If cognitive events cannot be "observed" then how does one explain the activation of different brain regions detectable with fMRI during performance of cognitive tasks?  Researchers studying anxiety and depression see differences in regional cerebral blood flow at baseline and in response to presentation of difference cues which ostensibly reflects individual differences in brain activity in response to internal stimuli and in the perception and response to the same external events respectively.  Thus, internal events that do not result in overt behavior can now be monitored using fMRI which did not even exist when behaviorism was developed.  

There are difference in opinion about this but it is nevertheless worthy of contemplation.

ussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=what-behaviourism-can-(and-cannot)-tell-us-about-brain-imaging.pdf&site=42

Nicholas, I think you may have misunderstood the intent behind this question. First, I was asking about papers on this issue, so that I can read a formal product. What you are expressing is something I have heard several times before, but not read in any academic journal. Second, just for the record, I am a cognitive psychologist. I have previously done research and work related to neuropsychology, visual cognition, and cognitive evolutionary psychology. I am also an advocate of inferential statistics, and have recently written a paper that maps the lack of group designs within behavior analysis, as well as a paper where I formally recommend the meta-analysis for student use. I did not mention any of this in my question, because it is beside the point.

I asked the question in order to find out what papers are out there debating behaviorism/behavior analysis from a cognitive viewpoint. Your post seems to be mostly a personal reflection about behaviorism itself. I will not address your questions specifically, as they are unrelated to my original post, and as a cognitive psychologist working in a behavior analysis field, I may not be the best person to answer them. I believe my original question post was fairly objective on the subject: nowhere in the post are my personal opinions about the fields stated, nor do I say anywhere that I share the views of either behaviorists or cognitive psychologists.

I wouldn't say that modern behaviorists are uninterested in cognitive phenomena. 

I think there is much conflict between behavior analysis and cognitive psychology because the scientists do not really understand each other's view points. Behaviorism is frequently criticized by cognitive psychologists, but it is still more of Watson's behaviorism that is being criticized thank Skinner's behaviorism. Skinners concept of private events is very much in line with cognitive psychology. I think the main difference between a modern behaviorist and a cognitive psychologist is in the terminology and the focus of investigation. Behaviorists seek to know why something happens at the level of the individual and how this is related to the individual's history. Cognitive psychologists seek to understand how mind of the average individual functions and are not as concerned with individual history. I think they are actually two complementary methods.

Take for example stimulus equivalence, a popular area in current behaviorism that can appear to be a cognitive process. Behaviorists focus on how an individual's history has led to the development of such equivalence. Within-subject designs are very useful for answering these questions. A cognitive psychologist might instead be interested in studying what stimulus equivalence is like for the average organism. If they are not interested in the development of stimulus equivalence, then they can use group designs and ask questions about what equivalence is as a cognitive process.

The Chomsky/Skinner debate is unfortunately misunderstood. To be brief, Chomsky did not understand Skinner's perspective in Verbal Behavior. He heavily criticizes Skinner for being a behaviorist without realizing that Skinner's behaviorism is far, far different from Watson's behaviorism. Much of his critique is irrelevant. It is also worth noting that Skinner describes a functional approach to language. Chomsky pushes for a structural approach. Neither is all encompassing, and both functional and structural approaches can be very useful.

 I do not believe that studying the activity of the brain, in an fMRI for example, is the same as observing the mind. The mind remains unobservable. We can, however, study brain activity and make good inferences about what is happening in the mind. But what we are observing is neuron activity, blood flow, etc, not thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I'm not trying to say that these techniques are bad by any means. I'm only suggesting that we still must infer cognition from these physiological measures in the same way as we must infer cognition from behavioral measures or self reports.

Nicholas, you hold an unfortunate perspective. You suggest that behavior cannot be understood by "just looking at stimulus and response" and that organisms are "not just as simple as stimulus and response." I think all modern behaviorists would agree with you. S-R behaviorism is long gone. You also make reference to the "dark age of behaviorism." This is simply ill informed. Behaviorism has been an extremely useful part of the history of scientific psychology, and it is STILL useful. No, perhaps behaviorism is not the best treatment for cerebral palsy, but perhaps modern psychotherapy is not either. CP is a neurological problem and needs a neurological treatment. This is not a deficit of behaviorism. Behavioral issues can be treated with behavioral treatments. The field of applied behavior analysis is enormous and thriving. For some areas, such as treatment of autism spectrum disorders, applied behavior analysis is one of the most popular treatments. This is because the behavioral perspective of focus on individual behavior and learning history is extremely useful. It does not solve all problems, but there will not be any area in psychology that solves all problems. I really hope you will reconsider you perspective. 

All scientific fields of psychology are useful. Our field still has some psuedoscience to get rid of, but both behaviorism and cognitive psychology are very useful. It does not have to be a conflict, but I'm afraid many behaviorists and cognitive psychologists are continuing to create a conflict where there is not one. 

Espen, Sorry I could not address your question from the perspective of a cognitive psychologist. However, I do hope that my responses are useful for clearing up some of the confusion.

You may find the paper at the link below of some help. It was presented at a conference primarily composed of cognitive psychologists. It is not a cognitive psychologists point of view, but it may help in understanding the behavior analytic position. I would also suggest looking into the William Uttal, a cognitive psychologist who has written extensively on behaviorism.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/931pj14ukuyxhzk/hard%20problem%202.pdf?dl=0

Hi Christopher and Espen,

I am sorry to disagree but cerebral palsy is not just a neurological problem and I have attached articles that show how COGNITIVE techniques have been used to rehabilitate people with CP. Christopher has not read this research (if I am correct) and I recommend that you do so before you jump to conclusions about CP! Behaviourism is, I quote “an important part of psychological history”, the operative word being HISTORY.

The other aspect is cognitive decline in aging, which I have written a number of papers on. One of these key thoughts in my research is to show how the metacognition system is really important to older adults, but if you had used behaviourism then this will be totally ignored. However, there is clear evidence that metacognition can be a very effective tool in training and rehabilitation… But if you are a strict behaviourist then you will not consider this.

Cognitive neuropsychology is not a pseudo science, it is based on strict statistical techniques to analyse brain functioning in the whole population; behaviourists do not do this, hence why CBT has become more popular than simple desensitisation when treating anxiety and depression… Can you explain why?

I am begging you not to drag psychology into the past when we ignore cognition and neurology such as fMRI, CT scans etc.!

With respect, Nicholas, as I have said before, this question was about academic papers related to behavior analysis and cognition, and not about the etiologi or treatment for cerebral palsy.

While I appreciate your input, I must emphasize my neutrality on this topic once again. You persist to challenge my view of behaviourism, even though I never said I hold this view. I also don't think anyone has claimed cognitive neuropsychology to be a pseudoscience (which it surely isn't).

I would also underline that a quote stating how behaviourism is history is not evidence to support that it is no longer valid. I would comment on your points about CP, but it would only be my opinion, and off-topic, so I will refrain from doing so. It is certainly interesting, though.

If you know of any papers discussion the philosophy of science behind behavior analysis and cognitive psychology (if it is in the context of CP, then that is of course absolutely fine), then that would be great.

Joe Layng: Thank you for the link and the name reference. I will look into it!

