Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:22:29 EDT
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Exploration and Reorganization

[Martin Taylor 920902 14:30]
(Rick Marken 920902.0930)

>I was not clear. I think of "exploration" and "reorganization" as words
>describing potential mechanisms underlying an observed behavior; I think
>of them as descriptions of models.

Well, clarity, like everything else, is in the eye of the beholder, and
in the case of writing, the writer beholding(?) sees differently from most
others.  I thought I was clear, too.  But the rat example clearly fits
one view of exploration, which was not what I had intended.

> For example, when a rat is placed in a test chamber
>it "explores" -- it sniffs around, climbs the walls, pushes on stuff, etc.
>It produces a lot of changing perceptions for itself; I think many people
>would describe this as exploration.

Yes, they would, but it wasn't really what I meant, unless neither of your
proposed explanations apply.

>Now, what is causing this behavior?
>One explanation is that it is caused by systematic variation in the
>rats' references for various perceptions, this variation being caused by a
>higher order system trying to achieve its own perceptual goal (which
>might be verbally described as "a perception of high familiarity").
>This explanation says that the exploration we see is a result of regular,
>systematic control processes -- and this could be tested using versions
>of the test for the controlled variable.
>
I hadn't thought of this possibility.  It comes close to an idea I had very
many years ago, that organisms control to maintain a preferred level of
variability in perception at all levels of abstraction.  If things are
too familiar to the rat, look for something new.  If you are put in a
sensory isolation chamber, turn up the gain in your sensory systems so that
the noise can be interpreted as perceiving something. At a high level,
don't allow yourself to get bored.
>
>Another possible PCT explanation of the SAME behavior would be that it
>is the result of reorganization. This explanation would be particularly
>plausible if we knew that the rat had not eaten for a day before being
>placed in the test cage. If the "exploratory behavior" is the result
>of reorganization then we would expect to see the variability of the
>behavior gradually eliminated as control of some particular aspect of
>the enviroment had effects that reduced intrinsic error.

This would also account for the actions observed by a third party.

My account ties in with the alerting function discussion.  When there are
"spare" degrees of freedom that could be used for control, and are not
because all the references are reasonably well satisfied, then some are
available for actions that find out "what is there." This is not to satisfy
any reference for reducing hunger (or "thirst for knowledge"), but to
discover the perceptual results of some action.  That discovery permits the
assignment of the correct sign to the output that was/led to the action,
for a later occasion when the ECS in question has a reference that it must
satisfy with its percept.  Reorganization is a consequence of exploration,
in this view, and it happens at zero gain.

I hope this is clear, but even if it is, the clarity may well be an illusion.

Martin
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