Isn't the only way to well understand resultant behaviors to "get ahead" of them?
AND, wouldn't this necessarily have to do with better understanding PERCEPTION _AND_ THAT including any innately guided aspects of this type of thing emerging during ontogeny (e.g. with qualitative changes in thinking, occurring periodically and up through adolescence)?? The obvious answer (to me) is 'yes'. How else will we "get ahead of ourselves", literally and REALLY?
IN ANY CASE: If you have no better answer, and cannot disprove my answer, then you HAVE my answer (and what else?) [ Forget your a priori and pat hypothetico-deductive systems, as the static things they are. They 'wither' when considered in the light of "trying to get ahead of things", though good theory will incorporate all good findings and useful perspectives. ]
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that perception and behavior are dissociable into separate stages, with perception occurring first. Based on this assumption, you posit that studying perception enables us to get ahead of behavior.
Response #1. Isn't this conclusion only valid if there is a strict (e.g., one-to-one) mapping between perception and action, as if there is an internal translator that receives the percepts and gives the corresponding action? Given that there are mediating processes that connect behavior and perception, and preclude any strict mapping, isn't the only way to get "ahead" of behavior -- if there is a way -- is to study those mediating processes? (i.e., perception and action)
Response #2. Why stop at perception? Why not get ahead of perception, and study the stimulus? You might say: 'because how a stimulus is perceived depends on the perceiver and perceptual processes'. True. Why not ascribe the same to the processes of action? Why assume we can get ahead of action, but not get ahead of perception?
Dear Davood Gozli
Your point #1 is well-taken. I see your point and can acknowledge those possibilities. I agree that a way to study possible mediating processes may well involve appreciating the full BEHAVIOR PATTERN of perception and action.
Also point #2 seems to have some good merit. We perhaps will not know all that is being perceived (or at least how all of it is being 'put together' into one overall perception) until we let the organism better direct us to what are the stimuli (again, true behavior patterns point the way). All will be well as long as WE, the researchers, do not feel omnipotent and like WE, ourselves, better-see and can define stimuli (or define behaviors, for that matter) -- the subject, as in other sciences, defines all for us (which translates into behaviors define each other as seen in true patterns: behaviors define behaviors).
I can imagine subtle orienting responses (which are subtle overt behaviors) preceding important perception (or at least the perception which is most pertinent).
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