Hi Espen,

I'm not sure of any papers which have compared behaviourist techniques and cognitive techniques in CP, but you only need to compare the attractiveness of  conductive education (which is quite behaviour-ish) and mental imagery (which is cognitive based). My main issue is that one cannot ignore the cognitive processes which are going on in the brain. I totally disagree with Christopher when he said that CP is a neurological illness, when we know it has a cognitive basis. I hope this article helps to explain my reasoning.

My other points are that if you read my articles on research gate about cognitive decline etc. then you will see why statistics are so  important. Why would you not take statistics into account?

Cheers,

Nick

Nicholas,

Thanks for the papers, I will look over them. I am not a CP expert, so I was not aware of work. If cognitive techniques are useful for treating CP, then I wouldn't be surprised if behavioral treatments were useful as well. There is a good deal of research on classical and operant conditioning of involuntary processes such as heart rate and drug tolerance. For something like CP, we might also consider if various techniques are treating CP or just treating the symptoms. But I'm afraid a discussion on treating the cause or symptom of a disorder is a very different discussion. As for you other comments, I really encourage you to keep a more open mind about behaviorism. It is not as restricting as you seem to think. It is simply one useful perspective in psychological science.

Hi Christopher

Behaviourism has been used to treat CP, but it is not as effective as cognitive treatment. We actually know that the cognitive treatment techniques are treating the cause of the involuntary movements and motor coordination problems because we can see changes occurring in the CNS.

This is my main issue with behaviourism, you can use conditioning to treat the symptoms of depression or anxiety, but you are not actually treating the cause are you? If you can show me evidence of how behaviourism has identified a cause of an illness such as CP or depression etc. then I will be more open minded. My point is we need to know what is going on in the neurological systems of people and animals, I don't see how behaviourism can accomplish this? Cognitive neuropsychology can accomplsh this, neurophysiology can accomplish this... Can you explain how behaviourism can do this and if not then what is the point of psychology if it is not to understand why we behave in the ways we do and treat disorders such as depression, anxiety and CP. For example, it is well documented that if people who have cancer have a more positive attitude of beating the disease then they are more likely to survive and they survive for longer. This means that the cognitive processes of people can have a significant impact on their immune system, this must be worth investigating

If we go back to your example of conditioning to treat involuntary movements or drug tolerance, surely you want to know why it works on some people and not others? Don't you want to understand how it works so that we can make it more effective? We also know that meditation can help in both cases but can you explain that through behaviourism? I am not saying that cognitive psychology can explain everything but I believe that cognitive neuropsychology is very important and should not be overlooked for behaviourism.

Nicholas,

I have two questions, what caused the brain to be such that it caused depression in a person. More generally, what causes the brain to be in any particular state such that it causes a particular behavior?

Hi Jim

That is a really good question and as you know there are different forms of depression; you can have chronic depression which is due to a neurochemical imbalance in the brain and and second there is short term depression which is caused by a certain incident in ones life. Regarding chronic depression, there is no evidence that behavioural therapy can treat this condition. Unfortunately the drug companies make more money out of SSRIs and SNRIs even though new research has shown that neurological structures are defected, but they will not research this because it will actually cure depression and not just treat it... Check out the work of Colin Hendrie.

The second type of depression is when someone has had a negative life experience, such as being raped. This is when cognitive therapy helps the person to adjust their way of thinking in combination with drugs so that they can accept what has happened and move on with their lives. This is where I don't believe that behaviourism is effective because you might treat the symptoms of the depression (with conditioning etc.) but you do not treat the cause of why someone is upset, feeling guilty, having suicidal thoughts etc. How can behaviourism treat these? If you can show me evidence that behaviourism therapy can be more effective than CBT then I would be really interested. However, to do that one would have to ask the patient how they are feeling or conduct tests on neurochemicals, which would be out of the remit of behaviourism!

Check the attached article and tell me why the understanding of neuropsychology is not important.

Cheers

Nick

While your post was very interesting, Nicholas (and I agree with some of your arguments), I believe Jim was asking about causality of depression, not treatments. I think he was implying that depression, such as the second type of depression you mentioned, is essentially caused by external events. Thus, someone's likelihood of getting depressed can be traced back through their life experiences. Even if the process in which depression occurred was cognitive, the external (behavioral) variables, such as your learning history, have prior to this shaped the way your cognitive processes operates.

This is, of course, hypothetical from my side as this is not my field. But in terms of causality (not treatment), this is an occasion where behaviorism and cognition talk about the same thing, getting the same outcome, but using different languages.

Nicholas,

I did not say understanding neuropsychology was not important.

With respect to short-term depression, you said this was due to life experiences. I agree. These life experiences can be understood from a behavioral point of view.

With respect to chronic depression, you suggest it is due to a neurochemical imbalance in the brain. That may well be the case. Let's assume it is true. Let me ask, what causes that chemical imbalance?

Take care,

Jim

A very good description of the relation between environmental and organic origins of clinical behaviors of interest and how that is approached in the context of behavioral approaches may be found here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdhhqlv70o8gbqw/Goldiamond_1979%20Behavioral%20Approaches%20%26%20Liaison%20Psychiatry.pdf?dl=0

I think this APS Observer column by Henry Roediger III (when he was president of APS) might be helpful. He is a well-known cognitive psychologist. You can see it at:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/uncategorized/what-happened-to-behaviorism.html

It's a very good question Jim, we know that there is a genetic component, which is not connected to cognitive psychology but it is connected to cognitive neuropsychology. I do not know how this would have been uncovered with behaviourism. We also know that there is an evolutionary element to chronic depression which might have been uncovered with behaviourist techniques. However you can have two people who are exposed to the same life experiences and identical twins but one can suffer from depression and the other will not. There are so many factors which behaviourism cannot account for but what can is neuropsychology, can take it into account because of the use of statistical analysis.

I will return to my original question, which was why is CVT more effective than simple conditioning techniques for people with depression?

Cheers,

Nick

Hi Nicholas,

Over the years there have been many experiments reporting identifying genes for various mental disorders. Upon replication, the replications failed. So, I consider a disorder genetic when the gene is identified and replicated. I am not saying genetics do not play a roll, I am saying it has not been conclusively demonstrated.

You indicate the evolutionary component, if it exists, would not have been uncovered with behavioral techniques. Yes and no--behavioral methods would have indicated that it could not account for all the variance. Others would then use appropriate techniques to look for evolution's influence.

I'm not sure of the purpose of the twins example. If anything it supports the view of environmental influence. I'm not sure why you say behaviorism cannot account for why one twin develops a disorder and the other does not. I'm not sure behaviorists have looked at this. It is a good question and should be examined by behaviorists.

You might find a book by Arthur Staats interesting as it addresses this issue, The Marvelous Learning Animal.

Jim

Hi Jim,

Regarding twin studies, I agree that one can argue for the environmental impact for the present, but surely the question is 'how does the environment affect the brain'? It must be cognition?! There are other disorders such as dementia, which we know have a genetic component. However, once again there are twin studies that show that one twin can develop dementia while the other twin does not. You are totally right that these are environmental factors, but how can behaviourists explain that someone who is more cognitively active throughout their lives develop dementia later in life? There must be some cognitive component which affects the brain and if we do not investigate that cognitive component then we do not understand how dementia can be tackled.

