on this see
section 4.5.)
The experimental and clinical evidence favors localizationism, but the
latter comes in two strengths. The strong, topographical or mosaic locali-
zationist hypothesis is that every behavioral or mental function is dis-
charged by a distinct anatomically concentrated neural system with well-
7.5. Functional Localization 163
o
(a) (b)
t,
(c)
t2
FIGURE 7.2. Three possibilities for the localization of a mental function. (a) Con-
centrated system: nucleus, center, or area. (b) Distributed system with constant
composition (i.e., same neurons). (c) Distributed system with varying composi-
tion (i.e., different neurons at different times).
164 7. Neurobiology
7.6 Summing Up
Adoption of the psychoneural identity hypothesis encourages the study of
the nervous system and, in particular, of the brain. More specifically, it
encourages carrying on with the job of "mapping the mind on to the
brain," or identifying the neural systems that perform illental functions
(Olds, 1975). This vast research project calls for the cooperation of
neuroscientists and psychologists, both pure and applied. It involves
studying not only whole organisms but also some of their components,
particularly the neural ones, as well as analyzing the latter on several
levels, even down to that of the molecule. This is so vast and difficult a
project that it is likely to occupy all the generations to come. Working on
it is a much more rewarding occupation than playing the old obscurantist
game of writing about the mysteries of mind.
CHAPTER 8
Basic Functions
tebrates, seem to perform them. On the other hand, learning (as distinct
from habituation), perception, and concept formation would seem to be
the privilege of the higher vertebrates. The basic-higher distinction corre-
sponds roughly to the hard-wired-soft-wired one-only roughly because,
as we saw in section 7.2, hardness is a matter of degree. It also corre-
sponds roughly to the inborn-learned, or reflexive-cognitive one. Again,
this distinction is not a dichotomy, for all the higher verebrates can learn
to alter some of their reflexes.
The higher-lower distinction has not been easy to come by, because
there is a natural tendency to explain animal behavior in terms of human-
like purpose and cognition-or else to deny animals all cognitive abilities,
usually on theological grounds. The need to draw the higher-lower dis-
tinction, and to avoid anthropomorphism, was emphasized by the founder
of comparative psychology, one of the disciplines spawned by the Dar-
winian revolution: "In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome
of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the
outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological
scale" (Lloyd Morgan, 1894, p. 53).
8.1 Movement
Movement is the most basic mode of change and the easiest to observe,
though not always the easiest to explain or predict. Therefore the descrip-
tion of movement, in psychology as well as in physics, is prior to every-
thing else. But in both cases movement is an effect, output, or manifesta-
tion, that can only be explained in terms of mechanisms, be they physical,
chemical, or biological. In other words, although the study of kine-
matics-the description of motion-precedes historically that of dy-
namics, only the latter can explain the former.
In fact, dynamics entails kinematics, so that the latter has no indepen-
dent existence except in the early stage of the history of a discipline. Just
as Newton's dynamics explains the overt behavior of falling bodies, pen-
duli, planets, and other things, so only neuroscience can explain overt
animal or human behavior, for the latter is a manifestation of complex
internal-particularly neuromuscular-processes. For example, the
movement of a cat that lands on its feet after having been dropped upside
down can be filmed, and its main features can be described both verbally
and mathematically. But the explanation of that remarkable feat calls for
an investigation of the cat's neuromuscular system as well as of the dy-
namics of its whole body.
Motor or overt behavior is defined as the observable activity of muscles
and organs (in particular glands) of external secretion. Walking, turning
the head, reaching for a thing, blinking, and weeping are examples of
overt behavior and, as such, processes in need of explanation. It is not
enough to describe an animal's walk; we want to know how he does it and
168 8. Basic Functions
8.2 Affect
The term affect is used to denote a large variety of kinds of experience:
drives such as hunger and sex, emotions such as pleasure and anxiety,
and feelings such as empathy and love, as well as moral feelings such as
170 8. Basic Functions
shame and compassion. The early behaviorists ignored affect, but the
neobehaviorists, particularly Hull and Tolman, realized that behavior
cannot be understood without a consideration of drives. At the time of
writing the study of affect is being neglected once more by psycholo-
gists-though not by physiologists-this time as a consequence of the
cognitivist upheaval. If brains are computers, and the latter do not experi-
ence drives, emotions, or feelings, there is no point in bothering over
affect-except perhaps as a cognitive disorder best left to clinical psy-
chologists.
The scientific study of affect is important for the following reasons.
First, affect is a source of behavior, often a more important one than
environmental stimulation. Second, all cognitive processes, such as lis-
tening and problem solving, are motivated, whence no study of cognition
can be complete unless it includes an account of affect. Third, a remark-
ably large portion of the higher vertebrate brain is "implicated" in affect.
Fourth, because of its survival value, affect is likely to be phylogeneti-
cally very ancient, hence widespread across species, so that its anatomi-
cal "seat" is likely to be very ancient.
The physiology of affect was inaugurated in 1927 by W. R. Hess, who
caused rage and attack in a cat by electrical stimulation of a site in its
hypothalamus. Ten years later J. W. Papez conjectured that all of the
affective functions are processes in the limbic system. (This compara-
tively large and rather complex subcortical system is composed of the
amygdala, the hippocampus, the fornix, the cingulate cortex, and the
septal area.) Since then we have learned that the hypothalamus too is part
of the affect system, particularly with regard to hunger, thirst, and sex.
And, because the limbic system is coupled to the rest of the brain, in
particular to the cortex, it should not come as a surprise if it were found
that electrical stimulation of the cortex causes (indirectly) emotional pro-
cesses. In fact, in 1963 Penfield and Perot found this to be the case. These
and many other experimental findings obtained by physiological psychol-
ogists and neuropsychologists have both suggested and confirmed the
hypothesis that affect is a specific function of the supersystem composed
of the limbic system and the hypothalamus.
In addition to electrical stimulation, chemical stimulation and surgical
lesion have been used to locate affect "centers." For example, the injec-
tion of tiny amounts of acetylcholine in the septal region or in a few other
subcortical organs has been found to cause multiple orgasms. (The electri-
cal stimulation ofthe same organs has the same effect.) And the implanta-
tion of suitable hormones in the medial preoptic region of a castrated cat
restores copulatory behavior. On the other hand, surgical damage of the
amygdala causes hypersexuality-whence it has been conjectured that
the amygdala is a sex inhibitor.
Sex has long been recognized as a primary drive, but it is only in recent
times that physiologists and psychologists have undertaken to study it
8.2. Affect 171
Ol Ol
c c
ii "E
ou o
u
Q)
Q)
a: a:
memory. (Casanova, the famous 18th century womanizer, tells us that his
father spanked him while pointing to a salamander in the hearth, so the
boy would never forget the alleged fact.) Just as affect drives or inhibits
learning, so knowledge may in turn modify some of our motivations.
Hence there is a bridge, not a chasm, between affect and cognition.
(Moreover, it could be that in mammals the bridge is the hippocampus.)
The mere existence of the affect-cognition connection refutes faculty
psychology and invalidates much of cognitivism.
Valuation may be regarded, at least among the higher vertebrates and
when spontaneous, as an affective process. Actually all organisms, even
bacteria, show preferences (e.g., for a neutral over an acidic medium, for
light over darkness, and so on). We may speculate that every biospecies,
or at least every animal species, is characterized, inter alia, by a definite
value system manifested as a hierarchy of behavior types. Thus, normally
an animal presented simultaneously with a noxious (or merely fearsome)
stimulus and food, will withdraw; withdrawal (or even fleeing) behavior
dominates feeding behavior. However, if the animal is given no choice, it
may eventually learn to reverse its priorities (i.e., it will eat, paying the
price of some discomfort or even pain). In short, value systems are plas-
tic: just as plastic as the nervous systems in which they are implanted.
The concept of a value system has remained rather vague in the anthro-
pological, psychological, and philosophical literature. It can be elucidated
in a clear and simple manner by assuming that what organisms value is
being in certain stales. Consequently they only value external items
(things or events) insofar as they are instrumental in attaining those inter-
nal states. Accordingly we define the value system "If K of an arbitrary
biospecies K as the totality SK of internal states in which members of K
can be, together with the relation ~ of preference that characterizes them.
es ~ t' is read: 'Organisms of the given kind prefer state s to state t'.) In
short, "IfK = (SK, ~). In addition to the value system shared by all the
members of K, we may have to consider one idiosyncratic value system
"Ifb for every member b of K. Presumably, whereas "If K is inborn, "Ifb is
learned.
The concept of reward, which is unintelligible in strictly behavioristic
terms (except with reference to the experimenter), can be understood in
terms of the concept of value system. Indeed, the comparative concept
"more rewarding than" can be defined as follows. Let x and y be external
stimuli acting on an organism of kind K in state s, such that, whereas x
causes the organism to jump from state s to state I, Y causes it to go from
state s to state u. (In short, (x,s) ~ I, and (y,s) ~ u.) Then stimulus x is
more rewarding than stimulus y to organisms of kind K when in state s
= df organisms of kind K, when in state s, prefer t to u. (In short, x 2: sY
= df I ~ u.)
A simple physiological explanation of the fact that some states are
preferred to others, and that behaviors of certain types dominate over
8.3. Sensation 173
8.3 Sensation
All organisms have sensors (detectors) of various kinds: of heat, pressure,
gravity, acidity, and so forth. Whereas some sensors are subcellular,
others are single cells and still others-particularly in our own sensory
systems-are complex neuronal systems. Sensors enable animals to mon-
itor environmental changes, or some of their own internal processes, and
to behave accordingly. Usually behavior is adaptive; for example, bacte-
ria tend to move toward the regions of greater food concentration or lower
acidity. At other times behavior is maladaptive. For example, many in-
sects cannot help circling around lights until they burn, and some people
prefer to die fighting than live working. Such cases of maladaptive behav-
ior refute the contention that the sensors' 'have been designed in order to
ensure survival." The evolutionary explanation of the apparent perfec-
tion of some sensory systems, such as the vertebrate eye, is that those
organisms that failed to have adequate sensors were not prepared (pre-
adapted) for sudden changes and perished before being able to reproduce.
With animals capable of habituating, and particularly of learning, the
story is somewhat different; they could adapt quickly to some of the new
environmental circumstances. Their behavior was thus not only a result
of evolution but also a motor of it (Piaget, 1976).
It takes a nervous system, though not necessarily a very complex one,
to form sensory maps capable of guiding adaptive behavior. For example,
certain invertebrates can be trained to take the right turn in a T maze, by
electrifying the left arm of the T. This is a typical avoidance reaction, and
it can be explained as a case of habituation, hence of inhibition or block-
ing, that does not involve learning proper. (Recall section 7.2.) In any
event, an animal that has been trained to always take the right turn in a T
maze has formed a sensory map of this part of its environment-though
not necessarily a mental model of it.
Sensory maps are of two basic kinds: those representing events in the
external world, and those representing happenings in other parts of the
body. The visual and auditory maps are of the first kind, whereas the
proprioceptive maps are of the second. See Figure 8.2. Note the key
words event and map. What the sensors detect is neither properties nor
174 8. Basic Functions
External
events
Internal
events
FIGURE 8.2. Neuronal system (a) records some external events, whereas system
(b)monitors some internal events. The lines joining the two represent axons or
nerve fibers.
states of things, not even things. They detect only changes in the state of
external or internal things: i.e., they detect events, such as the bouncing
of photons or the impinging of sound waves. Moreover the sensors map
events as further events, namely events of the neural kind. And the term
'map' is apposite, for the correspondence between the represented and
the representing events is precisely a map or function. We may call an
'atlas' the collection of all the sensory maps of an animal. (See Bunge,
1980, chap. 4, sect. 4 for details.)
The construction of somatotopic maps is a typical task of biopsychol-
ogy. We are all familiar with the "homunculus" spread over the human
cortex. There are similar maps for other animals. The technique consists
in stimulating the body surface and recording the resulting electrical activ-
ity in individual cortical neurons by means of microelectrodes. A recent
arrival is the discovery of the somatosensory map in a species of bat
(Calford, Graydon, Huerta, Kaas, & Pettigrew, 1985). This is of particular
interest because it exhibits traces of the evolutionary process leading
from walking to flying mammals. The differences found in bats relative to
other mammals reflect the lifestyle of the former and have resulted from a
major reorganization of certain nerve fibers that conduct signals to the
cortex.
Body maps or schemas are partly learned and they can be altered
experimentally. For example, the somatotopic map of a monkey changes
rather quickly following the amputation of a finger (Merzenich, Nelson,
Stryker, Cynader, Schoppman, & Zook, 1984). It is even possible to
cause intermodal compensations. (See Burnstine et aI., 1984.) For exam-
ple, rats reared in the dark develop a more complex auditory cortex than
light-reared rats; blinding reduces the weight of the visual cortex but
increases that of the somesthetic cortex, and it also increases the soma
size and activity of the neurons in the motor cortex. And blind human
subjects trained to read Braille process tactual signals at a much faster
rate than do normal subjects. All this confirms the remarkable plasticity of
the mammalian nervous system, and the corresponding modifiability of
the sensory and behavioral abilities.
8.3. Sensation 175
"
I I
distance
(a) (b)
FIGURE 8.3. Lateral inhibition. (a) A single prick on the palm of a human hand:
The excitation fades quickly with distance, and even turns into inhibition (numb-
ness ring). (b) Two pricks felt as one: The two curves add up to a single excita-
tion-inhibition curve (dotted line).
RESPONSE
11%STIMULI
FIGURE 8.4. Neuronal mechanism of lateral inhibition. The lower central neuron
inhibits its lateral neighbors, as a consequence of which the excitation propagates
along the central line only.
176 8. Basic Functions
is a constant and So the value of the sensory threshold. One century later
S. S. Stevens claimed that the correct formula is 1jJ = k (S-So)P, where pis
a parameter characteristic of the sensory modality. It is now believed that
the two formulas correspond to different tasks, and that both overlook the
important effect of context. (Human and animal subjects respond differ-
ently to one and the same stimulus object when placed in different con-
texts: McKenna, 1985; Zoeke & Sarris, 1983.) This has suggested to some
that what is actually being measured is not raw sensation but perception.
