In my opinion, a sense of disappointment towards both neuroscience in general and analysis techniques in particular emerges from your "question". But I'm really convinced that there is no reason at all to make such considerations.

One of your points seems to be the implementation of "machines" in psychology. Although I agree that the "technical technology" should not be de-humanized, this argument is quite shocking. "Machines" allowed to share, merge, and analyze big data with the same purposes that you can have when studying "classical psychology". Recent advances give the opportunity to investigate many facets of "behavior patterns and associated environmental aspects". To give some examples, neuroimaging techniques, advanced statistical modelling, neurofeedback, and further analysis carried by "machines" expanded our knowledge in the field of psychology and on related fields (e.g., neuroscience). Importantly, they OFTEN give straightforward evidence to trust or mistrust (both new and old) theories. This use of elaborated methodologies can not be considered "a corruption" of the research.

You should really reconsider your approach. As an analogy, a contemporary biologist should not complain about "the old days of pure naturalism" because naturalism has evolved in contemporary fields of research. Instead of searching for reasons to force a debate around how the novelty is not good, we should embrace the innovations and opportunities brought by new techniques and by theoretical development.

In my opinion, a sense of disappointment towards both neuroscience in general and analysis techniques in particular emerges from your "question". But I'm really convinced that there is no reason at all to make such considerations.

One of your points seems to be the implementation of "machines" in psychology. Although I agree that the "technical technology" should not be de-humanized, this argument is quite shocking. "Machines" allowed to share, merge, and analyze big data with the same purposes that you can have when studying "classical psychology". Recent advances give the opportunity to investigate many facets of "behavior patterns and associated environmental aspects". To give some examples, neuroimaging techniques, advanced statistical modelling, neurofeedback, and further analysis carried by "machines" expanded our knowledge in the field of psychology and on related fields (e.g., neuroscience). Importantly, they OFTEN give straightforward evidence to trust or mistrust (both new and old) theories. This use of elaborated methodologies can not be considered "a corruption" of the research.

You should really reconsider your approach. As an analogy, a contemporary biologist should not complain about "the old days of pure naturalism" because naturalism has evolved in contemporary fields of research. Instead of searching for reasons to force a debate around how the novelty is not good, we should embrace the innovations and opportunities brought by new techniques and by theoretical development.

Dear Simone Di Plinio

To ME, to speak of, and to do, all studies in terms of behavior patterns: ALL that is ever rightly referred to is overt behavior AND behavior patterns clearly related to some earlier DIRECTLY OBSERVABLE OVERT BEHAVIOR PATTERNS at some key points in ontogeny. THAT IS ALL. Nothing else IS behavior --- and, what I just described is enough. I embrace NO theory whatsoever that is not based on behavior PATTERNS (the behaviors just described). ALSO, it is my view that NOTHING else but other behavior patterns will correctly define ANY other behavior patterns. I do not embrace "the innovations"; I think good real behavioral scientists can do better without them, proceeding as I indicate.

Insomuch as neuroscience has given us clues to "understand" behavior [patterns], that (to me) is just the extent of Psychology's desperation; neuroscience does not have known direct brain connections (clear patterns in relations to) most (if not all) important behavior patterns.

Information processing analogies are persistent analogies, and all good scientists realize such analogies are not true.

To get a HINT at the problem you seem to have no familiarity with, ask yourself: how often do psychologists (researchers and theorists) use the term 'BEHAVIOR PATTERNS' (including the word 'patterns')? -- it is not often, though it should be something that always should be thought in terms of and spoken in terms of. AND what/who "defines" and circumscribes behavior [patterns] in today's psychology? (Answer: typically: the researcher of theorist)? BUT: Behavior patterns should never be something defined by any researcher of theorist (e.g. based on some model or analogy or baseless imaginative conceptualization) BECAUSE: ONLY THE SUBJECT SHOULD DEFINE BEHAVIOR PATTERNS, and what this IN EFFECT means is that behavior patterns should ONLY BE DESCRIBED (and DEFINED) IN TERMS OF OTHER clearly related (and shown related) BEHAVIOR PATTERNS (classical ethology knew this and showed this AND ACCOMPLISHED THIS, but not since the 70s have we seen this view AND RELATED APPROACH, either understood or adopted). I present such a perspective and approach, here in my many, many essays and my major papers here on researchgate.

