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Cognition and the Fractional Anticipatory Goal Response
(1963 talk stating the specific and empirically meaningful difference between cognitive and noncognitive psychological functions)
Text of 1963 paper given by John Furedy at the Annual Meeting of the British Psychological
Society, Melbourne
One of the important functions of the fractional anticipatory goal response in
Spence’s neobehaviorist (S-R) theory is that of being a substitute for cognition,
knowledge of propositions of the “not here” goal box. So, in the ordinary runway
situation, the fractional anticipatory goal response (rg) “transports”, as it were, the
“not here” goal box (which is invisible), and its reinforcing properties back to the start
box and alley. Hence the animal runs faster and faster out of the start box as a
function of reinforced trials even though, each time it is placed in the start-box, the
goal-box, being invisible, is not present to the animal.
DIAGRAM 1 IS TAKEN FROM SPENCE’S BEHAVIOR THEORY AND
CONDITINNG, 1956, p. 134.
(explain how rg, which activates RLOC, occurs to Sa through stimulus generalization
from the “not here” SG).
A cognitive theory, of course, deals easily with this problem of the
“transportation” of the “not here ”goal box the cognizing rat, the rat which has Tolmanian
expectancies, simply knows the proposition that, “this start box is a sign of that (good)
goal box” (the goal box being good or having a high valence because it contains food).
Now given the rg does have this function of doing the work of cognition or
expectancies in the matter of transportation, one can ask how good a substitute it actually
is. And in this connection, although there have been extensive and severe theoretical
criticisms of the rg, criticisms, that is, which cast doubt on its value ass a scientific
construct, there has been little criticism of an empirical nature. Thus even Meehl and
McCorquodale, who, from a theoretical point of view, issue the ultimate condemnation of
the rg by labeling it a dues ex machina mechanism, appear to rule out the possibility of an
empirical criticism by their comment that, “the basic cognitive element, the forward
pointing reference of the expectandum term is smuggled inky invoking the rg”. Granted,
the term “smuggled in” may not be a particularly complementary one. But it still seems
to suggest that, empirically speaking, speaking, that is, form the point of view of
prediction, or consistency with matters of behavioral fact, Spence’s rg can predict all that
can be deduced form a cognitive construct, since, with the aid of the rg, Spence can
“smuggle in” the “basic cognitive element”.
Now the importance of the work of Gonzales and Diamond is that it seems to
negate the view that this smuggling is a perfect crime, the view that, in terms of behavior,
there is nothing in the cognizing rat can do that the fractional-anticipatory-goalresponding rat cannot also do.. In that part of their experiment with which I shall be
concerned, the following procedure, which I have sketched on the board, was carried out.
DIAGRAM 2
Groups
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
B
C
RxBy
RxBy
Bx+
By+
RxBy
RxBy
Two groups of rats, B and C, were given a preliminary test without reinforcement
in a straight-alley apparatus with a goal box (By) dissimilar to the starting box and
runway (Rx), such Rx, By (the goal box) was invisible. This first stage was followed by
direct-placement feedings in a box (Bx) similar to Rx (group B) or in By (group C).
Thus, under stage II, we have no Rx for either group, indicating that the animals were
simply placed in their respective goal boxes, and we also have the +symbols, indicating
the presence of food in the goal boxes, one of which had x-type stimulus properties (for
example white), while the other y-type stimulus properties (for example, black). The
final, third, stage was a repetition of the preliminary test for both groups, in order to
observe the effects of the differential treatment during the second, direct-placement stage.
It was suggested by these experimenters that the effects of the second-stage treatment on
the observable behavior, running speed, in the third stage, would be different according to
whether the rats were cognizing in the Tolmanian fashion, or factional-anticipatory-goalresponding in the Spencian way.
The rationale behind this claim can be stated as follows, using the symbol B_+
(WRITE) to stand for the baited goal box, with x or y stimulus properties, into which the
animals were placed during stage II. From Tolman’s point of view, what is important is
the B_+:By relationship, since it is the valence of the empty goal box, By, of Stage I,
which must be raised for the rat to run faster during stage III, the rat having learned,
during stage I, the expectancy or proposition that, Rx leads to (or is a sign of) By. Hence,
since the B_+:By relationship is closer for the group fed in By+ (group C) than for the
group fed in Bx+ (group B), a cognitive theory would predict that , at the beginning of
stage III, group C runs faster from Rx than group B. So (WRITE UNDER DIAGRAM ii:
Tolman – B_+:By imp., so C (fed in By+) faster than C (fed in Bx+).