(See however, Laming, 1985.) In any event, psychophysics, which was
thought to have been exhausted, is now making a vigorous comeback, it
has been extended to animals, and it is questioning much of received
knowledge. This renaissance is partly due to having started work with
animals, which has forced investigators to invent objective substitutes for
introspective reports.
Color vision is still the most obscure of all sensory processes. Accord-
ing to the classical (or physical) hypothesis, what determines the color we
sense is the wavelength of the light that hits the retina. Thus, a thing will
be seen as red if it absorbs all the wavelengths except those comprised
within the red band, and it will appear multicolored if it reflects equally all
the wavelengths. Land's sensational experiments in 1959 refuted this hy-
pothesis. Take two black-and-white photographs of the same scene, one
through a red filter and the other through a green filter; then project these
two black-and-white pictures in superposition on a screen, interposing a
red filter in the path of the light from the projector. What you see is a
colored scene similar to a standard color photograph. This experiment
suggests that color is in the brain, not the retina. So much so, that split-
brain patients do not always see the same colors as normal people (Land,
1983). These findings are shifting the focus of research on color vision
from the retina to the visual area. (See e.g., Zeki, 1980.) Thus, psy-
chophysics is becoming rooted in neuroscience.
Philosophers have always been interested in color vision. There are
essentially three philosophical views on color and, in general, on qualia or
sensible (or phenomenal) qualities. They are naive realism, phenomenal-
ism, and scientific realism. Naive realists hold that blood is red, and they
take it for granted that this property can be explained in physical terms.
On the other hand, phenomenalists hold that blood only looks (appears to
be) red: that this property, like every other property of material objects, is
in the mind. Moreover they deny the independent existence of material
objects, which they take to be, in Mill's famous phrase, nothing but "per-
manent possibilities of sensation." Clearly, physics, chemistry, biology,
and other sciences reject subjectivism with regard to material things; they
are realists. (See Bunge, 1983b, 1985a.) But psychology confirms the
phenomenalist thesis that qualia have no independent existence.
Scientific realists, from Galileo on, have drawn a distinction between
primary and secondary qualities. A primary quality is a property that a
8.4. Attention 177
8.4 Attention
Looking and listening are more complex than are seeing and hearing
respectively. The former involve attention. In primates, gazing involves
not only the visual system but also the so-called eye fields, located in the
frontal lobes. In all the higher vertebrates attention may be accompanied
not only by motor processes but also by a number of higher functions,
such as memory, expectation, imagery, and volition. However, attention
can be drawn automatically by sudden environmental or bodily changes in
any animal endowed with a nervous system. Hence it is likely to be a very
basic and ancient faculty.
Two of the neural systems involved in attention in primates and other
higher vertebrates are the thalamus and the anterior part of the frontal
lobes. The thalamus contains novelty detectors, that is, neurons that
respond only to novel stimuli and habituate rapidly (i.e., cease to respond
on repetition of the same stimuli) (Jasper & Bertrand, 1966). Not surpris-
ingly, lesions in the thalamus impair an animal's alertness. When an ani-
mal is presented a cue that leads it to expect an event, particularly one
that will require it to perform a movement such as reaching for food, a
slow wave of activity appears in its anterior frontal lobe. This wave,
178 8. Basic Functions
technically known as CNV, has been called the 'expectancy wave' and it
is used as an objective indicator of a state of expectation. (See Evarts,
Shinoda, & Wise, 1984.) By the way, we have become accustomed to
thinking of attention as a state of readiness. Actually it is a process; it is
the ongoing activity of a group of neurons.
Attention may be general or specific; in the first case it is also called
'readiness,' in the second 'set.' General attention or readiness may be
explained as the simultaneous activity of all the attention systems. Spe-
cific attention or set results when all the attention systems except the one
sensitive to stimuli of a certain kind are inhibited. According to this,
"attending to stimuli of kind S" is identical to "inhibiting all the sensory
channels except that on which items of kind S impinge." In turn, whether
a receptor of a certain kind is ready to receive stimuli seems to depend
upon the state of a further neural system, a selector, located higher up in
the central nervous system-perhaps in the thalamus (Crick, 1984a;
Hebb, 1972; Milner, 1957). By the way, it has been known for quite some
time that, besides having a limited attention span, we cannot pay attention
to more than about half a dozen objects at anyone time (Mandler, 1984;
Miller, 1956).
One kind of "set" that has been explored from a biopsychological
viewpoint is the motor set, or preparation for motor behavior. Whereas
the dualist (e.g., Libet, 1985) regards this preparation as a state of the
immaterial mind, the biopsychologist takes it to be a brain process. More-
over, the latter is likely to conjecture that preparation for motor behavior
is a particular collection of processes occurring in a highly specialized cell
assembly. This conjecture leads the biopsychologist to search for such a
neural system, and this search may eventually lead to finding it.
As a matter offact at \east one such system has already been identified.
Indeed, Wise and Mauritz (1985) have localized 70 neurons in the premo-
tor cortex of the rhesus monkey, the activity of which seems to be identi-
cal with the preparation for movement. (See also Evarts et aI., 1984.) This
finding and others related to it show that preparation for movement (a)
though a mental process, is a brain activity, and (b) is anatomically and
physiologically different from actual motor behavior. These results are
damaging for behaviorism but confirm the psychoneural identity hy-
pothesis.
It is difficult to dissociate attention from curiosity, and the latter from
exploratory behavior-at least until we disclose their neural mechanisms.
We know very little about these matters. But we do seem to know this
much. First, attention is necessary but not sufficient for curiosity; an
animal may be paying attention to stimuli of a certain kind, and yet habitu-
ate quickly to them. (Even pleasurable stimuli may bore us after a while.)
Second, very old or severely sick animals lose curiosity; they prefer to
stay in familiar surroundings and avoid surprises. Thus one and the same
stimulus may elicit different behaviors, one in a healthy animal, a differ-
8.5. Memory 179
8.5 Memory
Few subjects in psychology have attracted so many workers as memory.
However, the results of so much effort have been unimpressive until
recently. One reason for this scarcity of results is that' 'If X is an interest-
ing or socially significant aspect of memory, then psychologists have
hardly ever studied X" (Neisser, 1982, p. 4). Bartlett (1932) was of course
the outstanding exception to the tradition of failing to ask the right ques-
tions and to advance interesting hypotheses about memory. Fortunately,
physiological psychologists, starting with Hebb (1949), and neuropsychol-
ogists, in particular Luria (1973), saved the day. The study of memory and
its pathologies has become an important and rapidly moving chapter of
biopsychology.
In reflecting upon memory we should start by recalling that the nervous
system is not the only one capable of keeping a record of events. Fold this
page and you will produce an engram of sorts in it. Rocks are testimonials
of geological processes, and DNA molecules are archives of biological
evolution. The immune system records some of the onslaughts the envi-
ronment has inflicted upon the organism, and even the muscular system is
a lifestyle indicator. However, all such records are coded; in order to
"read" them out we need theories as well as observations. On the other
hand, the nervous system files experiences in a direct manner; it needs
neither theories nor new observations to remember the face of a friend or
180 8. Basic Functions
1980). This is a version of Hebb's principle that neurons that fire together
stay together.
The biopsychological view of memory is at variance with the storage
metaphor made popular by information-processing psychology. Accord-
ing to the latter, to memorize an item is to file it away, be it in a temporary
file (short-term memory) or in a permanent one (long-term memory). Ac-
cordingly, to recall the item is to retrieve it from its storage. This view is
inadequate for at least two reasons. First, this account is just a metaphor
that tells us nothing about the "filing" or the "retrieving" processes. The
second reason that this account is inadequate is that, as Bartlett (1932)
notes, human memory is constructive rather than passive. This is due to
the fact that engrams are not isolated from one another but interact with
one another. In the process some memories become impoverished while
others are enriched. For example, the mistakes we sometimes make in-
volving synonyms and homonyms may be explained as follows. The cor-
responding traces being similar, as they fade out they may become either
more similar (in which case we confuse them) or more different (in which
case we forget that they are synonymous).
No matter how specialized and spatially localized the neural systems
may be, there can be no specialized and localized organ of general mem-
ory, precisely because the other functions are localized. (The same holds
for learning.) In fact, if we experience and learn now this, now that, using
a different part of the brain every time, memory must be a property of all
the neural systems that do the experiencing or the learning, as well as of
the hard-wired or committed ones. In other words, we may be able to
localize memory for this or that, but not memory in general. Shorter:
There is no general memory system but there might be several specific
memory systems.
As a matter of fact, it has been discovered in recent years that the
primate brain contains neural systems specialized in engramming skills,
and others in episodes. Thus, whereas motor experiences are recorded in
the motor strip, the medial-temporal region, and the cerebellum, mental
experiences are recorded in the cortico-limbic system. Such retention
systems have been identified by various experimental means, from mild
electrical stimulation to the injection of drugs and surgical lesions. For
example, electrical stimulation of the left pulvinar (a component of the
thalamus) impairs short-term verbal memory; on the other hand, the cool-
ing (to about 20 e) of the frontal cortex causes a deficit in short-term
0
FIGURE 8.5. Mishkin's model of visual memory in monkey. Flow of visual "infor-
mation" from primary cortical area (OC) through secondary areas (OB, OA, and
TEO) to the highest order visual area (TE), and from there to the medially located
amygdaloid complex and the hippocampal formation. From Mishkin (1982).
184 8. Basic Functions
8.6 Summing Up
Many of the processes studied by psychologists are automatic, either
from birth or once they have been learned. There is nothing conscious and
nothing purposeful about such processes as turning the head when hear-
ing a tone, withdrawing the hand from a source of intense heat, getting
angry, detecting a pebble under the foot, remembering how to swim,
recalling a painful experience, or even falling in love. All these are basic
functions of the nervous system, even though everyone of them can be
influenced by prior or concomitant cognitive processes. A basic function
is one carried out by a neuronal system that either is prewired or has
formed at some early stage in development and has kept its integrity
through repetition.
The very way such basic functions are objectified in the laboratory
presupposes as well as confirms the psychoneural identity hypothesis.
Thus one assumes and confirms that a monkey is seeing a given stimulus if
certain neurons in its visual cortex are firing vigorously. (Moreover, one
may assume that the sensed intensity of the stimulus is equal to the firing
frequency of the corresponding neural system.) And one assumes as well
as confirms that the animal is "set" to detect stimuli of a certain kind, or
to perform a motor act of some sort, if a certain potential is recorded.
The fruitfulness of the neurophysiological approach is perhaps most
apparent in the case of memory. It has done more than suggest engram-
ming mechanisms that explain some of the facts described by prebiologi-
cal psychology. It has also come up with some startling new findings, such
as the existence of several memory mechanisms, located in different
though large parts of the brain. In particular, it has discovered that there
is memory for habits and know-hows, and memory for episodes and
know-thats. Thus the biological approach to mind is not only yielding
explanations of well-known molar psychological phenomena, but is also
increasing our knowledge of the latter.
CHAPTER 9
Higher Functions
9.1 Learning
According to behaviorism, learning is a lasting change in behavior brought
about by practice. We cannot use this definition because it is too restric-
tive in one sense and too broad in another, and because it ignores the
nervous system. The definition is too restrictive because it does not in-
clude conceptual learning, which is certainly not identical with behavior
change even though it may occasionally be manifested as such. For exam-
ple, my learning a learning theory mayor may not change my behavior in
some respects, but in any case what it does is to change the furniture of
my mind-that is, to enrich some of my brain processes.
The behaviorist definition of "learning" includes habituation (or adap-
tation), which should not count as a kind of learning. We do not learn
anything when getting used to sitting on a hard bench, or to ignoring street
noises, or to living with the threat of nuclear annihilation. These are cases
of habituation, the simplest of which can be explained as elastic (as op-
posed to plastic) neuronal changes caused by repetitive stimuli. (Recall
section 7.2.)
The definition we are criticizing applies even to certain physical, chemi-
cal, and biological processes that have nothing to do with learning proper.
For instance, with prolonged weathering "practice," a stone becomes
ever smoother or, on the contrary, it acquires an increasingly contorted
shape. Is this learning? As a product-inhibition chemical reaction pro-
ceeds, its velocity decreases until it stops. Is this learning? And as a
consequence of repeated exposure to germs of certain kinds, a hospital
nurse becomes immunized to them. Has the nurse learned to cope with
them?
We conceive of learning as a lasting modification in a neural system,
other than either habituation or memory, that enables its owner to have
experiences it could not have had before learning. More precisely, let S be
9.1. Learning 187
The former to the more primitive forms of learning, the latter to the most
advanced ones. (See Hirsh, 1974; Mishkin & Petri, 1984.)
Note that we have distinguished learning from memory, and recall that
we can acquire habits without recalling the circumstances of learning
them (i.e., having no episodic memory of such events). Memory is a
component of learning: If we have forgotten to do (or feel or perceive or
think of) X, we must try and relearn X. Memory is thus more basic than
learning. An organism without memory of any kind would be incapable of
learning anything. But many organisms endowed with memory are inca-
pable of learning anything; all they can do is habituate or adapt. (Recall
section 7.2.)
At the neural level the difference between learning and memory would
seem to be this. Whereas learning is the process of formation of a new
neural system (cell assembly), or the emergence of a new activity pattern
in an existing one, memory is the preservation of either for some time, or
the ability to reactivate the activity in question. See Fig. 9.1. At the
cellular level the change involved in either the emergence of a new cell
assembly, or the appearance of a new pattern of activity in it, is likely to
be identical to a variation in the number, size, or relative position of the
synapses and dendrites. (See Greenough, 1984; Chang & Greenough,
1984.)