I feel that we can all come up with arguments for behaviourism, cognitive neuropsychology, genetics, epigenetics etc, but I just do not believe that we should stick to the behaviourist idea and ignore cognition, neurology etc.

I think we should just agree to disagree, but it has been an interesting debate!

Kind regards,

Nick

Nicholas,

You need to read the articles that T. V. Joe Layng suggested. Behaviorists are interested in phenomena others call cognitive. But you are correct, behaviorists could do more research in that area. The fundamental point is that behaviorists and cognitivists all examine behavior. They look at it through different lenses.

I agree we need to agree we disagree.

Take care,

Jim 

I wish that I could recommend a good manuscript on behaviorism written from the cognitive point of view but I'm afraid that I can't. I think that there is a lot of truth, however, in your observation that many textbooks describe behaviorism as a dead school of psychology. This is rather fascinating when you consider it in light of the ever growing number of certified behavior analysts. In a survey that I completed a few years ago (See attached article), certified behavior analysts rated "radical behaviorism" and "theoretical multiplicity" to be of about equal value to them. They also rated "evidence-based practice" as they thing that they most value. This may have some interesting implications for understanding the degree to which Skinnerian radical behaviorism continues to impact modern psychology.

Article Surveying Professionals Views of Positive Behavior Support a...

I would be very curious to learn more about recent articles suggesting behaviorism should remain a major theoretical perspective, and how it accounts for cognitive psychology.  Unfortunately I do not know of any recent articles within cognitive or developmental psychology on behaviorism.  I have a great deal of appreciation for behaviorism.  I teach Intro and spend over two full two-hour classes teaching behaviorism in a great deal more depth than most textbooks.  I consider behaviorism the theoretical perspective that launches psychology as a science, in part because the challenge to provide a scientific account of what goes on inside the "black box" drove us to modern research methods.  Even so, I also would not consider behaviorism a major theoretical perspective in our present-day efforts to advance psychology.

I would not expect many cognitive or developmental psychologists of today to write much about behaviorism.   Unlike the way textbooks sometimes present Chomsky's research as the dramatic death of behaviorism, my impression is that it simply petered out.  Since the time of Chomsky, there have been behaviorists explaining language and saying he misunderstood behaviorism.  Piaget and Skinner were similarly offering their own point-counterpoint on children's development.  The petering out comes from one difficult-to-account-for phenomenon after phenomenon.  How can behaviorism account for the latent learning of cognitive maps by mice (i.e, Tolman)?  How can behaviorism account for the over-justification effect as children become less interested in something when rewarded?  How can behaviorism explain infantile attachment from contact comfort when being fed milk would certainly seem more rewarding (i.e., Harlow's monkeys)?  Since I'm very interested in theory and history, I ask questions like these whenever I meet a modern-day behaviorists and they offer decent answers.  It's not that behaviorism can't explain any one of these findings.  But finding after finding, trying to form a theoretical explanation in purely stimulus and response terms becomes less plausible while discussion of different cognitive states becomes more plausible.

Behaviorism is wonderfully parsimonious, by having such few assumptions, but the stretches to explain more and more findings that other branches of psychology offer make it less so.  Over the decades, researchers seem to have come to recognize that models that including internal states and a cognitive apparatus explain so much more in an elegantly parsimonious way (more parts, but also way more explained).

It's unfortunate that people say behaviorism is "dead."  Clearly it's not.  It's probably even more useful as a mental health treatment approach today than it was decades ago, given the rise in autism diagnosis and the successful treatments designed with behaviorism.  Behaviorism works.  But that doesn't mean it's the best theoretical explanation.

To be a viable theoretical explanation we need the generalizability that comes with statistics and research methods.  A case study can be idiosyncratic, but more disconcerting is how case studies allow circular arguments.  Why do children start to use language?  They were reinforced for language (& language-like) behavior.  Plausible hypothesis.  Okay, what does "reinforcement" mean?  It's the process by which a behavior is increased.  So what has a case study showing that we can reinforce language or language-like behavior in a child actually accomplished for our theoretical understanding of language development?

Hmmm, I'm worried about what I've written.  Remember behaviorists, if you want cognitive or developmental psychologists to engage, you should make sure your responses are not punishment!!  But if you fail, don't worry, I'll attribute any loss of emotion regulation to your mental model of cognitive & developmental psychologists.  Ultimately I decided to risk posting because of my self-concept as a teacher & scientist & learner.  Further, I'm thinking about the contact hypothesis and hoping by posting I'll reduce your stereotypes of us.  :-)

Hi Kevin,

I found it interesting you thought behavioral explanations, or at least some, circular.

That has been the problem with cognitive explanations, for me. Take priming. Present a stimulus, then create a situation to generate one of several responses. The response is thematically related to the initial, priming stimulus.  If the explanation is the initial stimulus primed the final response, this seems circular. We have no independent verification of the priming beyond the observation.

I hope I was not punishing.

I guess you and I, as Nicholas and I. will agree to disagree.

Take care,

Jim

If I understand correctly, you're seeing cognitive psychology as just as logically circular as behaviorism because when we prime someone and see the result, we might say, "there's the priming effect."  I hadn't thought of that before, and I can see how that is circular.  But in contrast, priming is not a component of information processing models.  Analogously, consider how we might create a placebo condition, observe a response, and say, "there's the placebo effect."  Priming, and placebos, are not theoretical constructs.  They are research methods.  

We use the priming effect to more deeply explore our model of cognition.  Our semantic network holds immense amounts of information, and the information we use at any moment depends, in part, on how accessible it is.  One way we can demonstrate this is with the priming effect.  For example, Bargh et al. (1996) randomly assigned participants to either experience priming (e.g., word-find with words related to old age) or a control task (e.g., word-find with words unrelated to age or vigor).  He then surreptitiously timed participants walk to the elevator "after" the study.  If primed for old age, they walked slower.  When I teach priming in Intro, I have students circle all the vowels in a random set of words, and an hour later give them hangman-like games to try. Those for which the words were made more available in memory, are more easily solved.  We can combine priming with framing and see those Americans randomly assigned to have WWII primed were more in favor of a hypothetical military intervention than if we presented the same situation with a Vietnam War prime (Gilovitch, 1981).  We don't even need to use a priming research methodology to observe the value of availability.  If we ask people who they'll vote for in a presidential election, those who respond faster (indicating presidential politics is more available in their everyday thought) are more likely months later to actually vote for the candidate they name (Fazio & Williams, 1986).  People who place morality at the center of their self-concepts, having moral ideas more available, are more likely than others to respond to an ambiguous dilemma as though it's a moral question (Damon, 1995).

Priming is a methodology that helps us build a body of research knowledge; priming is not the body of knowledge itself.  With parsimony we can explain elements of motor movement, problem solving, decisions, attitude-behavior consistency, and morality with a single aspect of our information processing. 

You're not the least punishing Jim, as you can obviously tell since I'm increasing my posting behavior!  (And I had meant that as a joke in my previous post, in case it didn't come through.)

Hi Jim and Kevin

I think that Kevin has explained the viewpoint more effectively than what I have been trying to do.

