Actually, there's no conflict between being a rat running behaviorist
and believing that the CNS (central or conceptual as the case may be)
is an integrated interactive system all of which is involved in any
given instance of behavior.
And of course we talk a great deal about verbally mediated behavior
in all of its complexity.
On Apr 6, 2009, at 12:01 PM, Mike Palij wrote:
On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:16:19 -0700, Gerald Peterson writes:
But this:
Mike Palij opined:
How does the human use of language and symbolic representations
affect the conclusions about learning and memory observed in
animals,
especially species that are not "close" to us genetically?
Seems to beg the question.
Depends upon what you mean by this. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
Do psychologists--especially neuro-physio folks attempt to address
the
experience or psychological representations of language?
I believe that this depends upon how behavioral the researcher is and
whether they believe that all brain components (i.e., molecules,
neurotransmitters, neurons, etc.) that are directly relevant to a
phenomenon have been indentified. I assume that most people
who are using conditioning procedures with rodents or other animals
would think that a very limited neural circuit is involved and other
brain areas play minor roles.
In humans, however, the use of language allows one to make an
interpretation of an event which can fundamentally change the nature
of the experience. Take "cognitive appraisal" is an example
of how interpretation (again, using concepts represented by language)
can affect one's experience, say, whether a specific stimulus either
stressful or annoying, painful or uncomfortable or merely stimulating
(I personally don't care for it but pouring hot candle wax on a
partner's
skin can be interpreted in positive and erotic ways), and whether an
event is overwhelming or bearable. I believe that one version of the
cognitive theory of panic attacks is that a catastrophic
interpretation
of physiological signs (i.e., heart beating very fast, high anxiety,
difficulty breathing, etc.,) leads one to believe that one will die
shortly.
Therapy for this is to make the person recognize the symptoms, not to
become upset by them, take countermeasures (e.g., deep breathing,
etc.),
and telling oneself that this will pass shortly. This makes the
experience
much less unpleasant and can lead to reduction of the fequency of
panic attacks.
Language and other symbolic processing capabilities, it seems to me,
allows humans to simulate their experiences cognitively which can
either reinforce the whatever brain processes that were involved in
the experience or to weaken them. Mice and other animals may have
much more limited symbolic processing capabilities and, perhaps,
be more affected by conditioning procedures than humans.
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
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Paul Brandon
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Minnesota State University, Mankato
paul.bran...@mnsu.edu
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