The following experimental findings corroborate this hypothesis. First,
rats reared in complex environments, where they have learning opportu-
nities, have about 20% more synapses per neuron in certain brain re-
gions-those doing the learning. Second, rats trained to run mazes exhibit
dendritic changes in the visual cortex. Third, in his now classic paper "A
Brain for All Seasons," Nottebohm (1981) reports that male canaries
change their repertoires from one spring to the next. So far, the behav-
ioral description. Now comes his explanation based on a neuroanatomical
investigation: When the canaries change their repertoires, their neural
nuclei for song control nearly double in volume relative to the fall, when
they stop singing.
Rd
I
+I
I ..
R1 R1
(al (bl (el
FIGURE 9.1. Three types of emergence of new behavioral or mental activity. (a)
Habituation: One of two neural systems is inhibited, whence the corresponding
response (R 2) does not occur. (b) Combination: Two neural systems combine to
produce a resultant response R that neither of them could have produced by itself.
(c) Creation: A new neural system is formed, with a radically new activity pattern.
9.1. Learning 189
example, there is one such "relation" for water, another for crude oil,
and so on. The logical aspect of such multiplicity of specific theories or
models Mi bound to a common general theory G is this. Every model Mi,
for i = 1, 2, . . . ,n, equals the set of consequences of G conjoined with
Si, where Si is the set of specific hypotheses that individuate the referents
of Mi. For details see Bunge [1983b].)
This is nothing but a research program, but one that should satisfy the
behaviorist yearning for a universal (cross-specific) learning law, and at
the same time answer the objection of the ethologist that animals of differ-
ent species are bound to learn different "things" in different ways. In
fact, our proposal combines generality with specificity. In particular, it
makes room for the facts that learning depends on the internal state of the
animal as well as on the "significance" the stimulus has for it. We have
repeatedly referred to the former factor; let us now deal quickly with the
second.
A tacit assumption of classical (behavioristic) learning theory is that
any two stimuli can become associated: that the choice of conditioned
stimuli is arbitrary. Experiment has repeatedly refuted this hypothesis,
showing that the individuals of every species respond only to stimuli of
certain kinds, whence they can learn only tasks of certain kinds. For
example, a pigeon that learns readily to peck a key for food may be unable
to peck a key to turn off an electric shock or a burst of rock music.
Another tenet of classical learning theory is that reinforcement of the
response is both necessary and sufficient to learn to associate it with a
conditioned stimulus. The principle looks self-evident for being a reword-
ing of the alleged axiom that all animals are hedonistic, that is, pleasure-
seeking (or maximizers of utility). Observation has repeatedly refuted that
tenet: Reinforcement seems to be only sufficient. Thus, a pigeon will
continue to peck at a key even after the latter has ceased delivering food
(i.e., in the absence of reinforcement). Presumably it cannot help pecking
even if it gets nothing out of it (Williams & Williams, 1969). The pursuit of
happiness requires more plasticity than that of a pigeon's brain.
Single-trial learning, a common experience in many higher vertebrates,
is another counterexample to classical learning theory. Furthermore, it
poses the interesting methodological problem of identifying instinctive
behavior. The usual criteria for deciding that a type of behavior is instinc-
tive are as follows: (a) the item appears without previous training, in
particular without repeated trials followed by reward, and (b) the item
appears at a very young age, though not necessarily at birth. However, it
would seem that both criteria are satisfied by single-trial learning as well.
If so, they do not suffice to discriminate instinct from learning. And if so
we need an improved concept of instinct, perhaps one making room for a
learning component at least in the case of the higher vertebrates.
Conventional wisdom has it that if behavior pattern X is innate, it is also
fully unlearned and it will be exhibited regardless of circumstances. In
9. 1. Learning 193
9.2 Perception
Following an old tradition, we distinguish between sensation, or detec-
tion, and perception, or recognition ("interpretation") of the detected
stimulus. We assume that sensation can be automatic (i.e., preattentive
and unlearned), whereas perception involves attention and can be per-
fected with practice. Sensation and perception are different physiological
9.2. Perception 195
s, S2
still, patients can improve with training (Poppel, Held, & Frost, 1973;
Weiskrantz, 1980).
Cross-modal association was mentioned a moment ago. An example of
it is this: Once we have learned to recognize an object both visually and
tactually we can recognize it (i.e., perceive it correctly) either visually or
tactually. The same holds for other cross-modal associations. A hypothet-
ical explanation of this fact is that each sensory system projects to some
subcortical systems, which become linked upon repeated simultaneous
stimulation. The amygdala and the hippocampus are two such systems.
See Figure 9.2. This hypothesis explains also the fact that, if the amygdala
of a monkey is surgically destroyed, the animal loses the ability to recog-
nize by vision alone a familiar object examined by touch, or conversely
(Murray & Mishkin, 1985).
The role of attention in perception is being vigorously investigated on
both the molar and the neural levels, particularly in the case of vision.
(One important motivation and source of funds for this research is the
wish to come up with machines capable of pattern discrimination.) A
standard technique is to present a subject with an array of targets (e.g.,
letters) to be detected or discriminated, and measure the time it takes him
to perform either operation. It turns out that, in the case of detection, this
time is independent of the number of items, but increases roughly in a
linear fashion with that number in the case of discrimination (Sagi &
Julesz, 1986). A facile explanation of this fact is that, whereas detection
can be done in parallel (simultaneously), discrimination requires serial (or
one by one) search. A possible biological explanation of the serial-paral-
lel distinction will be mentioned in a while.
A run of simple yet remarkable psychophysical experiments on visual
scanning is the one performed by Treisman and her coworkers. In one
experiment the subject is shown an array of black X s and in the midst of it
a red T. This irregularity "pops out" at him: He detects it preattentively.
But if the subject is asked to spot the red T in the display, it takes him
much longer; moreover, the search time proves to be proportional to the
number of "distractors" (i.e., Xs). The two tasks are quite different; in
the first the subject has to detect a singularity in an otherwise regular
pattern, whereas in the other he has to examine all the items one by one
(Treisman, 1982).
These and related experiments have prompted the construction of the
so-called feature-integration theory of attention (or perhaps 'attention
theory of feature integration'). According to it,
Features are registered early, automatically, and in parallel across the visual field,
while objects are identified separately and only at a later stage, which requires
focused attention . . . . Thus focal attention provides the "glue" which inte-
grates the initially separable features into unitary objects. Once they have been
correctly registered, the compound objects continue to be perceived and stored as
such. However with memory decay or interference, the features may disintegrate
9.2. Perception 197
and "float freely" once more, or perhaps recombine to form "illusory conjunc-
tions." (Treisman & Gelade, 1980, p. 98)
Clearly, this theory, and the experimental evidence buttressing it, contra-
dict the Gestalt principle according to which all perception is a unitary or
global act. (Recall section 5.3.)
These findings cry for neurophysiological research because, after all,
sensation and perception are brain processes. One relevant finding is that
the excitability of parietal light-sensitive neurons in the monkey is greatly
increased when the animal fixes its gaze on a target (Mountcastle, Ander-
sen, & Motter, 1981). A possible explanation ofthis fact is that the frontal
lobes (and perhaps other regions as well) contain cell assemblies that
"prime" the light-sensitive neurons, so that they will record light signals
(Milner, 1957). A hypothetical neuronal mechanism capable of doing this
trick is shown in Figure 9.3.
As for the biological difference between serial and parallel visual scan-
ning, Evarts et al., (1984) have proposed the plausible neurophysiological
hypothesis shown in Figure 9.4. Although this conjecture concerns only
the gross anatomy of the two visual systems, it is a first step on the long
and winding road leading to an adequate understanding of vision.
Another step in the same direction is the recent finding that the brain
analyzes every visual object into two components: what (recognition) and
where (location), in addition to analyzing it into separate features such as
edges and colors. To put it metaphorically, when presented with a visual
stimulus we ask ourselves: What is it? and Where is it? (Presumably there
A
o
op op o
P
FIGURE 9.3. When an animal pays attention to stimuli of a certain kind, its atten-
tional center(s) (A) in the forebrain alert or prime the suitable detectors. The latter
fire when the stimulus is presented. For example, when asked to find a blue
triangle in a display to be presented during a very short time, the subject's feature
detectors for blue (B) and triangularity (n are jointly "set" or prepared by the
attentional center(s). The subject's perceiving the blue triangle is identical with
the joint firing of Band T, which activate the perceptual unit P. This activity is
recorded electrophysiologically with the help of electrodes inserted in P.
~
t 1 t ~
::t:
Lateral Lateral <§:
geniculate geniculate Thalamus
nucleus nucleus ~
~
t n
o·
::s
en
Superior
Retina I-- colliculus
G L--.. _ _ _ _ _ ~
FIGURE 9.4. Possible neural mechanisms for the processing of visual "information": (a) serial and (b) parallel.
Adapted from Evarts, Shinoda, & Wise, (1984, p. 54).
9.2. Perception 199
people who are not known for their mathematical proficiency. Fourth,
people who have suffered severe damage to their cognitive neural sys-
tems, to the point that their speech makes no sense at all, can still per-
ceive correctly anything but words. In short, the computational view of
perception is wrongheaded. (For further objections see Fodor, 1983.) To
put it positively: We must keep the traditional distinction between per-
cepts and concepts, even while acknowledging that the latter may influ-
ence the former.
An adequate theory of perception should serve as a foil for a number of
special theories (i.e., models) of perception corresponding to the various
sensory modalities. (For the relation between a model and a general the-
ory underlying it, recall section 9.1.) Such a theory should also serve as a
basis for models of illusion, imagery, hallucination, and even dreaming. It
would be illusory to look for a unified or stretch theory explaining all the
processes in any such category. For example, whereas some illusions are
accounted for in terms of altered contexts, others are explained as gestalt
switches. (Actually these are only descriptions. The effect of context may
be explained as the effect of a disturbance caused on the central process
by the processes of perceiving the contextual items. The gestalt switch
may be explained as an effect of neuronal habituation or fatigue.) And the
fact that we sometimes see pattern (or "good form") even in the absence
of it may have to be attributed to the action of higher-order cognitive
processes.
Imagery may be described metaphorically as closed-circuit perception.
It is the specific activity of a perceptual system in the absence of external
stimulation. Thus, when having a visual image our visual cortex is active,
and when evoking a musical fragment Heschel's gyrus may become ac-
tive. In fact there is good evidence for the first conjunct and, more partic-
ularly, for the hypothesis that visual imagery is a function of the left visual
cortex (Farah, Gazzaniga, Holtzmann, & Kosslyn, 1985). However, be-
cause imagery is stimulus-independent, it should be ranked higher than
normal perception.
Dreaming is probably in the same category with imagery. It is well
known that we have a couple of objective dream indicators, one electro-
encephalographic, the other being rapid eye movement. On the other
hand, no objective indicator of dream content is available. However, in
principle it should be possible to design one based on the fine-structure
recording of the activity of the left visual cortex. As for the fact that we
are usually unable to remember our dreams, or even having dreamt, there
is no mystery about it and no need to invoke repression. We forget ordi-
nary dreams the same way we forget ordinary events during wakefulness,
namely as a result of the quick damping of most neuronal activity. In
other words, dream memory is in most cases short-term memory. Finally,
there is no good reason for attributing dreams a biological value (Hippo-
crates) or a psychological one (Freud). Suffice it to recall that the brain is
9.3. Conception 201
9.3 Conception
How are concepts formed? Three main answers to this question have
been proposed. According to classical empiricism every concept is either
a sort of distillate from a collection of percepts, or the result of a combina-
tion of percepts or some oftheir components. On the other hand, rational-
ists hold that concepts are either inborn (nativism) or the products of free
creations of the human mind (constructivism). Finally, scientific realism
begins by distinguishing two kinds of concept: empirical, or having expe-
riential counterparts (e.g., "hot"), and transempirical, or lacking such
counterparts even though they may represent aspects of reality (e.g.,
"entropy"). And scientific realism goes on to hold that, whereas the
former are rooted to percepts, the latter are stimulus-free creations of the
brain. Finally, it admits that some concepts, whether empirical or tran-
sempirical, are capable of guiding or misguiding some perceptual or motor
processes. See Figure 9.5. (For a detailed epistemological and logical
discussion of concepts, see Bunge, 1983a.)
The simplest concepts are empirical categories, such as "tree" and
"tall." They are arrived at by overlooking individual differences among
particular percepts. Categorization of some sort or other occurs probably
202 9. Higher Functions
Transempirical
concepts
Percepts
FIGURE 9.5. (a) Empiricism: Every concept originates in percepts. (b) Rational-
ism: Concepts are self-generated and they make some percepts possible. (c) Sci-
entific realism: Whereas some concepts originate in percepts, others are created;
besides, some concepts generate others and still others guide perception. From
Bunge (l983a).
A C
•••
•••
00
tI
II
1'1 ... a ••
..l ,.!t ".1 ""f • • G ,.0 0
FIGURE 9.6. Test of object constancy in pigeons. (A) Experimental apparatus. (B)
Visual forms used. (C) Examples of stimulus sets used for rotational invariance
test. Reproduced from Hollard & Delius (1982).
~,p~
11\" ".'" ,Y,,,m'/I\
Percepts
terns, a and b, the state functions of which are called A and B respec-
tively. In keeping with the Tanzi-Hebb hypothesis, learning is assumed to
consist in the formation of bridges between a and b. As a consequence, B,
which had initially been independent of A, ends up by becoming B = CA,
where C is the connectivity matrix: Recall Formula [9.4].
To account for concept formation start by assuming that similar stimuli
cause similar responses, so that the corresponding vectors A and B be-
come correlated. When activity A occurs in system a, B occurs in b. And
when a new pattern of activity A' occurs in a, the pattern in b is B' =
CA = B A A If A and A are similar (i.e., nearly parallel), their inner
I I. I
product AA' is large, whence B' == B. That is, b has a strong activity
elicited by that of a. If on the other hand A and A' are very dissimilar,
their inner product is small, i.e., the vectors A and A' are nearly orthogo-
nal, so that B' == O-that is, h is hardly activated.