The most interesting thing about this discussion is that the behaviourists must be thinking about their responses, which automatically implies that some kind of cognition is taking place. I don't want to repeat myself but can any behaviourist explain why they don't want to understand what is going on in the "black box"? This is what I do not understand about behaviourism, it feels very circular and the answer to every question is stimulus and response. However, we know that the body is much more complicated than this and if you take the Bargh et al (1996) experiment I cannot see how behaviourists can explain this without explaining that there is some form of information processing going on.

I have asked the question of why is CBT more effective at treating depression and anxiety than behaviourist techniques and no one has answered me, why?

Of course it is important for students to understand behaviourism, but it is also important to move on and accept that we need to use statistics and cogitive neuropsychology, evolutionary theories etc. to understand and predict human behaviour.

We only need to go back to Pavlov and his dog to see that when one behaviourist theory becomes redundant then you develop a new behaviourist theory to explain it...When you could have accepted that the dogs worked out that food did not always come when the bell rang.

Cheers

Nick

Hi Nick,

To get a good view of behaviorists concerns with cognitive psychology you need to read Uttal, the War Between Cognitivism and Behaviorism. He was trained as a cognitive psychologist.

One of many concerns is Moore's Theorem. It states for any 'black box' there are an infinite number of possible ways the internal circuity can be arranged that will produce the same set of outputs for any given set of inputs. There is no way to to identify the internal circuity by providing any number of different sets of inputs. This is why chip manufacturers can produce equivalents of copywriitten circuit chips. So, from Moore's theorem it appears that it is impossible to identify the actual way the mind works, which is the goal of cognitive psychology.

Identifying how the brain works is outside of cognitive psychology and behavioral psychology. Speaking for myself, I'm interested in identifying how the environment influences behavior. I do not care how the brain works or how it takes environmental experience, combines it with past experience, learning, and produces behavior .I''m not saying that is not an interesting question, not a question that other should not study, just not my question. I'm not saying others should not ask that question. I am saying that looking for the brain correlates of cognitive stuff is not going to be successful, as there is not one way that one can theorize cognitively to account for behavior (Moore's theorem).

As for CBT vs behavior therapy. I am not a clinician and do not read that literature closely. CBT consists of many behavioral techniques  plus cognitive stuff.. From what I've read, experiments that parcel out the C from the BT show the BT does most of the work. From my point of view there is very little difference between CBT and behavior therapy or ABA. Mostly it is how one talks about what is being done; what actually is done is very similar in all three. Finally, note the BT comes from the principles developed in the behavioral lab. As I understand it, the C does not relate to principles in cognitive psychology. It certainly was not developed from cognitive principles 30 or so years ago.

One does not need to invoke cognitive events to account for thinking.

Take care,

Jim

Hi Jim

I'm very sorry but I just cannot see the logic in your argument. The environment influences people differently and surely it is important to understand how two people who are exposed to the same environment can react totally differently?

I go back to my original point about brain injury and cerebral palsy. We know that injuries to certain areas of the brain can have a large effect on motor coordiantion and spasticity. We can monitor the brain and CST to see how certain cognitive techniques help to benefit certain patients and not others. So why would one want to ignore how the brain works? We might call it cognition and you might call it S-R, but the fact is cognitive therapy is having a significant impact on the quality of life for people with CP or stroke survivors. This would not be thought of if one was just using behaviour therapy.

There are multiple papers which show that CBT or just cognitive therapies benefit people with depression more than behaviour therapies. I go back to my original argument that behaviour therapies are only treating the symptoms of a condition while cognitive neuropsychological techniques are trying to identify the cause.

Is it not important to identify the cause of a condition and not just treat it? Is prevention not better than treatment?

Kind regards

Nick

It is certainly true that given any dataset of pairs of independent and dependent values, there are innumerable equations that match.  That is even true if we allow for no measurement error!  I understand, Jim, that you're drawing an analogy between a mathematical function and the "mind" as a black box defined by a function.  What I'm unclear on, is why you take this to mean trying to find those functions (i.e., exploring the black box) is not going to be successful?

Imagine Galileo rolling balls down his ramp, discovering how gravity works.  He collects some data as pairs (time of ball's descent, length of ramp).  His data are: (1,5,), (2,20), (4,80).  He infers that gravity works in such a way that whenever you double the time, you quadruple the distance.  That's how he said it, because algebra was just being invented at the time, but this data perfectly fits this equation: 

X = 5 * t^2 (where X is distance and t is time).

It is perfectly true that the data also fit an infinite set of other equations.  Here's an example:

X = 3.2917*t^5 - 40.833*t^4 + 171.87*t^3 - 279.17*t^2 + 159.83*t - 10

So why didn't Physics give up trying to understand gravity when our best guess might be wrong?  I would say because it's worth understanding what makes things fall down.  Moreover, the reason to choose the quadratic equation instead of the 5th order polynomial, is because it's more simple.  In the absence of a compelling reason to use the more complex model, use the simple one.  It's parsimony!  Indeed, because Galileo figured out Kinematics and the Law of Intertia, Newton was later able to figure out how these equations ultimately explain the movement of the planets in addition to balls dropped.  Oh, an Newton did that by combining kinematics with Kepler's Laws, which were similarly the most simple equations Kepler could find to describe the movement of planets.

Had Newton discovered that a more complex function explained Galileo's and Kepler's observations, we would probably use that today.  Because, afterall, a single function explaining more phenomena is more parsimonious.  This is ultimately what happened when we realize Newtonian Mechanics is true, but overly simplistic.  There are some functions in relativity and quantum mechanics that simplify to Newton's Three Laws under everyday circumstances, but other terms have a greater effect size under other circumstances (e.g., when moving near the speed of light).

In my view, the history of Psychology parallels the history of Physics.  When Behaviorism began in the early 1900's it was a wonderful scientific theory that explained a great deal with a simple model.  It led to the stronger methodologies we have today and, just like Newton's theory, it bumps up against things it can not account for well.  So more modern theories acknowledge the truth of reinforcement, punishment, and contingencies, but also see it as having limits.  We need to expand our model to include information processing to account for the breadth of our scientific observations.

Your final line sums it up "We need to expand our model to include information processing to account for the breadth of our scientific observations.". How can behaviourism account for information processing if you are not going to look at the 'black box'? 

Kepler's ideas have been wrong and people like Steven Hawkings have advanced physics by using very complicated statistical models. Would Newton have discovered the atom in 1600? No, because the technology was not available. Now we have the technology which can show you what is actually going on inside the brain when a response occurs to a stimulus... so why should we ignore that?

Nicholas,

Information processing as used in psychology is a metaphor, not something we observe. A scientist need only account for what is observed. A behaviorist needs to account for the  behaviors you attribute to information processing.

Jim

 Kevin,

The proper analogy is to a computer. There are an infinite number of ways to arrange the circuity in a computer that will produce the same set of outputs for a set of inputs. No experiment or set of experiments can determine which of those infinite arrangements is the one actually in the computer. So, there are an infinite set of ways the mental components can be arranged, not set of experiments can tell which way the minds is arranged. 

If you  are interested in how the brain functions, then that is outside the bounds of either behavioral or cognitive psychology. Yes, other disciplines can work on that but that does not support cognitive or behavioral approaches.