In my view, if you cannot see the importance of the disciplined kind of approach I have described, it is understandable: you has simply been "drinking the Kool-aid" for too long (without the perspective I present even brought up). My writing goes so far as to EXPLAIN how and why this sad situation is so (is the case).

P.S. I am pro-AI and even have and artificial intelligence Project (here on RG); thus, I do not have as negative view of "machines" as you suspected. IN fact, AI people may make use of my perspective and approach BEFORE psychologists.

P.S.S. One way we can tell Psychology is not far along in coming to an understanding of its Subject is the great stagnation in General Artificial Intelligence itself. If Psychology had a lot to say, it would be clear that it is ESSENTIAL in AI and we would see such understanding THERE (in AI), guiding the machines !

Dear s. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist

It is EASY to present papers that are pro-status quo. This means absolutely nothing to me. Let's deal with each other on one-to-one terms (like me and Simone Di Plinio ). Make an argument and clear case to try to oppose my views if you have knowledge enough (and have taken personal responsibility for your thought systems enough) to do so.

I will never pay attention to your links. Attempting to extract what you see as key "things" from that you link to (weak, unclear "arguments"), like those you provided, could be made hundreds of times (and I will never respond to any of that, if only because it is not practical, NOR is it focused).

ALSO: You are HERE on RG to present views, not to provide links to supposedly bolster yourself or some views. Doing what you did would be seen by most on RG as unacceptable.

Dear Brad Jesness,

Is very hard to reply, since your answer is self-contradictory and unclear in many passages (e.g., " Behavior patterns should never be something defined by any researcher of theorist " vs. " behavior patterns should ONLY BE DESCRIBED (and DEFINED) IN TERMS OF OTHER clearly related (and shown related) BEHAVIOR PATTERNS ").

To put it simply, since neuroscience increased the predictive power over many facets of the behavior / behavioral outcome, your thesis is false or at least inaccurate. You can continue to reject everything that goes beyond your behavioral patterns. Your field would not be psychology, but rather a kind of 'renewed behaviorology'.

Furthermore, but most importantly, while you claim that "it is easy to present papers which are pro-status quo", bear in mind that it is even easier to reject them without accurate arguments, just as you did.

Dear Simone Di Plinio

As you say, I said: " Behavior patterns should never be something defined by any researcher or theorist " AND " behavior patterns should ONLY BE DESCRIBED (and DEFINED) IN TERMS OF OTHER clearly-related (and shown-related) BEHAVIOR PATTERNS ". Those 2 statements are EXACTLY what I meant and are NOT contradictory at all -- if you can know what I mean . Let me paraphrase to see if that would help: [ The following simply puts statements (1) and (2) (above) in different words. ] :

(1) Psychologist researchers and theorists should not, by their thinking and logic (premises put together "in their 'mind' ") and/or from just-partial observations ALONE decide how to delimit (or define) the nature of a behavior [pattern] (e.g. when, where, why, and how).

Hi Brad,

To respond to your question, I dont believe one of the core apects of psychology such as the study of behavior through environmental factors will ever be abandoned. While new contemporary fields of pyschology are emerging with new technology, views, and practices, the classical psychology you talk about remains intact. Now, while the FREQUENCY of this type of psychology has significantly dropped (since the times aftee brain scans), it is still a viable form of psychological research.