Anderson's model is thus one of a categorizer or generalizer. More-
over, it accounts for the fact that the concept extracted from the original
percepts or concepts need not resemble any of them. For example, the
concept of a human being has no counterpart in the percepts of Eric or
Silvia. Indeed, consider a set of correlated input vectors AI. A 2 , • • • ,
An, with mean M. Each of them can be written as the sum of M and a noise
vector Di representing the deviation of Ai from the mean M, i.e., Ai = M +
D i • When these n patterns occur in system a, the total system composed
of a and h learns or consolidates the connectivity matrix
C =B A = ~iB Ai = B ~i eM + Di) = n B M + B ~iDi' [9.5]
If the Di cancel on the average, the connectivity matrix reduces to C = n
B M. In words: The system behaves as if it had been exposed to a single
pattern M that it has never perceived or conceived of before. It has
created an abstract concept. (Caution: This is not the only way concepts
are formed. The abstract concepts in mathematics and science have no
discernible roots in perception.)
9.3. Conception 205
finding was eventually rescued by Hebb (1949), who made it one of the
pillars of his biological theory of mind.
Because empiricists do not believe in creativity, rationalists take it for
granted as a gift of the immaterial mind, and intuitionists do not believe
that it can be studied scientifically, the subject is still largely in limbo.
Because there are no adequate theories of creativity, no valid measures of
it are available. For example, the widely used Kirton Adaptation-Innova-
tion Inventory (KAI) (Kirton, 1976) measures efficiency (the ability to
work within existing settings), conformity, and the tendency to depart
from consensus (i.e., originality), but it opposes the latter to the tendency
to be methodical or disciplined. Hence, although the KAI may well be
measuring deviance, it cannot measure creativity, which requires a dose
of self-imposed discipline. No novel idea can be carried through without
some hard work. Recall the dictum attributed to Buffon: "Genius is 10%
inspiration and 90% perspiration."
In concluding, let us say something about the highest, most powerful,
and least well understood of all mental processes, namely thinking. A
thought, such as "Fruit is good," is a system of ideas (i.e., images or
concepts). (Conceivably, feelings too might participate in thinking.)
Whereas some thoughts are imageless or "abstract," (i.e., purely concep-
tual), others are strings of images, and still others are sequences of images
and concepts. A fortiori, so are arguments, in particular deductions.
Craik (1943) characterized thinking as the manipulation of mental or
internal representations of the world. This characterization has become
fashionable in cognitive psychology, but it cannot be adopted for the
following reasons. First, it fails for logic, mathematics, and theology,
none of which model the external world. It also fails for thoughts about
thoughts, such as "That thought is true." Second, the characterization is
phenomenological or molar: It gives no hint that thinking is a brain pro-
cess. Third, it is metaphorical: The brain (or the mind) cannot "manipu-
late" anything because it does not have hands.
A thought may be identified with either the sequential or the simulta-
neous activation ofthe neuron assemblies corresponding to its component
images or concepts. Note the following points about this physiological
characterization of thinking. First, it does not require that we have one
thought at a time. It is possible to think two thoughts at the same time,
particularly if one of them is imageless and the other in images. Second,
this account does not limit the number of biospecies capable of thinking.
It may well be that every animal capable of forming images or concepts is
also capable of stringing some of them together. On the other hand, it
seems that animals other than humans are not proficient at reasoning (i.e.,
constructing arguments). Third, when thinking aloud, speaking, or writ-
ing, the order of the component neural activities may change, and it may
change again when translating the same thoughts into another language.
Moreover, some words, such as "is" in "Fruit is good," have no counter-
9.4. Cognition 207
9.4 Cognition
Cognition embraces perception, imagination, language, and conception
(including thinking). Cognition is of course the subject matter of cognitive
psychology. This discipline, often advertised as the dernier cri de La
mode, is actually the oldest branch of psychology. Indeed all philoso-
phers, from Socrates to Kant, were more intrigued by cognition than by
any other mental ability.
Cognitive psychology must not be mistaken for cognitivism, the fash-
ionable school that identifies psychology with cognitive psychology and
either overlooks behavior, motivation, emotion, and volition, or attempts
to treat them as cognitive (and particularly computational) processes.
From a scientific viewpoint cognitivism is thus both narrow and imperial-
istic. From a philosophical viewpoint it is an instance of radical rational-
ism as well as of mentalism or even animism.
Viewed biologically, cognition is any specific function discharged by
certain plastic subsystems of the higher vertebrate brain. Different brain
subsystems specialize in different cognitive tasks. (This explains why
certain local damages cause acalculia but not agraphia, and so on.) How-
ever, the converse is false: Certain cognitive tasks, even if specialized,
may recruit a number of subsystems, perhaps as support systems. Indeed,
the monitoring of blood flow in the various regions of the cerebral cortex
shows that, when a subject engages in hard intellectual work, all of the
regions consume about the same amount of blood: All systems go.
The fact that certain cognitive tasks engage the entire cortex or nearly
so does not prove that complex mental activities are distributed rather
than localized. It only shows that the activity of the specific "centers"
radiates to others and enlists their support, as well as that of systems
other than the cortex. Among the latter the limbic system stands out. In
particular, the perceptual and conceptual cortex interacts with the thala-
mus and hypothalamus via the amygdala. See Figure 9.8. This anatomical
208 9. Higher Functions
000
preconceived hypothesis attract attention, are singled out, and are re-
membered; facts that are contrary to it are disregarded, treated as 'excep-
tional,' and forgotten. " Even scientists are likely to behave in this man-
ner-for better or worse.
This tendency to seek patterns everywhere is double-edged. On the one
hand it favors our finding genuine regularities, but on the other it prevents
us from noticing departures from regularities-as any proofreader knows.
It thus leads us now to truth, now to error. Therefore Popper's prescrip-
tion (Popper, 1959)-to always attempt to refute hypothesized regulari-
ties-is psychologically unrealistic and methodologically far too con-
straining. The normal scientific attitude is to start by looking for
confirming cases, to try and accomodate the early exceptions by ad hoc
hypotheses, and to give up the central hypothesis only in extremis. Only
the stubborn disregard for repeated exceptions is foolish or worse.
A preconception is a more or less tacit idea that had been learned
earlier and that may be kept even after it has been shown to be wrong. For
example, most children continue to believe that "multiplication makes
bigger" even after having learned to multiply by numbers smaller than 1.
And most adults continue to hold the ancient impetus hypothesis, accord-
ing to which a body slows down, and eventually stops moving altogether,
as its momentum or fuel becomes exhausted. The coexistence of incorrect
naive ideas with correct formal ones has been investigated experimentally
in the cases of arithmetical operations (Fishbein, Deri, Sainati Nelo, &
Sciolis Marino, 1985) and of the laws of motion (McCloskey, Caramazza,
& Green, 1980). One may speculate that such coexistence is nothing but
the persistence of the early intuitive cell assemblies alongside the later
ones. Unlearning (i.e., dismantling cell assemblies), is harder than form-
ing new ones. We pay for memory with preconception.
Cognitivists have made much of mental models, holding in particular
that to understand an item is to model it (Johnson-Laird, 1983). This view
has a grain of truth. Indeed, modeling X helps understand X. However,
the view is still very coarse. For one thing, the notion of a mental model is
vague-or, better, the expression designates a number of concepts,
among them those of mental picture, analog, and theory (Bunge, 1973c).
Because the processes of mental picture formation, analogizing, and theo-
rizing are so very different from one another, it is unlikely that a single
theory will fit them all. Second, if the model is either an analog or a black
box, it won't explain anything. Only a conceptual model (or theory) de-
scribing some mechanism can explain and, therefore, produce some un-
derstanding. Third, the very concept of understanding is complex, if only
because there are degrees or levels of understanding. Fourth, in addition
to a more precise description of the processes of understanding and mod-
eling, we need to build and test neural models of them.
Another specialty of cognitivists is problem solving, which behaviorists
had neglected, and the Gestalt workers had accounted for in terms of
212 9. Higher Functions
sudden insight or global intuition. Insight has fallen out of fashion since
the cognitivist upheaval, probably because computers cannot possibly be
attributed any. According to cognitivism the problem solver does nothing
but "process information"-and so, presumably, do the problem poser,
the conjecturer, the critic, the evaluator, and everyone else as well. In
this approach knowledge is a long-term store, and problem solving con-
sists in searching such store for relevant items. Moreover, the process is
regarded as a computation according to definite (though of course mostly
unknown) algorithms (i.e., explicit rules for symbol manipulation). No
room is made for originality other than novelty of the combinatorial kind.
Computationalism is supposed to hold for computers as well as hu-
mans. Thus Simon (1979) claims that BACON is both a program for
building theories out of data, and a model of theory formation in science.
The catch is that someone has to tell the machine which variables to
examine. Thus, if instructed to find the law linking the current to the
voltage in a DC metallic circuit, the computer is likely to come up with the
correct linear function, namely Ohm's law-provided the programmer
has fed it a set of correct current-voltage pairs. Therefore the credit goes
to the programmer and to the experimental physicist who supplied the
data; the computer has not discovered Ohm's law-or any other.
The computationalist view of problem solving surely holds for com-
puters working on well-defined problems for which well-defined methods
are known. However, someone has got to invent such rules to begin with.
And rule invention is not a rule-directed process-or, at least, nobody has
produced any rules for inventing rules. We handle original problems in
original ways, mixing reason with intuition. (See e.g., Bunge, 1962.) Only
some optimistic seventeenth-century philosophers, as well as some com-
puter fans, have been naive enough to believe that it must be possible to
invent an ars inueniendi.
Experimental research on problem solving has failed to confirm the
computational view of the human intellect. In particular, it has found that
real people do not behave quite rationally in handling the hypotheses they
form in the course of their problem-solving attempts. For example, in
principle the following four strategies are possible with regard to any
given hypothesis h relative to some set of data taken to be true:
9.5 Intention
According to the idealist tradition, only humans (and perhaps also deities)
have intentions and the will to carry them out; animals are machine-like.
This view has persisted until recently. For example, both Vygotsky and
Lewin regarded voluntary activity as a product of the historico-cultural
evolution of behavior. And both Eccles (e.g., 1982) and Libet (e.g., 1985)
have used intention and voluntary movement as instances of the action of
the immaterial mind on the nervous system. This idealist view began to
evaporate, or at least to become obsolete, the moment the first results
from the neurophysiology of voluntary movement started to come in. (See
e.g., Evarts et ai., 1984; Goldberg, 1985.)
The first inkling that the will has a definite neural seat, mainly in the
frontal cortex, came when lobotomized patients were studied in the mid-
1930s. It was found that they had all but lost the capacity to make plans
and decisions-their willpower had been excised with a lancet. Later
studies, on monkeys and humans, showed the existence of a large number
of neurons that "are not activated by sensory stimuli, but discharge at
high rates when the animal projects his arm or manipUlates with his hand
within the immediate extrapersonal space to obtain an object he de-
sires" (Mountcastle, Lynch, Georgopoulos, Sakata, & Acuna, 1975,
p. 904). Moreover, long before (about 800 msec) the actual voluntary
movement starts, a special change in the potential-the readiness
potential-recorded from the scalp appears. Intention is thus a brain
process.
We may characterize a voluntary movement as a movement initiated
within a higher brain center. It involves set or preparation, and its reac-
tion time is longer than that of the corresponding reflex, if any. Inciden-
tally, voluntary movement involves reflex movement rather than being its
opposite. For, to put it metaphorically, the will keeps some reflexes under
control and organizes them. Thus running involves several automatic
stabilizing movements. And voluntary movements of other types are pre-
ceded by sensorimotor or conceptual learning, as is the case with the
precise movements of the craftsman. Here we may speak of "cognitive
steering" rather than of "downward causation" from immaterial mind to
body. This steering is an action of one part of the brain upon another.
Free will has been endlessly discussed in the philosophical and theolog-
216 9. Higher Functions
FIGURE 9.9. The Tower of London test. In this case a minimum offour moves is
required. See Shallice (1982).
9.6 Summing Up
Mental processes, formerly the preserve of mentalism, are now being
studied biologically as well. Though young, the biology of mind has come
up with some results that would have gladdened the materialist philoso-
phers of ancient Greece as well as the medical schools of Hippocrates and
Galen. For one thing, it has confirmed the psychoneural identity hypothe-
sis. More specifically, it has corroborated the localizationist hypothesis,
that every mental process is the specific function of some subsystem of
the brain. This has made it possible to alter many mental processes-to
the point of starting or stopping them-by electrical, chemical, or surgical
means.
However, though impressive, the findings of the young biology of mind
are still rather few and spotty. The main result of these studies is perhaps
the growing realization that even apparently simple mental processes,
such as correctly identifying a visual stimulus (as different from locating
it), are so complicated that their description in traditional molar terms, or
in fashionable information-processing or computational ones, does them
no justice. (After all, there are nearly 20 distinct visual "areas" in the
primate neocortex, and everyone of them seems to analyze the visual
field in its own way-ways that are only now being slowly unveiled.) This
complexity guarantees that, as long as psychologists continue to be curi-
ous and to resist the temptations of simplicism, they will not run out of
research problems. And keeping curiosity alive requires keeping dogma-
in particular psychoneural dualism-at bay.
This concludes our examination of the young biology of behavior and
mind. The next part of the book will be concerned with the social matrix
of human behavior and mind, as well as with the applications of psychol-
ogy to the deliberate modification of behavior and mind.
v
more recently defended by the Frankfurt school, holds that there is a gulf
between the history- and meaning-centered disciplines (social sciences)
such as psychology, anthropology, economics, and the like, and the na-
ture-centered disciplines (natural sciences) such as physics, chemistry,
biology, and so forth. This is tantamount to assuming that human and
animal behavior are not a part of nature, or that the meaning of data and
theories in physics, chemistry, and similar disciplines, is not studied! The
central assumption is one of a radical distinction between humans and
nature, and this dualism is as unfortunate as the mind-body dualism,
which has done so much harm to psychology.