Behavioral approaches have been used to treat 'purely' physiological disorders. Edward Taub, a behavioral psychologist, developed 'constraint induced movement therapy' for those with a loss of motor function following traumatic injury. It is a completely behavioral approach.

Take care,

Jim

These may be of interest to those involved in the discussion.

http://www.amazon.com/Behaviorist-Looks-Form-Recognition/dp/0415645522

http://www.amazon.com/The-Between-Mentalism-Behaviorism-Accessibility/dp/0805833617

Nick,

CIMT has also been used effectively with CP children.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14754942

I skimmed the articles you suggested.

Snapp-Childs (2015)  used a motor therapy very consistent with a behavioral approach.

Jongsma (2015) used am imagery approach, that also is consistent with a behavioral approach - behaviorists do work on what we call private events, like thinking and imagery.

Salavati (2015) was testing a measure and used the motor training not imagery, so I did not see the relevance.

Take care,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Restraint therapy only works on a certain type of CP. Mental imagery only works on people who have a higher level of cognitive functioning, therefore by definition you cannot argue that mental/motor imagery has not got a cognitive component.

I work with Samit Chakrabarty and he also does not like the idea of cognitive models because you cannot physically test them. So I understand your argument, but on the other hand, we can measure activity in the brain when a person is thinking about doing an action. Therefore, there is something going on between the stimulus and the response... If we can understand why this activity in the brain does not work properly in people with CP then we can treat it.

I would like to go back to one of my original examples; I can describe to you in great depth how to change a sparkplug in a car, but I cannot physically do it. So you can have the stimulus which is the sparkplug and socket set but you do not get the response of me picking them up and doing what a normal person could do, so you do not the response. My question is why does my body not produce the response which someone else's body would, but I can tell someone else how to do it. If I can tell someone else how to do it without ever having done it personally then there must be some kind of cognitive map in my brain to perform the action. If the engine would not start I can think of how to get it going without actually touching it or even if I cannot see the part of the engine which I know is not working. For example, we have got an oil leak in the  bottom of the engine and I have a cognitive representation of what it looks like and after my friend found it and took a photo, and it was exactly how I described it, but I have never been under the car. So I must have some kind of cognitive functioning which allows me to imagine where the oil was coming from and what it would look like. I don't know how a behaviourist can explain this?

Cheers,

Nick

Nick,

In the final paragraph, I only disagree with you writing you "must" have a cognitive map or some cognitive function. One interpretations is cognitive, it can be interpreted behaviorally, in terms of the individuals history of reinforcment for what they see and speaking about when they see or read.

Jim

A recent paper by David Wilson and colleagues includes a discussion on problems and advantages with behaviorism. The article incorporates certain behaviorist principles into evolutionary psychology, and is a very good read.

The main discussion of B.F. Skinner and behaviorism is in Section 2.1 (pp. 397-398), though it is brought up again several other times through the article. I am not sure if I can argue that this is written from a cognitive perspective, but evolutionary psychology is often largely cognition-based.

Hi Jim

The problem is I have never seen under the car and it is a custom engine, so there are no pictures of it. The only information I know about it is what my friend was describing in words. So somehow I converted what he was describing into a visual representation of the engine and then I could work out what was wrong. I really don't know how this can be explained without cognition?!

Regarding the point by Espen, I totally agree that evolutionary psychology can be largely explained through behaviourism, but the question is how can something which was learnt by our ancestors be passed on to us? You must accept that there is something in our genetic makeup which determines our behaviour. Therefore, behaviourism cannot explain all human behaviour.

I think this discussion could be circular, a bit like a behaviourists argument ;)

Nick

Nicholas,

I am not going to address all your points, as I think most have been adequately considered. Your sparkplug example can be explained either by behaviorism, only focusing on observable events in an individual's history, or by a cognitive map type of concept. Either can be useful depending on a researcher's interests. But I think there is something else we can consider for this discussion.

It is important to consider in what manner you are trying to answer a question. Behaviorism is very useful for answering psychological questions at the level of observable behavior, environmental events, and individual history. Behaviorism generally does not refer to the mind because it is not required to answers question at that level. This is not to say that the mind is not a useful thing to study. At the same time, cognitive psychology often seeks to answer psychological questions at the level of mind. It does not always need to study the structure of the nervous system because that is not the scope of cognitive psychology. Neuropsychology does study the nervous system, but it does not necessarily need to study genetics to answer every question. I could continue until we get to the study of subatomic particles, but I think I have made my point. Every type of (psychological) science does not need to answer every question at every level, it simply needs to be useful at explaining events at one level. Some research does ask questions at multiple levels, but this doesn't invalidate studying something at a single level. I don't think there is any about explaining psychology at some other level that is counter to the philosophy of behaviorism. Behaviorism simply exists to study psychology at the mostly readily observable level with as few references to other levels (mind, neurophysiology, genetics, etc) as possible.

Another way you can consider answering psychological questions is with Tinbergen's four questions of ethology (loosely based on Aristotle's four causes). When you consider psychology in this way, it is clear that different types of psychology answer different types of questions. For example, I am not sure why you would seek to explain evolutionary psychology through any other type of psychology. Evolutionary psychology focuses ultimate causes of (human) behavior. Behaviorism primary focuses on ontogeny. They simply serve different purposes. I do not expect any type of psychology to fulfill every purpose.

Finally, behaviorism is not the study of the effect of genes on psychology. Neither is cognitive psychology, but I see no need to criticize cognitive psychology for not being behavioral genetics. I still think you are criticizing behaviorism for not being some all encompassing explanation that it never claims to be. Perhaps in Watson's time behaviorism did seek to be an explanation for everything, but this was long before the development of modern measurement and also long before the development of modern behaviorism.

Espen,

I am still reading through the article you posted, but it seems to be a good find. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but it offers some useful perspectives and I think this might be a fun article for a class discussion.

My point is why do behaviourists not care about what is going on in the brain. I think the thing which I personally don't like about behaviourism is that it can never be proved wrong because the behaviourists will just come out with another argument for why the behaviour has changed. I am not saying that cognitive psychology or cognitive neuropsychology is always corret but at least we accept that there is something going on in the brain which is worth investigating. We also accept that evolution and genetics and neurochemistry can effect behaviour

The question of why do some people with a positive mood (and attitude) survive cancer longer than people with a negative attitude is something which is worth investigating don't you think? How we can make CP treatment more effective using cognitive techniques and different drugs is something worth investigating is it not? The reason why CBT is more effective than simple BT is worth investigating? My point is these three examples might effect over one third of the worlds population, but behaviourists will not investigate it because it involves cognition... Please tell me that is unethical?!

It is totally fine to come up with making a dog salivate at a ring of a bell but how relevant is this to the problems which we are facing now like dementia and mental health problems in children and wars over religion?

Here is an interesting article from BPS Psychology talking about the "strange death of radical behaviourism", by Brown & Gillard.

It talks about how behaviourism was 'missing, presumed dead', but that many of its principles are alive and well today. Some of them are fully integrated into mainstream psychology, even though they are not always officially recognised. It is a good and easy read.