Dear Michael Osfeld

What I am interested in is the study of (1) ONLY behavior patterns, with at least SOME _MAJOR_ foundation(s) in/of OVERT, directly-observable behavior patterns, at least at key points in development (ontogeny) and at least at the INCEPTION of the new behavior pattern, _and_ other behavior patterns that retain clear OVERT aspects _AND_ (2) corresponding aspects of the environment (related to either or both of those sorts of behavior patterns). THOSE 2 TYPES OF THINGS (behavior patterns, as just defined, and corresponding environmental aspects) AND relatively LITTLE ELSE, as basically the entire field of study -- BUT with such "pieces" as those 2 aspects of proximate causation credibly further connected or changed ONLY by simpler processes. I see the forms of associative learning as the simpler processes totally (otherwise) providing the links for behavior pattern connections or for additional behavior pattern change. **_NOW_**, THAT IS ALL; and, that is the only way to hold the field of study together and is absolutely necessary to avoid confusion _and_ to keep things clearly in terms of the sole and individual primary unit (the single human) -- the only way to have a science like other sciences (which is not only more than desirable, but absolutely necessary).

As soon as anything not directly in the category of such well-grounded and well-founded behavior patterns and their corresponding environmental aspects (and simple associative learning) is "added in", by citing ANY [supposedly] more indirectly-related OTHER kinds of [supposed] behavior-related evidence, NOT CLEARLY DIRECTLY RELATED TO the products of THE PROXIMATE CAUSES (above) AND/or simple associative learning, I see the field as then corrupted (examples of other things not clearly related include some neuroscience "findings" and "social learning"

I believe integrating directly observable physiological changes (e.g pupil dilation) and physiological differences between groups or individuals (e.g. Fos expression) with directly observable behavior gives a more accurate picture of what is really going on. Any science that ignored physiological evidence would be, in my mind, incomplete. This is just my humble opinion as someone who is still taking her first baby steps into the world of neuroscience.

Dear Geneviève Carine Robert

Eye-tracking data, which indicates towards-what a Subject is gazing, or attending to, or evaluating is also DIRECTLY OBSERVABLE OVERT BEHAVIOR PATTERNS -- _PLUS_ the context is much more clear.

I DISAGREE with all of the following you say (quoting): " I believe integrating directly observable physiological changes (e.g pupil dilation) and physiological differences between groups or individuals (e.g. Fos expression) with directly observable behavior gives a more accurate picture of what is really going on. Any science that ignored physiological evidence would be, in my mind, incomplete. "

That is just an old-time perspective which is less direct and likely less valuable (and certainly not original). You are not integrating directly observable BEHAVIOR PATTERNS with those other things -- which are clearly much more indirect indicators.

As a Greek, I should start with the etymology: ψυχή (psyche) means "soul, spirit or breath", and I personally believe that the most accurate definition is the one provided by William James: "the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and their conditions". And it seems to be that even supporters of radical behaviorism (contrary to James), who define psychology as the acquisition of information useful to the control of behavior must admit that such acquisition is impossible without exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.

It's not a matter of neuroscience having taken over psychology, it's a matter of scientific truth. Hippocrates himself had the intuition that mental disorders had physical causes, why should one try to separate what brain imaging technology shows us (saving life through accurate diagnosis) about physiology and biology of mental states, from mere observation of behavior?

Dear Christina E. Valaki

You say: " ... supporters of radical behaviorism ..., who define who define psychology as the acquisition of information useful to the control of behavior must admit that such acquisition is impossible without exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors". This appears to be the perspective you take. I disagree as strongly as possible (OR disagree just in part IFF BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES were understood as: ALL BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES POSSIBLE AND REASONABLY LIKELY (including significant innate-guidance aspects to behavior pattern change THROUGHOUT ONTOGENY (0 - 18 years old) -- a view presented rarely and, to some notable extent, only in References I provide)). The view you present (and, as understood when first stated) is an OLD view, which both needs to be greatly improved-upon and to some degree countered completely and replaced. See my Profile and the References there to see something I firmly believe "does the job" -- 100% testable (verifiable/falsifiable) hypotheses, reasonably based, and centrally involving looking for and discovering certain DIRECTLY OBSERVABLE OVERT BEHAVIORS (there is NO higher standard for empiricism than that you will find in those References).