A unified view of science-one that goes beyond positivism and physi-
calism, beyond Popper and Kuhn-is urgently needed. All sciences share
an interest in understanding natural, real-world phenomena. This holds
for physics as well as sociology and any other discipline that uses the
scientific method, whether it deals with physical, biological, or social
phenomena. We construe psychology as a natural science, one very close
to biology, which investigates the behavior of organisms. It can thus be
grouped with other sciences, such as economics, anthropology, and soci-
ology, which also study behavior, although they emphasize particular
kinds of behavior. The concept of such a group of behavioral sciences is
relatively new. It does not imply, however, that other sciences do not
study behavior (e.g., that physics does not study the behavior of matter
and chemistry that of molecules). Clearly, to deny this would be to deny
the existence of these disciplines. Thus, in a broad sense all sciences are
behavioral sciences, just as they are all natural sciences because they
study nature.
Psychology, then, is a behavioral science. It is also a social science, as
well as a natural science and, in particular, a biological science. Histori-
cally, however, the special nature of the problems it deals with-the
"soul," "psyche," or "mind," and behavior-has made psychology es-
pecially puzzling. Physics is clearly a natural science. So is biology, when
it avoids vitalism. Sociology and economics are just as clearly social or
behavioral sciences. However, psychology, with one foot in nature and
the other in society, has been especially difficult to classify using tradi-
tional distinctions. Given the way science has evolved, these distinctions
rooted in eighteenth-century thought are clearly of no rel,Nance to psy-
chology near the beginning of the twenty-first century.
10.2 Culture
For anthropologists, the concept of culture is as important, all-encom-
passing, and difficult to conceptualize as is the concept of behavior for
psychologists. In this respect it is also analogous to the concept of matter
for physicists and the concept oflife for biologists. Indeed, these concepts
10.2. Culture 225
are so important that views of each of them form the conceptual basis for
entire disciplines.
One definition of culture is "the part of nature made by man." It in-
cludes objective culture, that is, human-made objects, and also what
Triandis, V. Vassiliou, G. Vassiliou, Tanaka, & Shanmugam (1972) call
"subjective culture." It encompasses architecture, highways, art, and
science, all of which are part of objective culture. Subjective culture
includes the values and attitudes that give meaning to human actions and
determine notions of ethics and esthetics, as well as attitudes toward the
universe, the people in it, and the great metaphysical problems that we
can neither solve nor ignore. Culture includes both these objective and
subjective products of human action. Both are important for psychology.
Culture is the great social matrix within which we are born, we grow,
and we die. It gives meaning to human action, and we transmit it to our
biological and spiritual descendants (our children and our students). It has
many philosophical, political, and practical implications: It tells us what is
good and bad; how to live and die; how to talk, dress, and love; things to
eat and when to eat them; how to express happiness and sadness; what to
consider desirable and what to detest.
The intriguing thing is that culture is so close that we almost never
notice its presence. As the forest does not let us see the trees, so culture
surrounds us completely. Apparently insects, ants for example, are un-
able to see a whole human or elephant. Similarly, humans cannot grasp all
of culture, which is tacit and need not be studied or questioned. So it is
that one of the most educational experiences someone can have is to visit
a different culture and live with its inhabitants-for example, a year
spent in Saudi Arabia for an Englishman, or one spent in Malawi for an
American.
There are nations in which one need only run for a few kilometers to go
from one culture to another. Strangely enough, people never seem to do
this, and for the most part live in their own cultural millieu as if it were a
jail or a reserve. Living in another culture is important because it demon-
strates clearly the relativity of many of the values and practices we take
most for granted. What are universal and eternal truths in one culture can
be seen as quaint, paroquial beliefs in another. Not everyone rises at 7:00
to have eggs and coffee for breakfast, drives to the office, and returns
home at 5:00 to watch television. There are cultures where insects and
rodents are eaten and where people do not bathe, where a man can legally
have several wives, and a few where a woman can legally have several
husbands. Housing and clothing change from culture to culture, as does
what people expect from life, what they do when a relative dies, and what
they consider a fair salary. The experience of living in a different culture
makes us see our own more objectively and realistically.
Culture thus bears directly on psychological research because what is
normal and abnormal, acceptable and unacceptable in behavior depend on
226 10. The Social Matrix of Behavior
the culture, age, and social class of the subjects studied. Segall, Camp-
bell, and Herskovits (1966), for example, found that even perception
changes with culture. They discovered that visual illusions-phenomena
often studied by psychologists-are not present in "non-carpentered"
cultures. The study was designed to verify whether or not cultural differ-
ences could be of sufficient magnitude to influence perceptual tendencies.
A total of 1,878 persons from 13 non-Western (mainly African) and 3
Western groups were shown 50 drawings, each an example of one of five
geometrical illusions: the Miiller-Lyer, the Sander Parallelogram, two
forms of the Horizontal-Vertical illusion, and a simple perspective
drawing.
Their results supported the hypothesis that a "carpentered world" and
"foreshortening" made the perception of these stimuli relevant. Accord-
ing to the authors, perception depends in part upon ecological validity.
The carpentered world hypothesis says that the human visual system is
generally functional across the species, but that specific conditions affect
how the system is utilized in different ecologies. Such ecology-internal
tendencies may thus be compared across different ecologies. People who
live in carpentered, right-angled environments learn quite early in their
lives to compensate for the "reality" of visual illusions. The learned
habits of visual inference make the typical Westerner probabilistically
more susceptible to the Miiller-Lyer illusion, which has as an eco-cul-
tural analog the frequent arrays of right-angled buildings and boxes. Simi-
larly, the cultural analog of the Horizontal-Vertical illusion is the flat
cornfield. The inhabitants of such terrain consider the vertical line longer,
because an adjustment has to be made for the two-dimensional depiction
of a three-dimensional reality.
These results were quite surprising because perception has always been
viewed as a basic biological function independent of learning. This exam-
ple illustrates the pervasive influence of cultural learning on behavior.
In cross-cultural psychology the researcher begins by identifying some
major themes that differ across cultures, and then explores the anteced-
ents and consequents of those themes. For instance, the concept of time
seems to entail different behaviors, values, and attitudes toward work,
leisure, money, and so forth, as it varies over the cultures of North
America, Latin America, the Far East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. If we
could discover a clear contrast between some of these cultures, which
implies that cultures with similar concepts of time would have other
things in common and would be different from cultures with different
concepts of time, it would be possible to discover what correlates with
given concepts of time (e.g., traditionalism vs. modernism, internal vs.
external control, etc.). We could also discover the main antecedents, for
instance in child-rearing practices, and the main consequences of these
notions with respect, for example, to work, money, leisure, the future,
the past, and so on.
10.3. Social Classes 227
10.4 Socialization
The process of socialization is that of the acquisition of the values, atti-
tudes, and behavior patterns that are characteristic of the culture within
which the individual is born. It is the process of becoming a part of that
culture, but can be more broadly construed as the process oftransforming
the individual into a human being. It might thus be called "humanization"
rather than socialization.
Individuals of our species are born very "prematurely" and the child
leaves the maternal womb only to enter the social womb. It is not possible
for the newborn to survive without the help of the society into which it is
born. Infants would die of hunger, exposure, or disease if it were not for
the social matrix that receives them. This matrix consists of one's mother
and the other members of one's family as well as the cultural context
10.4. Socialization 229
Many things are learned by imitation. In some cultures, the girl learns
she must look after her younger brothers and sisters, and the boy learns
he must go hunting with his father; the girl acquires customs related to
agriculture and cattle breeding, and the boy those related to war and
hunting. In Western cultures, the boy usually learns to be competitive and
the girl to be supportive; the boy learns to think that it is better to be an
engineer than a nurse, and the girl learns the opposite.
Sex roles have changed with the passage of time. Especially apparent
are the changes of the last 30 years. Women as engineers and men as
nurses have demonstrated that nothing exists in human nature that predis-
poses humans for one kind of work rather than another. The concepts of
masculinity and femininity have changed considerably and androgeny has
appeared as an important alternative to them. We are going through a time
of great social change, and the roles of man and woman in society seem to
have changed most.
In socialization we find direct teaching and imitation which provide for
the child a set of norms of conduct. If we add the fact that one's nervous
system can only process a limited amount of information and that the
child accepts more readily whatever comes from people who provide
reinforcement, it is clear that infancy has a lasting effect on behavior.
Young children do not know any alternative, they just accept what hap-
pens around them without much objection and integrate it into their per-
sonal world. As time passes, they become members of that culture and
transmit their acquisitions to the next generation. In this way culture
propagates itself.
Most socialization takes place within the family. Of course other social
agencies, such as education, advertising, and television are also influen-
tial. But it seems that the family is the principal agent of the child's
socialization, as has been the case for many centuries.
It is important to note that the family has undergone radical changes.
The extended family, so important until a few decades ago, scarcely
exists. Although in the Third World it is still believed that the extended
family has a great deal of input in socialization, in reality it is losing
ground everywhere. It is being replaced by the nuclear family of father,
mother, and children, and today one talks of alternatives to the traditional
family (Ardila, 1980b). In the future, the family will continue to exist but
alongside communes and other alternatives that will play the same social-
izing role as the extended family of yesterday and the nuclear family of
today. It is not true that the extended family has died or disintegrated, but
society has tried to find alternatives to it. This is a very important advance
that will surely continue to evolve and from which all the participants will
benefit, women in particular. Furthermore, there is no return to the ex-
tended family, just as there is no return to being cave dwellers: We must
look ahead.
10.5. Cultural Homogenization 231
10.6 Summing Up
We are social as well as biological beings. Our nervous system and biolog-
ical structure enable us to learn very much and to modify our behavior to
control its consequences. In this sense, the laws of learning can be said to
be universal. On the other hand, the content of such learning processes is
determined by culture. We learn through socialization what the culture
stipulates should be transmitted from one generation to the next. Children
are led to acquire a series of values, attitudes, and patterns of behavior
that make them members of their society. Socialization, then, is a pro-
cess of humanization.
Culture surrounds us completely. It influences our behavior and our
membership in a social class, which in turn entails the social roles we
have to fill and confers status, prestige, and power. The different cultures
of the planet have changed with the passage of time. It is unlikely that
they will become one in the near future. In any case, the interaction
among them is greater and greater. Surely no single culture or single
language will emerge, although the differences between cultures are ever
fewer.
Psychological phenomena are intimately connected to social structure.
Behavior depends to a great extent on the cultural environment in which
we function. In this sense, a study of the conceptual and methodological
foundations of contemporary psychology cannot be complete without due
consideration of social structure. Although all animals are social to some
extent, the human being is the social animal par excellence.
CHAPTER 11
Consciousness
Consciousness, the pride of the righteous and the curse of the sinner,
has baffled countless thinkers over millennia, and is still regarded by
many as an unknown. Thus Johnson-Laird (1983, p. 448) notes: "No one
really knows what consciousness is, what it does, or what function it
serves." It stood at the very center of traditional psychology until it was
banished by behaviorism and reflexology. However, even at the peak of
these two movements the concept of consciousness only went under-
ground. In fact, it was used when distinguishing subliminal from con-
scious perception, or an alert animal from an anesthesized or sleeping
one.
The concept of consciousness is now making a vigorous comeback, and
it is increasingly being admitted that it is a legitimate concern of science.
In fact, a number of investigators have begun to explore it as well as its
dual, namely nonconsciousness. For example, they study nonconscious
learning and recognition as well as nonconscious vision ("blindsight")
and nonconscious recall ("memoryless memory"). (See e.g., Davidson &
Davidson, 1980; Dimond, 1976; Doty, 1975; Eccles, 1966; Edelman &
Mountcastle, 1978; Fernandez-Guardiola, 1979; Griffin, 1984; Hilgard,
1977, 1980; Humphrey, 1983; Ingvar, 1979; LeDoux, Wilson, & Gaz-
zaniga, 1979; Libet, 1965, 1978, 1985; Mandler, 1984; Mishkin, 1982; Oat-
ley, 1980; Poppel, 1985; Schacter, 1985; Shallice, 1972; Tranel & Dama-
sio, 1985; Tulving, 1985a; Underwood & Stevens, 1980; Weiskrantz,
1985.)
The problem of consciousness, like any other tough scientific problem,
has two components: one conceptual, the other empirical. The former
consists in defining the concept (or concepts) of consciousness, either
explicitly or by way of a system of postulates, and in devising models of
conscious processes, as well as of mental processes that fail to emerge on
a conscious level. The empirical problems of consciousness consist in
devising reliable indicators of conscious processes, in finding the so-
called seat(s) or organ(s) of consciousness, and in determining how the
level of consciousness changes in the course of individual development,
234 11. Consciousness
11.1 Distinctions
To motivate the definitions and hypotheses that will be proposed later on
we shall start by drawing some distinctions. First, we distinguish con-
sciousness from reactivity or sensitivity. All things, whether alive or not,
are sensitive to some physical or chemical agents, though none responds
to all. If we were to identify consciousness with reactivity or sensitivity
we would have to adopt animism or panpsychism, thus giving up the more
or less tacit ontology of modern science.
A second concept to be analyzed is that of awareness. Any animal
capable of identifying or discriminating some (internal or external) stim-
uli, or some of its own actions, can be said to be aware ofthem provided it
can do something to control either the sources of stimulation or its own
reaction to them-not so if it cannot help responding on cue. For exam-
ple, the gazelle that approaches a watering hole in sight ofa pride of lions,
and the rat that accepts an electric shock in exchange for the chance to eat
or to explore a new maze, can be imputed awareness. In short, a test or
indicator of awareness would be the ability to learn new behavior patterns
incompatible with inherited or previously learned ones.