It is a very interesting article and I think that the main point is that we need to understand outcome measures more. However, I totally disagree with the point about evolutionary psychology, because the effect of evolution on behaviour takes hundreds or thousands of years to change, not just one generation. For example, my undergraduate dissertation was on the attractiveness of breast shape for men and the results showed that a certain shape of breast (which was more feasible for breast feeding) was more attractive. this cannot be ignored because evolutionary psychology or social biology has a direct impact on who we fall in love with but strict behaviourists will not take this into account.

The key point of the article is that radical behaviourism accepts that we cannot ignore the brain and therefore cognitive neuropsychology must take into account the stimulus we use and carefully consider our outcome measures... but this does not mean we need to ignore what is going on in the 'black box' which strict behaviourism does.

There is still no answer as to why CBT is more effective than strict behaviourism therapy for depression and anxiety disorders?!

Nicholas,

Regarding CBT. First, CBT, despite its name can be understood from a behavioral point of view. Radical behaviorism has done considerable study and thinking about verbal behavior. Relational Frame Theory (RFT), based on radical behaviorism, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, derivative of RFT, include lots of verbal therapeutic interactions and it all is interpreted as behavioral. So, it simply depends on the lens through which you are looking at CBT.

In addition, Remember, despite the name, cognitive behavior therapy, the cognitive part of CBT does not derive from principles of cognitive psychology. It simply uses a variety of verbal techniques that are called cognitive. So the success of CBT does not provide support for principles of cognitive psychology.

Nicholas, I have to (mostly) agree with you regarding your point on evolution. Indeed, some behaviourists seem to think that learned behaviour can evolve from one generation to the next. This is certainly true if we are talking about cultural transmission, but not necessarily so if we are talking genetically. If an organism acquires an advantageous behavioural trait via learning in their lifetime, then there is no guarantee that the offspring also will have this trait. It can only acquire it by learning through the parent, or by some random chance mutation.

It is equivalent to shaving one's head every day and expect the child to be born bald. It is, essentially, a version of Lemarckian evolution.

Nevertheless, in my experience, most behaviourists are fully aware of the effect of evolution and genetic predispositions, especially recently. They tend to focus on learned, reinforced behaviour and cultural transmission, where I certainly think behaviourist principles are important.

Hi Jim,

My point is that CBT or RFT is more effective than simple behaviour therapy. So you might call it radical behaviourism but I would call it an acceptance by behaviourists that thought patterns can change behaviour.

Cheers,

Nick

A colleague gave me a paper by Philip Hineline, which I think is quite interesting for this discussion. It is arguably written from a behaviorist perspective, but it summarizes the different positions of cognitive psychology and behaviorism quite well.

Article The evolving behaviorist/mentalist disagreements

It is gratifying to see that paper noticed.   Several years ago, Wanchisen and I wrote a more detailed comparison of the behavior-analytic and cognitivist viewpoints.  It is cited in the paper you mention, but as a book chapter it may be difficult to obtain.  I can supply a pdf upon request.

PNH

[email protected]

In Matlin's Cognition book (7th Ed.), there are a few pages about the history of cognitive psychology in the introduction ("A Brief History of Cognitive Psychology", pp.4-11). The author does a good job of outlining the timeline and transition from behaviorism to cognition within mainstream psychology. She lists several reasons for this transition, and it includes multiple references. This transition, sometimes called the cognitive revolution, started in 1956, and by 1960 psychology had been substantially reformed.

In interesting quote from page 8 is "This [behaviorist] approach tells us nothing about psychologically interesting processes...".

That's the whole point of your question... behaviourists study the stimulus and response but cognitive psychology and neurocognitive psychologists try and understand what is actually going on to produce the response. Consider metacognition, which has benefits in memory training, rehabilitation etc; if we did not take this into account then we could not develop programs that benefit learning and rehabilitation. 

Here is a bit more accessible paper than the one by the same author I posted earlier.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2733443/pdf/behavan00029-0052.pdf

A paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences by George Miller himself (2003), also gives a brief but detailed outline of what the cognitive revolution was, and why psychologists felt behaviorism was lacking.

He pinpoints the birth of cognitive psychology as September 11th, 1956, and that the decline of behaviorism and rise of cognition was noteworthy after 1960, when Harvard opened the Center for Cognitive Studies.

Article The Cognitive Revolution: A historical perspective

As a not-very-deep starting point, consider this paper by a highly influential cognitive psychologist:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/what-happened-to-behaviorism#.WH6voGQrKYU

If I understand correctly, Espen, you are seeking a description of what others might find objectionable about radical behaviorism.  I've been searching myself for something similar. The closest I've found so far, for my purposes anyway, is Daniel Dennett's essay written upon the occasion of Skinner's retirement from Harvard, "Skinner Skinned."  A copy of it can be found here:

http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/classes/110/Dennett.pdf

Thank you, Thomas and Iser.

I will have a look into these. I have been thinking of writing a short article summarizing the views presented from the various sources, but have not yet had the opportunity.

P.S. Dear Christopher A Varnon

You say: "In terms of psychology, behavior analysts are not interested in cognitive phenomena. This is not because they reject the existence of private events, but because they argue that cognitive events cannot be observed; only its behavioral outcomes."  In a  MAJOR WAY I say this is not likely true.  I believe they reject wrongfully and shortsightedly and, really, their objection is not on objective (empirical) grounds.

While you cannot see all aspects of cognition you CAN see each new major aspect as it develops with ontogeny (this is a VERY reasonable argument).  These may well "show" in only subtle perceptual (perceptual/attentional) shifts, but with modern eye-tracking technology,  they can be discovered.  If longitudinal studies are done, after finding all the "bits" of conceptual representation related to clear perceptual shifts (and taking the very reasonable assumptions in my longer paper), then you can basically know all of the nature of the covert cognition (even of an adult).

Article A Human Ethogram: Its Scientific Acceptability and Importanc...

The cognitive revolution may be a self-serving myth. See Leahey's 1992 article in the American Psychologist -- and he is no behaviorist

Thanks, Edward. I did not have that article.

Glad to see all these suggestions coming in!

This is a good thread but I'm not 100% sure that published sources are really the best way to answer the question. People who write those articles have an axe to grind, and that makes them atypical. In my experience, at conferences and as part of a department whose 35 faculty are mostly cognitive, "they" just don't think about us. As Roediger has observed, to at least some cognitivists, what "we" do and what "they" do aren't much related and so why would we cross their minds?

Hi Espen,

I know that I'm answering late, but I just stumbled upon your question.

I believe these articles can be helpful:

• http://www.jstor.org/stable/27758983

• Overskeid's "Private Events and Other Causes of Behavior: Who Can Tell the Difference?" (sorry, can't find a proper URL)

• Overskeid's http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1995.tb02568.x/abstract

And this one is from a radical behaviorist answering some philosophical challenges:

• http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09515089.2015.1121540?journalCode=cphp20

There's also a book on experimental psychology by Hugh Lacey, but I can only find it in portuguese (It's the first one listed here: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/hlacey1/publications.html ).

I'm also writing my final graduation paper about cognitivism (functionalism, representationalism and connectionism) vs. radical behaviorism, but you'll have to wait until June for that, haha!