Most nowadays see Skinner et al as extremists who were extremely misguided, in several irrational ways (I most certainly see them that way). Check out the false pseudo-'assumptions' I cite as core presumptions of such old-time Psychology AND see the more likely alternatives I expressly cite and state (often the opposite of old-time presumptions). AND see (read about, in detail) the ramifications of those more biologically consistent (and more likely true) assumptions for psychology/biology/science and good research.

Hi Brad,

The classical as well the most of,modern experimental psychology still adheres to the mindset of Galilean physics which has become meanwhile obsolet for answering psychological questions. An example of it is are the shortcomings of the (linear!) Information Processing Approach. The new paradigm of self-organization of natural or living systems requires a radical change of the mindset toward biology (understood in the genuine sense ). I agree whith your refererence to Ethology (K.Lorenz). I'd like to add Jakob v. Uexküll with his definition of Living systems which can be traced back to eminent philosophers Kant, Schelling).

I've dealt with this question in detail in a book (German). A privat file is available for personal use. e-mail: gerald [email protected]

Regards, Gerald

Hi Brad,

what do you think about considering the ongoing EEG as a "subtle behavior" ? This behavior consists in a lawful sequence (along with the time course) of distinct and well defined patterns to be experienced already by eye-ball analysis. If you are accepting this as a scientific fact the EEG can be viewed as a morphodynamic biological discipline which has to be developed further in order to extract the hidden meaning for our life world psychology and psychiatry.

"Psychiatric Electroencephalography" (see book) is a Biology of Behavior, as is Ethology (K. Lorenz). It can only be developed by visually gathering of detailed aspects as a basis of induction for hypothesis building ...

The behavioral aspect of the EEG has been known already more than 80 years ago (Davis et al. 1938) but this via regia was dismissed by the vast majority. Why ?

Gerald

Dear Gerald Ulrich

It is fine to find EEG patterns, and perhaps a bit useful. But ALL, bit-by-bit, step-by-step, must be related to directly observable overt behavior patterns (pivotally)-- clearly, at least sometime in ontogeny (minimally at the inception of whatever behavior you are looking at) -- and I am talking about ALL the behavior you want to see as related or relevant, coming up to this standard. No exceptions; attempts at exceptions on this divorce one from empiricism (and from true reality).

I have no problem with you calling EEG patterns 'behavior', but the absolute standard of empiricism (I just stated) must be satisfied. [ These same remarks can be made about EVERYTHING in neuroscience -- and all this is just the way it is, like it or not. This is the ONLY way to maintain a proper, or for that matter a communicable, perspective -- so absolutely vital to science itself (the ability to truly share observations, inter-rater reliability, is central and the key characteristic of all science (and CERTAINLY that cannot be said for experimentation)). If the real perspective (from, by, and for the organism, AS OBSERVED) were kept, then possibly Psychology could actually significantly progress. ]

[ Otherwise, you could say "I found all theses great patterns", but what else could you do? People might well want to tie those great patterns in with more overt or established behavior patterns, when and as possible and appropriate -- but one cannot just guess. "Ditto" for ALL of neuroscience !! ]

Dear Brad Jesness,

I have to confess that I did not understand at first what you really criticized. After a while it finally sunk in. You are obviously a belated follower of J J Gibson who conceptualized a new kind of physics, the so-called Ecological Physics. I am asking myself why you did not cite him !

To those who are interested in the topic Gibson's bullet points in short:

1)Why are things seen ?

2)It is not easy to describe from what that "information" consists.

3) The invariantsof ecological physics are not the same as the invariants of physics.

Gibson was an astute observer and thinker , highly respected by his contemporaries up to his death in 1982. As an experimetal psychologist he gathered several unexplainable phenomena which he used in constructing an unconventional framework for future detail research.The core of his doctrine was that humans but also other living systems perceive the world in a direct manner by means of inborn "tools". This view is known as "Naive Realism" .He described himself as a proponent thereof.