An animal aware of what it is feeling or doing can be said to be self-
aware. It not only walks and feels hungry but also notices that it is
walking and feeling hungry-as suggested by the way it goes about solv-
ing the problems it encounters along the way. On the other hand, certain
neurological patients are confused as to the origin of some of their own
feelings and doings; they are not fully self-aware. (Example: "neglect" or
the failure to recognize a part of one's own body.) Nor are normal adults
self-aware all of the time; we often manage to temporarily forget hunger
or even pain, and we perform many actions automatically.
An animal aware of what it is perceiving or thinking may be said to be
conscious even if momentarily oblivious of some of its own feelings and
doings, or not manifestly responding to some external stimuli that usually
elicit its reaction. The goose that rolls an imaginary egg with the ventral
11.2. Definitions 235
part of its beak is not conscious: Its movements are regulated by a sort of
"motor tape" in its nervous system, and it can do nothing to help moving
that way. On the other hand, the pigeon that looks intently at a rotated
figure to see whether it is the same as the original, in expectation of a
reward, may be said to be conscious: It is monitoring and "manipulating"
some of its own mental states and movements.
Finally, an animal that is occasionally conscious, that sometimes re-
flects upon its own perceptions or thoughts (concurrent or past), and does
not attribute them to something or somebody else, can be said to be self-
conscious. On the other hand, an animal that attributes its own percep-
tions or thoughts to an external object fails to be self-conscious; so is
the person who "hears voices," imputes his dreams to spirits, or claims
to communicate with the dead. Likewise, an individual immersed in a
motor or intellectual task who does not pause to reflect upon what she is
doing or thinking is not self-conscious. She is herself without being con-
scious of her self.
Let us next hone the five concepts introduced so far.
11.2 Definitions
The terms 'awareness' and 'consciousness' are ambiguous (i.e., they des-
ignate several different though related concepts). The least demanding of
these concepts is that of sensitivity of reactivity to some stimuli. It may be
chancterized by the following:
Definition 1. Let b denote a thing (living or nonliving) and X an action
on b or on a part of b, and originating either outside or in a part of b. Then
b is X-sensitive (or X-responsive) if, and only if, b reacts to X (i.e., if X
causes or triggers a change in the state of b), either always or with a
certain probability.
Photosensitivity, chemical sensitivity, and the ability to respond to
social stimuli are examples of specific sensitivity or reactivity. Obviously,
the proverbial pinprick is not an adequate test of consciousness, for even
the lowest grade of consciousness requires far more than the capacity to
react to external physical or chemical stimuli.
Next comes the concept of awareness, which refers only to animals of
certain species. We define it as follows:
Definition 2. If b is an animal, b is aware of (or notices) change X
(internal or external to b) if, and only if, b feels (senses) X-otherwise b is
unaware of X.
Awareness requires neither more nor less than neurosensors of some
kind. (Hence plants and animals lacking neurosensors cannot be aware of
anything. Not even the sea urchin can be aware of anything, for it lacks
sense organs. A fortiori, machines cannot attain awareness, although, if
236 11. Consciousness
11.3 Applications
Let us now put the preceding definitions to work in redescribing some
mental abilities and deficits.
Animal awareness. All animals can be aware of some external and
internal stimuli, and some may become self-aware at an early age. Fur-
ther, it may be conjectured that all mammals and birds can be in conscious
states, however dimly and infrequently, but we do not know for sure
because no physiological indicators of consciousness have so far been
devised.
Development of consciousness. Humans seem to become aware of
themselves (i.e., self-aware), by age 2. By age 6 they usually have become
conscious (i.e., aware of what they perceive and think). In fact, a normal
child of 6 will answer unhesitatingly whether or not he or she is thinking of
something definite, such as a scene from a film or a raid on the cookie jar.
Infantile amnesia. Although early experiences contribute decisively to
forming our personalities, we hardly recall them. Most of our early learn-
ing is preconscious: Consciousness develops only later on and gradually.
Another way of putting this is to say that the infant brain lacks the mecha-
nism of episodic memory. In fact it is so primitive that it cannot possibly
repress anything.
Subliminal perception. The well-known findings on subliminal percep-
tion (e.g., Dixon, 1971) confirm the hypothesis that consciousness comes
in degrees: nil, dim, normal, and heightened. 'Subliminal perception' is
just another name for nonconscious perception, a process in which we are
aware but not conscious of what we sense. This can be generalized: We
can learn (acquire knowledge) without being conscious, or even aware, of
doing so.
Blindsight. Patients who have sustained damage to their primary visual
cortex experience a blind spot or area (scotoma), or even total blind-
ness-or so they report. Actually they may have considerable residual
vision without being conscious of it, whence they cannot describe the
objects they actually see with their "second sight." This w~s demon-
strated by shining light on those "blind spots" and asking the· ubjects to
240 11. Consciousness
guess what was being shown them. Most of the time they guessed cor-
rectly (Poppel, Held, & Frost, 1973; Weiskrantz, 1980). These then are
cases of unconscious vision, and they suggest the existence of a second
visual system. (See Stoerig, Hubner, & Poppet, 1985.) "Blindtouch"
(Paillard, Michel, & Stelmach, 1983) is parallel. One may conjecture that
there are similar phenomena in the remaining modalities, so that one may
speak in general of nonconscious perception. (The difference with sublim-
inal perception is that in the latter there need be no definite anatomical
lesion, so that it must involve different neural systems.)
Prosopagnosia. A stroke, a tumor, or some other insult to the inferior
medial occipito-temporal cortices and their connections can cause a loss
of the ability to recognize familiar faces, animals, automobiles, and the
like. This impairment of object recognition is called 'prosopagnosia.'
However, when shown a picture of a close relative or friend, a proso-
pagnosic generates a far larger skin conductance response than when
shown an unfamiliar face (Tranel & Damasio, 1985). This objective test
shows that the patient does identify the face without being conscious: this
is another case of nonconscious perception. This is one of many findings
suggesting that the process offace recognition, and perception in general,
is a multiple-stage process, only the last of which consists in the monitor-
ing or readout of the preceding ones (A. R. Damasio, G. W. Damasio, &
Van Hoesen, 1982; Treisman & Gelade, 1980).
Loss of short term memory. Because every mental process takes some
time, however short (usually at least 10 msec), we must ask whether
memory is necessary for self-consciousness (i.e., for the concurrent mon-
itoring of some mental processes). One could not possibly reflect on what
he had been thinking only a short while ago unless he could recall that
thought. Individuals who have lost their short term memory, like the
famous H.M. so thoroughly studied by Brenda Milner (1959), though
possibly conscious, are not fully self-conscious even while chatting intelli-
gently with their examiners. Likewise, the consciousness ofN.N., stud-
ied by Schacter and Tulving, is severely impaired although he can pro-
duce a pretty good definition of "consciousness" (Tulving, 1985a).
Something similar holds for patients in advanced stages of Korsakoffs
"psychosis" or Alzheimer's disease; they are not fully self-conscious
because their memory span is so short that they cannot reflect upon their
own mental activity. These patients have also lost much of their explicit
or declarative knowledge (vs. know-how), including knowledge of them-
selves-they hardly know who they are.
Declarative (explicit) versus procedural (tacit) knowledge. Amnesic pa-
tients are worst at performing tasks requiring explicit knowledge (or
know-that), and best at those requiring tacit or procedural knowledge (or
know-how), such as driving and speaking. Moreover "conscious recollec-
tion is neither useful nor necessary" for the performance of a number of
skilled tasks (Schacter, 1985). In amnesic patients the correct response
11.3. Applications 241
11.4 Hypotheses
We now propose a few general and rather mild hypotheses concerning
awareness and consciousness. We start with a restatement of the psycho-
neural identity thesis:
Hypothesis 1. All mental processes, whether or not conscious, are
brain processes and, more precisely, processes occurring in plastic re-
gions of the brain.
Hypothesis 2. Awareness and consciousness of any kind are specific
(exclusive and nonroutine) activities of distinct subsystems of the central
nervous system of a highly evolved animal.
This hypothesis is suggested by neurological data such as the following.
Damage to the parietal lobes can cause loss of body awareness but not
necessarily loss of consciousness proper. In particular, a parietal lobe
patient may be able to reflect on his own perceptions and thoughts so long
as these do not refer to the part of his body that he does not acknowledge
as his own. (The dual of neglect, namely phantom limb pain, is sometimes
successfully treated by surgery on a parietal lobe.)
Hypothesis 3. All conscious processes occur in the neocortex in con-
junction with some subcortical systems, particularly the thalamus, the
hippocampus, or the amygdala.
This conjecture contains the popular view that conscious processes
occur, at least partly, in the frontal lobes (e.g., Ingvar, 1979; Luria, 1973).
244 11. Consciousness
But it also states, contrary to the standard view, that the cortex does not
suffice for consciousness. One piece of evidence for our conjecture is the
finding that full-blown amnesia requires damage to at least part of the
limbic system (Aggleton & Mishkin, 1983; Mishkin, Spiegler, Saunders,
& Malamut, 1982; Saunders et aI., 1984). Because dense amnesia is in-
compatible with self-consciousness (section 1.3), it may be conjectured
that an intact limbic system is required for full self-consciousness-
though not for plain consciousness, let alone for mere awareness. We may
speculate that conscious processes are identical with interactions be-
tween a cortical system and the thalamic and limbic systems. And, given
the variety of cortical regions, we may also speculate that there are as
many neural (cortico-thalamic and cortico-limbic) consciousness systems
as kinds of conscious process-motor, perceptual, cognitive, and so
forth. These speculations account for the great variety and shiftiness of
conscious experience.
Hypothesis 4. A conscious process is one whereby one part of the brain
(call it C) records or controls perceptual or cognitive processes that occur
in another part (call it N) of the same brain.
In other words, consciousness requires two distinct but connected neu-
ral systems: See Figure 11.1. It follows that, if these systems are discon-
nected, whether temporarily or permanently, the corresponding con-
scious experience is interrupted. This would explain the momentary loss
of consciousness in deep sleep or as a result of a concussion. It would also
help explain blindsight, loss of episodic memory, nonconscious learning,
and the like. (Recall section 11.2.) All these would be disconnection syn-
dromes, hence basically similar to some aphasias, agnosias, and apraxias
(Geschwind, 1965), as well as to some amnesias (Warrington &
Weiskrantz, 1982).
Hypothesis 5. Consciousness comes in degrees:
(a) For every kind of mental process there is a threshold below which the
monitoring system C is not activated.
(b) The intensity of conscious process c equals the intensity of the specific
(nonroutine) activity of the neural system C that monitors the activity
of a plastic neural system N (other than C) that has afferences to C.
(Hence the definition: An animal is conscious of process n going on in N
if and only if N acts upon C.)
This hypothesis-a refinement of that of James (1890)-accounts for
subliminal experience as well as for the dimming of awareness and con-
sciousness (e.g., when falling asleep) and their heightening (e.g., when
performing a difficult task for the first time).
Hypothesis 6. Consciousness surfaces and submerges:
(a) Unlearned behavior may become conscious, and
(b) Learned behavior, if initially conscious, may become nonconscious
(automatic).
11.4. Hypotheses 245
and that will motivate him to make an effort to answer (Weiskrantz, 1977).
The same holds, mutatis mutandis, for human infants. Many failures to
demonstrate certain cognitive abilities in human babies and in certain
animals turned out to be failures of the experimenter's imagination in
designing the proper experiments.
What holds for consciousness holds, a fortiori, for its dual. Consider,
for example, Freud's conjecture that all slips of the tongue are pranks of
the Unconscious. Motley (1985) found that human subjects made anxious
by a (phony) threat of electric shock are likely to commit more spooner-
isms (e.g., 'pobody is nerfect' for 'nobody is perfect') than are relaxed
subjects. But presumably, anxious individuals are prone to make more
mistakes of all kinds-motor, perceptual, conceptual, linguistic, and
combinations thereof-not just speech errors. The same is true of the
occurrence of slips of the tongue with a seeming sexual content (e.g.,
'bared shoulders' for 'shared boulders ') in the presence of a provocatively
dressed person of the opposite sex. Such errors can be interpreted as
either confirming Freud's conjecture or as indicating a general cognitive
impairment caused by an emotional disturbance. Presumably, if a threat-
ening tiger were substituted for an attractive person of the opposite sex,
subjects would occasionally say 'dapper tiger' for 'happy trigger,' or
would utter nonsense expressions or even curses. As well, it isjust possi-
ble that the alleged sexual content is mainly in the experimenter's mind;
after all, this is what he is looking for. Maybe he should be the subject of a
second experiment.
A good experimental design to test Freud's hypothesis on slips of the
tongue should include not only the eliciting of spoonerisms but also of
motor, perceptual, and conceptual errors made by anxious, excited,
bored, absent-minded, or tired subjects. But even this control would be
insufficient, for every scientific hypothesis should cohere with the bulk of
antecedent knowledge (Bunge, 1967a, 1967b). In particular, Freud's hy-
pothesis should be shown to harmonize with our general (albeit largely
nonscientific) knowledge of human error-which is plainly not the case
with Freud's fantasy. After all, there is such thing as plain error, in
particular the misarticulation of phoneme sequences. And this might be
explained in terms of unusual interneuronal connections. (See e.g., Dell,
1985.)
In short, Motley's experiments do not involve all of the necessary
controls. Consequently, his results do not confirm even the watered-down
version of Freud's hypothesis, that at least some slips ofthe tongue are to
be blamed on the unconscious. Nor do they refute the alternative hypoth-
eses that stress impairs all of our "faculties," and that a number of speech
errors (including some with an ostensive sexual content) are merely
results of more or less random departures from the normal neural connec-
tions and activation sequences.
250 II. Consciousness
11.6 Summing Up
We have found it necessary to distinguish a number of concepts, such as
those of sensitivity, awareness, consciousness, and self-consciousness,
that are often conflated in the literature. (Tulving, 1985a, is an exception.)
We have tacitly assumed not just that we are dealing with different de-
grees of a single capacity (like, say, visual acuity), but that they are
qualitatively different phenomena. Therefore it is likely that different
kinds of awareness and consciousness are imputable to different neural
systems. For example, awareness of a visceral process is likely to be an
activity in a neural system distinct from that corresponding to conscious-
ness of a thought. This hypothesis is neither idle nor wild: It might be
testable with the help of biopsychological techniques.