Thank you for these, Jeronimo! These were new to me, and look like interesting reads! I only knew of Overskeid's paper, since he has an office not far from here.

I would also be interested in reading your paper, if you allow it, when appropriate.

You need to distinguish between cognitive phenomena (thinking, remembering, problem-solving, etc.) and cognitivist explanation (e.g. accounting for thinking in terms of "little internal thinkers").  Contemporary behavior analysts address the former while rejecting the latter.  The attached files are by a behavior analysts, while acknowledging the cognitivist viewpoint.

I'm glad you liked the suggestions, Espen.

I'm a fan of Overskeid's work and view on the matter. Shame there are no MA programs focused on philosophy of psychology at Oslo University, otherwise I would be applying to study there.

I'll be translating (to English) my final paper after it's done. You can expect to read it before September. I'll send it to your email.

Regarding Hineline's answer, I wouldn't characterize cognitive explanations making use of homunculi. Take Heil's (2004, p. 110) approach on the problem of an homunculus in cognitive explanation:

"A semantic engine is a device that performs symbolic operations – manipulates symbols – in a way that reflects semantic relations holding among these symbols, but does so exclusively by means of formal and syntactic principles – that is, without regard to the meanings of those symbols. We can suppose, then, that minds process mental representations, without having to suppose that minds contain components – little intelligent agents, homunculi – that understand the meanings of those representations."

Also regarding homunculi, Dennett's view on the problem, expressed on "Skinner Skinned" is quite the read!

I studied experimental analysis of the behavior of living organisms and that's not "behaviorism.". "Behaviorism" is what those with no training in experimental method turn to, to voice opinions on experimental method. And my version of exp method is the same set of principles, procedures and maths used by Galileo, Newton, Claude Bernard, Enrico Fermi (working on fission on the atomic pile in Chicago which ultimately ended.WWII) and physicists and chemists worldwide, as well as Skinner. 

Fact 1: In 1957 Chomsky published Syntactic Structures based on his personal opnions about what happens inside the brains of childreen during language acquisition, with not one piece of brain tissue evidence to support 30+ printed pages of speculative ramblings on neurological functions. In 1957 also Skinner published Verbal Behavior based on his observations of the effects of reinforcement on the real-world verbal behavior of the spoken samples of a real-world speaker and a listener  Chomsky's was supposed to be a book review of Skinner's book. It wasn't.

Unbelievabke as it may seem, the editors of Language allowed Chomsky 30+ printed pages to provide a marvelous piece of ipse dixit logic - Why is this so? Because I say so! - on Chomsky's personal pronouncements about the procedures of Galileo, Newton, Claude Bernard, Fermi, physicists and chemists worldwide and Skinner. So Skinner, the best known experimental psychologist of the time, had his book, based on the highly validated experimental method, used as a stepping stone for Chomsky's blatant promotion of Syntactic Structures and eventually Transformational Generative Grammar, which never produced any clinically or socially usable contributions, other than several TGG grammars.

Fact 2: read Chomsky's original "review" and look closely at how Chomsky evades openly admitting "I don't know what I'm talking about on experimental method."  So  what this master - of chatter and gibberish says throughout is, "To the extent that what Skinner is saying is (here Chomsky inserts an ipse dixit opinion that he can ipse dixit)."

Conclusion: Chomsky never reviewed Skinner nor much less debated Skinner because  Chomsky knew nothing about the experimental method as implemented by the experimentalists cited above  What you had was totally unethical editors allowing a book reviewer to chatter and gibber about a book the science of which Chomsky knew absolutely nothing.  And then the editors of Language simply allowed Chomsky to turn his putative "review" into a blatant promotion of Syntactic Structures and it's unproven, and it's scientifically unsupported TGG. 

The beauty of this vignette is that Skinner was consistent to his reinforcement principles and never reinforced Chomsky because the thing that would be reinforced would more chatter and gibberish.  Therefore, by not reinforcing, Skinner helped rid the scientific community of further chatter and gibberish through the natural reinforcing properties of extinction.

Henry Adams, proudly former lab assistant to Charles B. Ferster at Georgetown and American University

I am surprised by some to the inaccurate statements here, but I probably shouldn't be, because many of those who criticize behaviorism and behavior analysis know little or nothing about them.  Critics have been claiming behaviorism is dead since the 1920s, but it is alive and well.  You may like to read my book, "Understanding Behaviorism: Behavior, Culture, and Evolution," which has just come out in its third edition.

Behaviorism is not nonsense, it is the philosophy that underlies and enables a science of behavior--behavior analysis.  It is a useful alternative to philosophy of mind.

Cognitive phenomena, properly viewed, are behavioral phenomena.  They don't take place in some imagined non-physical world, but are observable by another and may be studied systematically.  Skinner's appeal to private events was not science, but literature--he called it "interpretation."  Private events cannot be studied as such, because they are private.  Only public events--what can be observed--can be part of the data of science.

To echo previous comments, behavior analysts eschew cognitive explanations in favor of those regarding behavior-environment relations. I recommend Jim Moore's book, "From a Behavioral Point of View," as an easy-to-read, handy source on "cognitive phenomena" addressed in behavioral terms. A lot of content is covered, but I find it a good starting point. Baum's book is a great source for references and further digging. Lastly, Ken MacCorquodale's (1970) article, "On Chomsky's review of Verbal Behavior" is a must read for anyone serious about the the infamous misunderstanding of not just Skinner's book on verbal behavior, but the science of behavior in general.

Skinner's Radical Behaviorism presumes mentalism in its formulation only to deny it later.  To identify classes of events, one must stand outside the temporal order of 'real' events to identify them and their similarity in order to group them.  Skinner should have read David Hume on identity more closely.  This is taken up in my Master's Thesis: "The Phantom in the Opera: Subjectivity and Antimentalism in Radical Behaviorism." The repetitive compulsion to defend Radical Behaviorism is taken up in my dissertation (UW-Milwaukee, 1993) entitled: "Extraneous Reasons: A Critical Social Psychological, and Historical Analysis of Radical Behaviorism."  While  I have moved on to a clinical practice, and while will utilize some 'behavioristic" interventions, I primarily  approach therapy using psychoanalytic, and in particular, Lacanian,  interventions. The critique of behaviorism by Lacan is also quite pointed.

I already answered, but would like to point out some obvious things, in response to your question: " So, I was wondering if there are any good articles discussing cognitive/internal/private events, and behavior analysis/behaviorism, that are written from a cognitive psychologist point of view? "

The divide between cognitive-developmentalists and behavior analysts have a lot to do with "stepping out" of the time-span constraints and the space constrains of a behavior analyst's laboratory, where they attempt to "control everything". [ This may be as much or more of a stepping away from presumptions (which, I guess, comes under the "control everything" idea), rather than not operating in a laboratory rather similar to that of behavioral analysts. ]

I submit one can take a very behavioral analyst (/behaviorist) view WITHOUT having all the constraints of a laboratory (the most significant of which may be psychological/mental). It just depends on believing whether "no matter what" some species-typical regularities will still "stand out" and will be shown to be reliably observable via direct observation of overt behaviors AND, indeed, are true across-individuals. ONCE that position is taken, one can be very much like a behaviorist (just "shifted", now finding/recognizing major innate guidance influences throughout development/ontogeny, occurring and amounting to species-typical qualitatively shifts in behavior -- leading to cognitive advances). Taking this position seems like something it is irrational not to try -- especially now with new technologies where we can see and find new things in behavior (AND, even, at significant times, in a rather short spans of time and space [observed]; again, it may be largely unfounded presumptions that are being "shed".) **

See my earlier post for bit more perspective and a recommendation of a reading ("A Human Ethogram ... "). (You will still want to read my earlier answer, above, for some more details.) In my main paper:

I do critique all forms of behaviorism and propose a perspective of the nature I indicated above YET I can be considered a "methodological behaviorist".