For the rg, on the other hand, as explicitly stated by Spence himself (Beh. Theory
& Conditioning, pp. 147-8), what is important is the B_+:Rx relationship. For it is the
closeness of this relationship which determines the intensity of rg evoked in to Rx by
stimulus generalization from By+: (the place where rg occurs originally) to Rx. This is
because, the more the similarity between the stimulus properties of B_+ and Rx, the
greater the generalization from B_xt to Rx and hence, the greater the intensity of the rg
evoked in Rx. Therefore, since the B_+:Rx relationship is closer for the group fed in Bx+
(group B) than for the group fed in By+ (group C), the S-R position, so it is argued,
implies that, at stage III, group B runs faster from Rx than group C. So (write under
diagram 2: Spence – B_+;Rx relationship imp., so B (fed in Bx+) runs faster than C (fed
in By+).
The results were clearly in accord with the predictions attrib9uted to Tolman:
group C ran faster than B during the third stage.
Now, as I shall argue later, in spite of Spence’s explicit statements to the contrary,
a more detailed consideration of his theory, for which I am indebted to Professor
Champion, shows that this experiment, as it stands, does not force Spence to predict a
result that is different from that predicted by Tolman. The Gonzales and Diamond
situation, contrary to appearances, is not one in which the cognizing animal and the
responding animal need necessarily behave differently.
Nevertheless, I think the work of Gonzales and Diamond to be of great
importance, for by suitable modifications of the setup one can expect the cognizing
animal to behave differently from the fractionally-anticipatory-goal-responding animal.
And this is so, because, although Gonzales and Diamond have not explicitly made this
point in their article, their approach bears on a crucial difference between responses and
cognitions.
Now the difference between responses and cognitions has often been often been
thought to lie in whether the organism is influenced by what is not physically present to it
at the time, the “not here” and the “not now”. But this distinction is not adequate; it is not
the crucial difference for, as we saw at the outset, Spence can explain the influence of the
not-her baited goal box in the ordinary runway situation without invoking the notion of
cognition, since the properties of the invisible goal are carried back by means of the rg
through stimulus generalization. Thus the stimulus generalization principle [which itself
is based on the classical conditioning of responses] permits the organism to respond to
the “not here”, while really being completely bound to the immediately present stimulus
situation, the here and the now.
An adequate distinction between the two notions, a crucial difference between
responses and cognitions, is that cognition may involve propositional knowledge of, and
not just response to the not here and the not now. That is to say, By, the goal box is
known to the cognizing animal in the start box and runway (Rx), being present as part of
the proposition that “This Rx is a sign of that By”. To put it more anthropomorphically,
we might say that the cognizing animal is not surprised to see the goal box when he gets
into it, since already in the start box he is aware of the thing by which is being
influenced.
Granted, this “awareness” distinction may not sound very important and, indeed,
in the ordinary runway situation, it does not have any real bearing: the rat which is aware
of the not-here goal box and the rat which is not, both behave in the same way; that is,
that is, they both show an increase in running speed as a function of reinforced trials. But
when, as in the Gonzales and Diamond approach, we separate the reinforcement (Stage
II) and the goal box (Stage 1), this difference, this non-knowledge of By does become
empirically important. For now, By, for the Spencian, fractional-anticipatory-goalresponding animal, is not present in any sense (not even in the ambiguous stimulusgeneralization or responded-to, sense). That is, the stimulus properties of By, for the
Spencian animal, are quite irrelevant for his behavior (running speed) in the test stage III.
It should also be clear that By, for Spence, is only artificially present in Rx in the
ordinary situation, simply through association with the reinforcement. Thus the rgcognition distinction rests on the fact that the rg’s being responses to present stimuli, have
no real “forward-pointing reference” in the Meehl-McCoquodale sense, since they do not
involve a genuine (or rather cognizing relation to the not here. They involve only a
stimlulus-generalization type of influencing. So the “smuggling” is seen as not a perfect
crime, but the imperfection is brought out only through the Gonzales and Diamond
approach of separating the goal box, m By (see stage I) and the reinforcement (see stage
II). It is only through this separation, that it becomes possible to develop a situation
where the behavior of the cognizing and fractional-anticipatory-goal-responding animal
should be different.
I have said develop deliberately. For, as I have already mentioned, as it stands,
the Gonzales and Diamond situation, despite Spence’s explicit statement to the contrary,
is not one which commits S-R theories to a prediciton different from Toman (i.e., C faster
than B in stage III). And this is so because of at least two factors which, from an S-R
points of view, could have worked against group B as to result in group B running slower
than C. The first of these possibilities is that during the first stage (RxBy) the
instrumental response of running may well have not been the dominant response since,
unlike the ordinary situation, there was no reinforcement for running at this stage. Thus it
could be that the greater rg’s generated in group B during the second stage were
strengthening not the instrumental response of , RLOC (pint to diagram I), but the
dominant competing, non-running response Room, say (PUT RCOM INTO DIAGRAM
I).. For the rg strengthens or activates whatever response happens to be dominant. It just
happens tube the case that I the ordinary (reinforced) situation, it is the instrumental
response of running which is dominant. Arguing along these lines, the S-R theorist
would not be abashed to find C running faster than B; he could simply say that the
greater rg’s generated in B were causing that group to do other things faster or more
energetically. Because of this first passivity, I used reinforced trials during stage I and III
so as to ensure the clear dominance of the running response (PUT DIFFERENT
COLORED +’s TO B’s ON DIAGRAM I).