Without any doubt G. has made important contributions to psychology. It was especially his theory of "Affordance" which enriched psychology as a serious science. This also holds true for his rejection of the term "information" as being used in a technical sense (Shannon). He considered "information" as a genuine biological term concerning the environment of living systems. His affordances maybe equalized to the philosophical term of "intentionality" which is regarded as one of the features charácterizing Living Systems.

Altogether, much of his remarkable work may be subsumed under the umbrella of BIOLOGY ( sensu stricto, i.e. a science based on the principle of self-organization of natural systems.

The fact that Gibson's doctrine had only a marginal after-effect was the inability to confirm his prepositions empirically.

One may object that it is difficult (if not impossible) to perform meaningful experiments which show that perception occurs directly without l e a r n i n g. but ths is not the point. Moreover, his observations can be explained both from the standpoints of direct (bottom-up) and indirect (top-down) perceptioin. As an advocate of a p u r e bottom-up strategy ("step by step)"he could not accept the spiral-like strategy of advancement of knowledge consisting in an alternating sequence of the one and the other.

To put it in a nushell: Though consistent in itself his doctrine could not be proved as right or wrong at that time. Meanwhile things have changed:

1) How is it possible -if not by learning - that Inuits are able to distinguish between 28 kinds of snow ?

2) What does it mean that the horizontal neuronal connectivity (cortico-cortical) outweighs the vertical connections from the sense organs to the cortex, by far (Braitenberg, 1990) ?

Meanwhile there is general consensus that the brain communicates essentially with itself. The role of the sensorial input only consists in "updating of the "mighty OLD" by means of the faint NEW. Only if the NEW cannot longer be repelled, the necessity of a state shift will occur (crisis of the old paradigm according to T. Kuhn). Neurophysiologically spoken, a phase transition will occur by means of the mechanism of self-organized criticallity". This is a splendid scientific definition of "learning".

One of the deepest insights we owe Jakob v Uexküll who anticipated the modern self-organization principle more than 100 years ago (as did philosophers as Plato, Kant and Schelling). Accordingly, we are unable to perceive the world as it is (Kant's thing -in - itself).

By the way, in Uexküll' model of the functional circle ("Funktionkreis"), the sensorial afferents from the outer world do not reach the motor efferents directly (this would correspond to the outdated reflex-arch). The afferents rather create an image of the outer world (which is highly individual-specific) by interacting with stored biographical informations. As v. Uexküll put it, we only perceive a counter-world ("Innenwelt"),.

We owe merit to Brad that he had reminded us to Gibson's work. Nevertheless, I'd recommend to prefer Gibson's "Reasons for Realism" , Hillsdale 1982 against Brad's 600 pages (or even more)

Regards Gerald

Dear Gerald Ulrich

I have read a bit about James Gibson, but never his own words. I did listen to his wife's (Eleanor Gibson's) presentations in a seminar in the 1990s (for about 1hr/day for one week). Affordances was not a major topic.

In fact, I do not like the concept of affordances as is: it smacks of dualism. I believe during major qualitative behavior pattern changes (during ontogeny) BOTH "learning" (it is: associative learnings) and innate guidances occur IN EFFECT, and for us phenomenologically, AT THE VERY SAME TIME (literally BOTH as aspects of any ongoing behavior pattern, totally admixed and effective literally at the same time). Any indication of first one then the other, or some view of some "dynamic" alternation of the two is false dualism to me. Not only unlikely but inconceivable; it is just plain both bad and false thinking.

One should not recommend an alternative to my 600 pages unless one has both read and understood them. In one way and/or another you are "not quite there". (The perspective and approach is empirical and concrete enough to be a clear basis -- via the major findings on the Memories -- of General Artificial Intelligence and its major, central, core algorithms.