Article A Human Ethogram: Its Scientific Acceptability and Importanc...

** FOOTNOTE: Will someone please give this idea a try, so this old man can die happy.

A common misconception about behavior analysis is that it assumes all behavior is learned. That is false. Behavior analysis is completely compatible with ethology and behavioral ecology.

[ This has to do with the Question, because it addresses the basis and nature of qualitative shifts during cognitive development, an issue central in most cognitive developmental psychology, _YET_ a matter not even considered by behavioral analysts . There IS a way to bring these two groups together, and I believe I indicate how that might be, below. ]

Dear William M Baum

I have no doubt of your intent and the intent of behavioral analysts. BUT: The FACT remains, it is incredibly rare that a behavioral scientist (ANY, nowadays, including even today's self-defeating 'ethologists') thinks of major behavior patterns** AS literally BOTH learning AND innately-guided at the same time -- where not only major behavior patterns for learning show innate guidance, but where (at the same time) the innate guidance ITSELF IS integral aspects of these very (self-same) behavioral patterns OR of the changes (aka learning) involving these very behavior patterns (clearly, at the inception; and, at clear points, directly observable, though in ways quite subtle or hard to see, BUT AS real concrete specific proximate causes of behavioral change -- which MAY well now be investigated with the new eye-tracking and computer-assisted analysis technologies; we just need to try and DO IT !).

The dualism between nature and nurture does not exist in biology; as long as we can just talk about one, then the other (even if reverently but in an alternating fashion, back and forth, back and forth) is the extent to which OUR THOUGHT SYSTEMS ARE WRONG (at least with regard to major behavior patterns and w/r to major behavior patterns that emerge over the entire course of child development (ontogeny) -- e.g. with regard to all the species-typical aspects of cognitive development ("learning and the environment" _WITH_ true and seen innate guidance); THIS is the very essence, by definition, OF PSYCHOLOGY and is also the ONLY way to be consistent with BIOLOGY -- and behavior IS biological functioning PERIOD (there really is no argument against this NOR FOR how the "status quo" is "OK")).

Lip service and good intentions do not well-indicate one has an appreciation for the biology of behavior (and that NOTHING escapes that). Only what I have described above, and detailed elsewhere, does this -- especially with respect to major later cognitive advances. We must recognize the oversights. I have pointed the oversights and skewed perspectives out AND have clearly indicated the baseless, unfounded, unjustified 'assumptions'/presumptions on which they are based. My "A Human Ethogram ... " and my collected 328-pages of essays here on RG explicate, elaborate, and fully justify my view -- both clearly showing the problems and guiding one toward answers.

JUST READ IT !

Article A Human Ethogram: Its Scientific Acceptability and Importanc...

and Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted

The "road to hell" is paved with good intention. Good sincere intentions alone, even well-motivated and strongly motivated, do NOT automatically yield good science (especially with the horrible remnants we have in our culture from self-centered delusional philosophy, directing US AWAY FROM WHAT IS TRUE).

Even if you believe and feel-like, and appear to many, to have the answers, and to have things in perspective, the above outlines HOW YOU DO NOT. You do NOT.

** FOOTNOTE: All is behavior PATTERNS (all behavior is in patterns) as surely as we have species-typical SYSTEMS OF BEHAVIOR. To the extent we speak of 'behaviors' (and fail to actually see, point-up and address changes as changes in THE patterns) is the extent to which WE are defining things and NOT the Subject (which should define ALL, as in other sciences). The extent to which you do NOT see the word PATTERNS following the word "behavior" is a clear indicator of the extent to which PSYCHOLOGY IS WRONG. I.E.: Psychology is nearly always wrong (its problems ubiquitous). (I do like the memory research, though; by its nature, it somehow escapes my critiques, but I shall not try to detail "why" now.)

[ I am a cognitive-developmentalist, though at the same time a "methodological behaviorist". I have resolved a major conflict between cognitive psychologists and behavioral analysts. ]

If I understand what motivated the original question, you may want to consider Tom Zentall's "case for a cognitive approach to animal learning and behavior" (Behavioural Processes 54 (2001) 65–78). It is an approach that I don't see represented in the above discussion, and an approach that fits very well with how a lot of animal learning people frame their research today.

Thank you for your continued contributions to this topic! The article that aims to summarize all these arguments and articles is still in the works, but temporarily on hold while I finish my PhD. When it recommences, hopefully later this year or latest next year, I will share updates in the thread.

Further suggestions for articles/books are always welcome, as this is a work in progress (and an interesting discussion).

Dear Espen A. Sjoberg

I do hope that the explications I provided (just now) in 2 additions to my essay (above) make it clear how my position is relevant to your Question. (One addition is at the top, the other at the bottom.) I refer you to a long paper and a big collection of essays in that Answer (above) as well.

I do hope you see the relevance of the big nature/nurture issue I address.

Another note of potential interest concerning how these communities/perspectives are interacting in contemporary science:

One of the top animal learning journals, APA's Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, changed its name in 2014 to Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, and the editor published a tiny statement on what motivated the change:

Miller, R. R. (2014). Editorial explaining the change in name of this journal to Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 40(1), 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xan0000015

I would like to add to this conversation as an ABA Master's student and ultimate fan of BF Skinner. The technology did not exist as it does today to see imaging of the brain. He did state that all the answers would be found in the research laboratory. He was interested in quick results for the spirit of the times.

Cognition is not separate from behavior. All questions about cognition are behavioral questions. To perceive is to behave. To know is to behave. The only difference among psychologists and behavior analysts is in the theories offered to explain the behavioral observations.

Perhaps cognition can be viewed as the study of

decision making processes, that, of course, can only to be measured using empirical methods. Learning is one means to assess this, but not the only way. Cognition includes learning but also other phenomena involving innate, genetic, motivational, and other factors.

Dear Gordon Burghardt

I see that you have broken down cognition into various "parts". The thing is, cognition is what it is at the moment or moment-to-moment, and ALL those parts are then (in each 'moment') combined, i.e. simultaneous. THAT is what needs to be seen, that is, AT KEY TIMES discovered: when all those "parts" (factors) are not only as I just said, but have OVERT directly observable aspects (as proximate causes) -- and THAT is the foundation strongly linked to ANY further inferences. And, if you believe that behavioral science (as behavior patterns and environmental aspects) CAN itself provide such full explanations (as I do), then the answer is in the perspective and approach of classical ethology.

As a long time proponent of the values of classical ethology I have no objection to what you wrote. By empirical methods I meant measuring behavioral or physiological responses.