Our definitions have helped us formulate some more or less speculative
hypotheses. They should help construct many more (e.g., about the delib-
erate construction of cognitive strategies, and about the automatic appli-
cation of the latter to the solution of routine problems). Regrettably, there
is a dearth of well-formulated and empirically well-confirmed, or at least
testable, hypotheses and theories about awareness and consciousness.
Consequently, there are not enough well-designed experiments on these
phenomena. No wonder, for there is no good experimental design and no
correct interpretation of experimental data in a conceptual vacuum-
even less in a conceptual muddle.
The behaviorists' neglect of consciousness and their mistrust of theo-
ries, as well as the naive reductionism of reflexology, are partly to be
blamed for this lamentable situation. However, other schools are just as
responsible for it. In particular, the intuitionists and holists have blocked
theorizing about consciousness by claiming that we do not need a theory
about it for experiencing it directly. But of course we also directly experi-
ence pain and pleasure, which is no excuse for denying that we need
theories about them. We need theories in addition to descriptions because
we want explanations in addition to descriptions and in place of mys-
teries. There is also a practical rationale for our wishing to have theories,
namely that only scientific theories, in conjunction with data, can yield
the predictions needed in applied psychology to prevent or treat behav-
ioral and mental disorders. However, the practical applications of psy-
chology deserve a separate chapter.
CHAPTER 12
Psychotechnology
tion of personnel. If the school psychologist indicated that the student had
more aptitude for a certain profession, it was necessary to follow up this
prediction and correlate it with the student's degree of success. Applica-
tions were also found in industry (e.g., assessing a worker's suitability for
a given job), clinical practice, and in rehabilitating delinquents.
Later on, the scope of applications of psychology was greatly enlarged,
especially with Skinner's (1938, 1953, 1971) approach to the experimental
analysis of behavior and applied behavioral analysis. Applications were
undertaken for everything from the treatment of mental retardation to the
design of cultures. This new applied psychology, or psychotechnology,
led to many more opportunities for psychologists, and the field became
one of great possibilities and ambitions.
There have been many criticisms of applied psychology and psycho-
technology. Some question the ethics of manipulating other humans;
others question the morality of the unclear goals sometimes involved.
Something that has never been questioned, however, is the effectiveness
of the techniques involved. We will consider the modern forms of the
main areas of psychotechnology.
from the presence of sexual hormones in the blood, whereas for others it
is only a change in social roles that should not cause any trauma.
Notions of good and bad, normal and abnormal, well adapted or mal-
adapted change with time and culture. Efforts such as the American Psy-
chiatric Association's (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM III) are laudable because they require the imposition of
some order. In this volume, mental diseases are defined and classified,
providing a standard. However, there were DSM II and DSM I before it,
and DSM IV can be expected in the future. The changes in these editions
show just how relative the procedures for evaluation and diagnosis are,
and how fragile are the concepts of normality and abnormality on which
they are based.
Three criteria are tacitly or implicitly accepted by psychologists in
deciding what is normal:
Statistical criterion: "Normal" refers to what most people do nowa-
days, in a given culture and social group. It was normal to be a homosex-
ual in ancient Greece but not in the Middle Ages. It is normal to drink
alcohol at social gatherings but not when one is alone. This criterion is
widely used, both in tests of great validity and reliability (such as the
MMPI) and those of dubious or no validity (such as the Rorschach and
other projective tests). It is clear that construing normal behavior as what
most people do poses many problems, because this implies that highly
creative people (e.g., Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Einstein) are abnormal.
Axiological criterion: "Normal" refers to behavior in accordance with
the ideals of a given culture in which it occurs. In general, these ideal
patterns of behavior are not distributed evenly in the population, but this
is still an alternative criterion. In Western society, this would involve
being success-oriented, competetive, motivated to reach one's goals; val-
uing family without letting it interfere with personal success; having a
narrow area of expertise; having stable relations with one's mate, and so
forth. Again, this criterion presents many difficulties, in particular the
relativity of the values of different groups and the impossibility of objec-
tive comparisons across groups.
Clinical criterion: "Normal" people are those who feel well with them-
selves and with their social group. It is obvious that nobody feels well
with everyone and it is oflittle importance if this is the case. No one feels
well all the time, but the idea is that if one usually feels well with oneself
and with the important people in one's environment, one is clinically
normal. Obviously an artist worried about some aspect of her work or a
scientist puzzled by a particular problem will not feel well with herself.
On the other hand, a drug addict, an alcoholic, or someone mentally
handicapped may feel quite well with his situation and would then be
clinically normal, given this criterion.
These criteria seem to cover what has been said about normality and
abnormality. Social philosophies, psychiatry texts, and counterculture
254 12. Psychotechnology
1967a). We are cautious about shock therapy, but hopeful about the use-
fulness of (4) and (5) in treating deviation and unhappiness.
There are many systems of psychological therapy. Some years ago it
was estimated that there were 20 such systems, which seemed excessive.
Today the estimate lies closer to 200, which indicates more confusion
than healthy diversity. We have therapeutic systems based on psychoa-
nalysis, behavioral psychology, humanistic psychology, psychopharma-
cology, biological psychology, and on any mixture of them. There are too
many of them, each with precious little evidence to support it. Some are
new, others old; some from Eastern religions, others from Western labo-
ratory science. For some the goal is adaptation ofthe patient to his or her
environment; for others it is the adaptation of the environment to the
patient. Some promise mental health, others inner peace or personal ful-
fillment.
In this melange, the techniques used also vary widely. They range from
several years of verbal therapy on a psychoanalyst's couch to a few
seconds of shock therapy. In between are therapies in which the therapist
says nothing or only "Aha," and those where the patient is given thera-
peutic homework (behavior therapy). Some techniques come from Zen
and Japanese philosophies, and some even involve keeping the patient in
a bath for several days without seeing anyone. Another technique is sen-
sory deprivation, which grew out of the interesting work done by Hebb
and his colleagues at McGill University. In some therapies the therapist is
active; in others passive. "Acting out" situations is the preferred tech-
nique in some; in others it is expressly prohibited. It is clearly incorrect to
say that all therapeutic systems derive from the work of Freud, Rogers, or
Skinner. The only thing that can be said for sure is that they do come from
extremely varied philosophies or worldviews.
In sum, clinical psychology and psychiatry are disciplines that are re-
markable for their internal contradictions and heterogeneity. Not all of
the systems are compatible, nor do they have the same goals. The grand
synthesis some are hoping for in psychology is clearly still far away.
paints pictures not for money but for prestige. A scientist may spend a
lifetime researching a complex problem in physics just for the sake of
solving it, as if it were a riddle, and not for money. The motivations of
scientists and artists are very complex (see Mahoney, 1976, for discussion
of scientists). Affirming that people work only for money is clearly false,
but it would be just as false to say that money is not a motivating factor.
Industrial and organizational psychology have shown that money is not
the central motivating factor in work, although there are large cultural
differences in the importance ascribed to having and earning money.
Besides the motivations for working, psycho technology has investi-
gated the social and physical characteristics of the workplace, for exam-
ple, with respect to lighting, presentation of material, noise, and the like.
It is no longer devoted to the time-and-motion studies like those done by
Taylor, but investigates the effects on efficiency and productivity of noise
level, ambient colors, and amount of time between breaks.
The social dimensions of work have received much attention in the last
few decades, and a substantial body of work has appeared (see Varela,
1971, 1977). Without a doubt the findings on human communication, in-
formation networks, and the creation of small groups apply to work and to
the creation of psychotechnologies for the workplace.
pian programs for changing people and society to reach traditional ideals
that have not been attainable otherwise.
The difference between the psychological method of designing cultures
(ft la Skinner), and the others is that it is based on the precepts of science,
in particular experimental behavioral analysis: Species and individual dif-
ferences yield their importance to the laws of animal and human learning;
reinforcement and its scheduling are the basic principles, and the rate of
responding the basic unit of measure.
There are differences among psychological utopias; for example, the
problems faced in Walden Two are different from those that arise in
Walden Tres (Ardila, 1979b) because in the latter we are working with a
whole country, so political, historical, and socioeconomic factors take on
more importance. The goal may be the same (i.e., designing a culture
based on the principles of operant psychology, showing how to proceed,
and some of the obstacles that will appear), but when we go from a few
hundred people in Skinner's Walden Two to several million in Walden
Tres the situation changes drastically and the problems are of a very
different magnitude. When Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), he probably
never thought it would inspire a Walden Two and later a Walden Tres
more than a hundred years later.
The design of cultures is the most ambitious goal of psychotechnology.
It is not limited to changing the processes associated with mental health,
education, work and productivity, but seeks to change the entire society.
It insists on modifying people, sometimes tremendously, without regard
for their innate capacities or limitations. Though this may not seem very
realistic, psychological utopias have been taken very seriously. Several
communes have been organized on the principles of Skinner's psychol-
ogy, including Twin Oaks in Virginia and Los Horcones in Mexico. All of
these communes used Walden Two as a guide to building a perfect soci-
ety; they exist and have been relatively successful. The goal in Walden
Two is the same as that for other utopian projects, but this perfect society
is based on psychology and its concrete, realistic principles. In Beyond
Freedom and Dignity, Skinner (1971) wrote:
The application of the physical and biological sciences alone will not solve our
problems because the solutions lie in another field. Better contraceptives will
control population only if people use them. New weapons may offset new de-
fenses and vice versa, but a nuclear holocaust can be prevented only if the condi-
tions under which nations make war can be changed. New methods of agriculture
and medicine will not help if they are not practiced, and housing is a matter not
only of buildings and cities but of how people live. Overcrowding can be corrected
only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to
deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned. . . . in short, we need to
make vast changes in human behavior. . . . what we need is a technology of
behavior." (pp. 2-3)
260 12. Psychotechnology
with the difference that in pre-Newtonian physics there were not quite so
many conflicting points of view.
In spite of its problems, psychotechnology has grown rapidly and made
much progress since the founding of the International Association of Ap-
plied Psychology in 1920. Its fields of application have been broadened to
encompass ecological and economic problems, publicity and advertising,
and the stimulation of creativity. Fifty years ago no one would have
thought that psychology was going to design prosthetic surroundings for
old people or select and train astronauts to go to the moon. The relations
between cancer and mental health were not known, nor was it anticipated
that war and peace would become a subject for the application of psychol-
ogy (see Ardila, 1986, for the psychological impact of nuclear war). One
field to see enormous growth was that of the relations between psychol-
ogy and society.
The background problems of psychotechnology are still very compli-
cated and difficult. They are not psychological but political, structural,
philosophical, and conceptual problems. One tries to understand the di-
rections in which individuals and societies want to develop. In this en-
deavor, psychology must make use of the other disciplines, especially
philosophy-its birthplace-but also physics and the other sciences that
psychologists have tried to ignore.
Recently the "hard" sciences such as physics and chemistry have
shown increased interest in their philosophical foundations, and the
"soft" sciences such as economics and psychology have become more
interested in their historical roots. It is as important for the hard sciences
to find their philosophical underpinnings as it is for the soft sciences to
find their historical roots. Surely in the near future both groups will under-
stand that both history and philosophy are fundamental. When this hap-
pens, psychologists will recognize that a philosophical analysis of psy-
chology and psychotechnology has much to offer to the understanding of
humans and their behavior.
Moreover, it is not enough just to understand how humans act. As
Marx said, philosophy has beed dedicated for a long time to understand-
ing the world; to change it is the important thing now. This has always
been the goal of psychotechnology.
12.6 Summing Up
Psychology differs from other behavioral sciences in the great interest it
has shown in its applications. It holds that science and its applications go
hand in hand. Whereas in most other disciplines the person who produces
basic knowledge and the person who applies it are different, in psychol-
ogy the same person often does both. Psychology has insisted on being
both a science and a profession.
262 12. Psychotechnology
Conclusion
CHAPTER 13
Concluding Remarks
The reader who has survived this far may feel somewhat puzzled. For
instance, he or she may wonder how to reconcile reduction (of the mental
to the neural) with emergence (of mental functions out of nonmental
ones); or how reductionism could possibly promote the integration of the
various branches of psychology, which are so far largely dismembered; or
why there is the insistence that current psychology is poor in theories,
hence also in explanations, and that mature science does not include
metaphors except as heuristic props.
In this final chapter we shall attempt to solve some of these puzzles. We
shall also propose a diagnosis of current psychology and shall venture an
optimistic prognosis provided certain current trends are reinforced
whereas others are weakened. Finally, we shall summarize some of the
philosophical implications of current psychological research and shall at-
tack once again the divorce between philosophy and science, which paral-
lels and helps to keep that between psychology and biology.
13.1 Reduction
Throughout this book we have espoused and exemplified the psycho-
neural identity hypothesis, that all mental processes are neural processes
of a special kind (section 1.3). This is a reductionist thesis, for it identifies
two classes of facts that, from alternative viewpoints, are mutually dis-
joint. The thesis is in the same boat with the theses that light is electro-
magnetic radiation, and human history the evolution of human societies.
All these theses exemplify ontological reductionism-ontological in that
they concern things, properties, or processes rather than our knowledge
of them.
The methodological status of any such identity thesis depends upon the
stage in the historical evolution of the branch of knowledge in which the
thesis occurs. In fact, identity theses usually begin as hypotheses (corrigi-
ble assumptions). But, if confirmed and embedded in well-corroborated
theories, they end up as definitions (conventions in the form of identities).
266 13. Concluding Remarks
13.2 Integration
Things cannot always be explained by analysis or reduction only; quite
often they can only be explained by placing them in a wider context. In
turn, the consideration of such a wider context may require bringing
together or consolidating results obtained in two or more fields of re-
search. More often than not, a multidisciplinary study will achieve the
desired goal, but occasionally a more intimate relationship proves neces-
sary, and the merger of theories or even disciplines may result. Table 13.1
lists some revolutionary mergers. Some of them have made it possible to
study properties, events, and processes on a given level in terms of lower-
level laws.