But even in this modified situation, there is a second possibility which could
permit the S-R theorist to predict the cognitive result of C faster than B, and this is, that
there is nothing to say that during the direct feedings in stage II, the only response that is
conditioned to the stimulus properties of B_+ must be the rg. For it has to be recognized
that under these somewhat unusual direct-placement conditions, the cues in B_+ may
come to elicit a variety of other overt responses which might loosely be characterized as
“looking for food”, that these will transfer more easily from Bx+ than from By+, and
performance could well be inferior in group B for this reason. Now it did not seem
possible to be sure of completely eliminating this “looking for food” response factor, if
only because this response, like the rg, need not necessarily be observable. However,
since this factor could only be used as a defence against having to predict B faster than C
if it outweighs the influence of the rg factor, I decided to minimize the transfer of the
looking for food response from the goal boxes to Rx by a discriminative stimulus
technique of sounding a tone 5 seconds duration with all entries into the goal boxes. The
final setup, then, was: (PUT IN T IN DIFFERNTCOLOR INTO DIAGRAM II).
Comparing this situation with the original Gonzales and Diamond situation, we
find that the essentials have been preserved, in that the degree of similarity between the
goal box of the second stage (B_+t) and the goal box of he first stage (By+t) is still
greater for group C than for B (important for Tolman), while the degree of similarity
between the goal box of the second stage (B_+t) and the start box and runway (Rx) is still
greater for group B than for group C (important for Spence). (PUT IN DIFF COLOR
NEXT TO BOTTOM LINESIN DIAGRAM ii: +’s for By, t for all +’s.
PROCEDURE
After preliminary training to get accustomed to handling and to the apparatus, the
rats were given 8 trials of four per day during stage I, 17 trials of four per day for four
days and one on the fifth day constituted stage II. Stage II commenced on the same day
and went for 8 trials at the rate of 4 trials per day.
Without going into details, the basic aim in the procedure was to maximise the
differences which were left after the necessary additions had been made to counter the
possible S-R defences and to minimize irrelevant factors. This involved such things as
emphasizing the x-y stimulus variation by pairing wire flooring with white and uncovered
aluminum with black, extending the duration of the second stage, equating the average
time spent eating for the two groups during stage (120.7 secs per trial) and allocating rats
to the two groups only at the end of stage I so as to match the two groups for running
speed.
RESULTS
The performance of the two groups B and C on the last 4 trials of stage I and the 8
trials of stagier I plotted I terms of meant starting time; see results in Furedy & Champion,
1963. Taking the first block of two trials in stage III as a measure of the effects of stage
II, the individual mean starting times for the 8 animals in group B ranged from 4.00to
1.45 sec, while those for the 8 in group C ranged from 0.8 to 0.50 secs. Since there was
no overlap in these two samples, no statistical test was deemed necessary, the
performance of group C being clearly superior, though, as may be observed from the
graphs, this difference had all but disappeared by the second block of two trials in stage
III.
DISCUSSION
While the results as they stand are quite unambiguous, their implications, as is
usual, are less so. For the S-R theorist could still defend his position by insisting that the
discriminative stimulus procedure technique of pairing the tone with entries into the goal
box did not minimize the transfer of the looking for food response to a sufficient degree
for this factor to be outweighed by the rg factor. Or, he might well invoke some other part
of the general theory which should have been, but was not, considered. And, although
one may question the plausibility of these defences, it is nevertheless the case that they
need not be precluded from serious consideration. But this sort of ambiguity, I suggest, is
an invariant of any attempted “empirical arbitration” of this kind; no experiment can ever
constitute certain falsification of any theory, but it can force the theorist to the dilemma
of either having to give up his theory or having to suggest defences the plausibility of
which is highly questionable This, I think, is all that can ever be achieved by an empirical
arbitration, by what is sometimes called, the “crucial experiment”.
I should also point out that I do not regard; this arbitration as in any sense being
one between the theories in toto of Spence and Tolman, for on many other issues, I think
the Spencian position to be highly preferable. What the experiment has done, rather, is to
throw light on a specific and rather central bone of contention between the two theories:
do organisms only respond or, do they, at least sometimes, also cognize. Now this issue,
as I have said, has often been thought to be a merely theoretical one. What opened it to
the possibility of experimental investigation is the realization that, as against Meehl and
McCorquodale, rgs, being responses, have no real forward pointing reference. The
“smuggling” is not a perfect crime for, the responding animal, although it may be
influenced by, is not aware of, the “not here” and the “not now”.