The integration or synthesis of approaches, data, hypotheses, theories,
methods, and sometimes even entire fields of research is needed for sev-
eral reasons: First, because there are no perfectly isolated things except
for the universe as a whole; second, because every property is lawfully
related to some other properties; and third, because every thing is a
system or a component of one or more systems. Thus, just as the variety
of reality and the limitations of the human intellect require a multitude of
disciplines, so the integration and advancement of the latter are necessi-
13.2. Integration 271
~ S
A A
E N N
@
1
E I E I
I
~
FIGURE 13.1. Interdisciplinary fragmentation not honored by anatomy or physiol-
ogy. Example: Interactions among the three regulatory body systems (N = Ner-
vous, E = Endocrine, I = Immune) and between them and the rest of the body
(RB). Both the explanation of the workings of the healthy organism and the
treatment of its dysfunctions require an integration of the various disciplines.
Effective medicine is systemic (though not holistic). And systemic medicine is
based on integrated (not dismembered) medicine. In turn, the latter is incomplete
unless the organism is treated as embedded in its social matrix S.
13.2. Integration 273
one another. In general, the ticket is this: Distinguish but do not sepa-
rate-and unite but do not conflate. See Figure 13.1.
To isolate any chapter of psychology, for example, cognitive psychol-
ogy, from the rest of psychology, as well as from neuroscience, is as bad a
research strategy as to isolate the study of clouds from the rest of physics.
Meteorology became a science the day it was transformed from the study
of "meteors" into the physics of the atmosphere. Likewise, psychology
will turn into a mature science only if it is conceived of and cultivated as
the biological and sociological study of behavior and mind. Analysis, and
the accompanying division of labor, is effective only when accompanied
or followed by synthesis and the concomitant cooperation among the
relevant disciplines. (For the need to combine analysis with synthesis see
Ardila, 1987.) It is one thing to emphasize now this, now that aspect of
psychology, and another to reify the artificial boundaries between its
branches. Specialization should be tempered with integration.
It might be claimed that the recent constitution of "cognitive science,"
as the merger of cognitive psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelli-
gence, effects the desired integration. We submit that it is the wrong
synthesis, for it excludes the other branches of psychology and it ignores
both neuroscience and social science, whereas it includes a branch of
technology. (Three cousins do not constitute a family.) Cognitive science
effects also the wrong reduction, for it conceives of every bit of behavior
and mentation as a case of information processing or "computation" on
certain inputs or representations. (Recall section 5.4.)
The correct and badly needed synthesis is the merger of all the
branches of psychology on the basis of neuroscience, together with devel-
opmental and evolutionary biology, and in tandem with social science.
This is the correct synthesis because behavior and mentation happen to be
biological processes occurring in animals living in societies. For this rea-
son we placed mature psychology in the intersection of biology and social
science: Recall section 13.1.
The absorption of psychology by biology and social science does not
eliminate the former as a special or distinctive science, that is, one with its
peculiar problematics, methodics, and concepts; it only puts an end to the
alleged independence of our science. Indeed, scientific psychology, just
like its proto scientific precursor, will continue to study problems of its
own, such as those of learning and thinking. But it will study them as
neurophysiological processes, presumably consisting of synaptogenesis
and the formation of new neural systems ("rewiring") occurring under
the influence of other body systems (in particular the endocrine one) as
well as under the influence of external stimuli (in particular social ones).
In short, psychology will lose its autonomy but not its specificity. It will
cease to be the anomalous discipline to become a member of the tightly
knit system of scientific knowledge. In this regard its evolution will be
similar to that of chemistry, biology, and history.
274 13. Concluding Remarks
13.3 Explanation
All young sciences are predominantly descriptive: They are poor in hy-
potheses and, a fortiori, in theories. For this reason their descriptions are
coarse and superficial. (Try to describe something you have observed but
about which you have not the faintest idea of what it is or what makes it
tick. The outcome is likely to resemble children's descriptions of complex
systems.) For the same reason the young sciences are seldom capable of
supplying adequate explanations and predictions of the facts they de-
scribe. For example, we still lack an adequate explanation of color vision,
and we can seldom predict the performance of a person, although there is
13.3. Explanation 275
TUD
h1 h2 h3
'\ t 1
\
\
I
I /
I
I
I \
I \
\ I
I \
I \
\
P3
I
I
I \
\
\
\ I I
ie o
I \
o
I \ I \
6 6 d b
FIGURE 13.3. (a) Experimental finding e may be taken to support not just one but
several rival hypotheses h" h2' h3, and so forth. (b) Experimental findings el to e6,
by supporting the predictions p" P2, and P3 derived from theory T and data D,
support T. Full lines: deduction. Dotted lines: confirmation.
13.4 Prospects
What is the future of psychology, assuming optimistically that humankind
will not be destroyed by a nuclear war, and that it will continue to engage
in scientific research? We cannot foretell the future of psychology, or of
any other discipline, because we do not know of any laws of the evolution
of knowledge. But we do know that the only serious limits to the growth
of knowledge are of a social kind, whence they can be overcome (Bunge,
1978). And we can do better than to prophesy and wait: We can shape the
future of psychology by planning for it.
Now, every plan must start by taking stock of the present. In our view
current psychology is characterized by the following traits:
(1) Rapid growth of experimental research, particularly in physiological
psychology, neuropsychology, psychophysics, developmental psy-
chology, clinical psychology, and biological psychiatry.
(2) Methodological sophistication in experimental basic research, partic-
ularly in biopsychology and psychophysics-far less so in applied
psychology.
(3) Theoretical stagnation. There are too few theories about behavioral
and mental processes, and it would seem that most of the existing ones
are wrong (Tulving, 1985b); worse, much theoretical work has been
misguided by the computer metaphor, whereas there is a dearth of
theories and models linking molar psychological variables to neuro-
physiological ones.
(4) Fragmentation. An exaggerated division of labor has resulted in weak
links among the various branches of psychology, to the point that
some of them (e.g., cognitive psychology) are becoming isolated from
the rest.
13.4. Prospects 281
Everyone of the first six traits in the preceding list has been noted by
some psychologists, but the seventh is usually overlooked by everyone.
Yet the relevance of philosophy to psychology is quite obvious, as em-
phasized in chapter 1. This is particularly so with regard to the third
feature listed, namely theoretical stagnation. Indeed, it may be argued
that the main causes for the theoretical underdevelopment of psychology
are philosophical, particularly the following: (a) the positivist ban on
theorizing, so enthusiastically observed by radical behaviorism; (b) the
confusion of theory with metaphor; (c) mind-body dualism, which deta-
ches psychology from biology and encourages wild speculation about
immaterial (hence empirically inaccessible) entities and events; and (d)
the very existence of philosophical (or armchair) psychology, which gives
both theory and philosophy a bad name among experimental psycholo-
gists. Because philosophers have been largely responsible for this lamen-
table state of affairs, it behooves them to make amends. But of course it is
up to psychologists to purge their own brains of obsolete philosophies and
to engage more vigorously and rigorously in theorizing.
Having taken stock of the situation we can do something about it. For
example, theorizing would be encouraged by refusing to publish papers
restricted to presenting raw data, and by having psychology students
study more mathematics-in particular, by teaching them probability be-
fore mathematical statistics. Fragmentation can be decreased by multiply-
ing the numbers of cross-disciplinary research teams, workshops, and
seminars, as well as by requiring psychology students to learn more
neuroscience and social science. Ecological validity can be enhanced by
refusing to publish much correct but insignificant work more appropriate
for technical reports. Practice can be forced to marry research by requir-
ing all professionals to take a science degree presupposing intensive expo-
sure to psychological experiment and theory. And the philosophical per-
spective can be updated by having psychology students take some (good)
courses in the philosophy of science.
282 13. Concluding Remarks
By doing all that at the same time, psychologists would build a bright
future for their science. Psychology might well acquire in the twenty-first
century the glamour that distinguished physics in the first half of our own
century, and which biology possesses in the second half. However, imple-
menting these measures involves both a philosophical reorientation of the
psychological community, and persuading the powers that be that it
would be worthwhile to invest in learning about behavior and mind at
least a small fraction of what is being wasted on improving the overkill
capacity.
Ontological Crop
(1) Psychoneural identity: Mental processes are brain processes. Put
negatively: Mind is not separate from body, anymore than digestion is
detachable from the digestive tract.
(2) Emergentism: The subsystems of the nervous system that control
behavior or perform mental functions have properties that their compo-
nents lack. They have emerged in the course of evolutionary or develop-
mental processes, and some of them submerge as a result of sickness or
aging.
(3) Mind is causally efficient: Mental processes influence other brain
processes, and occasionally they have motor outlets. As well, they affect
(and are affected by) the other two regulatory systems of the body: the
endocrine and the immune.
(4) Localization cum integration: Except for memory and learning,
which are capabilities of all plastic neural systems, every mental "fac-
ulty" is the specific function of a special brain subsystem. However,
because the various subsystems are anatomically linked to one another,
no behavioral or mental "faculty" is separate from all the others. In
particular, cognition is fueled by motivation and it can steer movement.
Put negatively: Neither behavior nor mind is modular.
(5) Interaction with society: Behavior and mind-particularly learning,
perception, thought, and social behavior-are strongly influenced by so-
cial circumstances and, in turn, they contribute to shaping the latter
through both behavior and language.
13.5. Philosophical Harvest 283
Epistemological Crop
(6) Critical realism: There are things in themselves, i.e., existing inde-
pendently of the knowing subject, who can come to know some of them
partially and gradually. Put negatively: We do not make the world, though
we can change it-alas, not always for the better.
(7) Ratioempiricism: Scientific research, in psychology and elsewhere,
combines reason with experience. Put negatively: Radical rationalism,
though adequate in pure mathematics, is just as inadequate as radical
empiricism is in the fields of factual science.
(8) Reductionism: Psychology is a part of biology. That is, the explana-
tion of behavioral and mental processes, unlike their mere description,
calls for conjecturing and uncovering the corresponding neural (or neuro-
muscular, or neuroendocrine, or neuroimmune, or neuroendocrinoim-
mune) mechanisms. Put negatively: Nonbiological psychology is shallow
and incapable of explaining anything.
(9) Dependence upon social science: The explanation of some behav-
ioral and mental processes requires certain categories belonging to social
science. Put negatively: A psychology oblivious of the social matrix is just
as inadequate as a geography that ignores the atmosphere.
(10) Specificity and dependence: Although psychology is a very special
science, it is not independent but lies in the intersection of biology and
social science. Put negatively: There is no wall between the Naturwis-
senschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften-except in the brains of some
philosophers.
13.6 Summing Up
We have argued for the reductionist thesis that mental phenomena are
biological processes, as well as for the emergentist thesis that mentation is
a qualitative novelty emerging at certain points in the evolution of biopo-
pulations and in the development of individuals of some animal species.
Moreover, we have argued that the emergence of mental abilities can be
explained, at least in principle, by identifying it with the organization or
reorganization of neuronal systems (i.e., the change in connectivity), ei-
ther spontaneously (without any external causes) or in response to
changes occurring in other parts of the body or in the environment. We
have thus combined ontological emergentism with moderate epistemolog-
ical reductionism.
However, in the case of behavior and mind reduction is insufficient; it
must be supplemented with a study of processes occurring in adjoining
domains, sometimes higher-level ones. In particular, an adequate under-
standing of behavior and mentation in the case of gregarious animals calls
for the cooperation of social science. The two movements, reduction and
13.6. Summing Up 285
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Name Index
Acuna, C., 215 Bartlett, P. C., 110, 179, 181, 214
Adamson, K. K., 256 Baudry, M., 189
Adamson, W. C., 256 Bayes, T., 85
Adelman, G., 142 Beaulieu, A., 166
Ader, R., 145 Bekesy, G. von, 76, 94, 151, 175
Adler, N., 252 Bellarmino, Cardinal, 116
Aertsen, A., 164 Benedict, R., 222
Agassi, J., 19 Beninger, R. J., 248
Aggleton, J. P., 208, 244 Bergson, H., 267
Aguayo, A. J., 143 Berkeley, G., 8
Albright, T. D., 162 Berlyne, D. E., 130
Alcmaeon, 5, 166 Bernard, c., 144
Alcock, J. E., 114 Berthoz, A., 151, 242
Alzheimer, A., 162,240 Bertrand, G., 177
Andersen, R. A., 197 Bindra, D., 8, 10,99, 111, 163,
Anderson, E., 189 185
Anderson, J. A., 80, 190, 191, Binet, A., 256, 262
203,204 Bitterman, M. E., 49, 156, 160
Anderson, J. R., 108 Blakemore, c., 164
Andersson, M., 84 Bliss, T. V. P., 150
Anstis, S. M., 102, 108 Bloom, P. E., 75
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 9 Bloom, M., 164
Ardila, R., 229, 230, 254, 259, Boas, P., 222
261, 273 Borger, R., 278
Aristotle, 3, 9, 11, 35, 54, 94, Boring, E. G., 7, 30, 75, 94, 123
119, 125, 205, 222 Bouchard, T. J., Jr., 122
Armstrong, D., 8 Bower, T. G. R., 153
Asano, T., 205 Braille, L., 174
Augustine, St., 8 Bredenkamp, J., 63
Austin, G., 124 Brentano, P., 238
Averroes, 9 Bridgman, P. W., 73, 125, 126
Ayer, A. J., 8, 9 Brill, A. B., 180
Broad, C. D., 8, 50
Bachelard, G., 61 Broca, P., 83, 94, 154, 161, 166
Bachevalier, J., 182 Brody, N., 113
Baghdoyan, H. A., 163 Bruce, C., 162
Bandura, A., 124 Bruner, J., 124
Baranyi, A., 150 Brunswik, E., 30
Barlow, H. B., 164 Buchner, L., 8
310 Name Index