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Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:29:45 PDT
From:         Penni Sibun <sibun@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      Drivers, cognition, & PCT and perception
X-To:         CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu
              18 Aug 1992 10:01:59 -0700
              <92Aug18.100845pdt.11795@alpha.xerox.com>

(penni sibun 920818.2000)

   [Mary Powers 920818]

   But interactive implies that
   the road is out there doing something to the driver, and it
   isn't, it's just lying there.

the road may not be *doing* anything, but it's constantly changing,
and it's an artifact--somebody designed it and built it--and these are
important thing to know about it.

   Modelling your drive as a the action of a control system does
   seem hopelessly baroque at first glance. All this stuff going on.
   But this is where the hierarchical model comes in, to organize
   all that confusion.

i am deeply suspicious of hierarchical organization from my experience
in modelling language (as well as other behavior).  language is
supposed to have all sorts of hierarchy in it (eg, a text is composed
of paragraphs are composed of sentences are composed of words) and i
just don't think this is a very useful way of looking at language, and
am working to show this.

   Customs are programs and sequences (signal
   for turns, drive on the right, stop at red lights) that satisfy
   principles (rules of the road) which are the means for keeping
   most drivers alive.

i really can't imagine how a custom can be a program (in somebody's
head).  assuming it could be decomposed into a program, how does an
individual introspect about it?  how are customs passed on and
maintained?  how are they recorded?  how are they incorporated into
things like building (better) roads?

   Road construction - as I go I see that everything you
   name is either a perception like a bumpy road or snow, or a very
   high level abstraction like geography or weather.

you and i are talking about weather in the abstract (and i believe i
included it in the enumeration at the end of my story as a summary).
when i am driving, snow on the road or rain on the windscreen is
extremely immediate and concrete.  i am not dealing w/ ``weather''
when i'm driving, i'm dealing w/ this stuff that's in my face.

   I get the feeling that you don't like the idea that people are
   merely or only control systems.

no.  i don't have any particular emotional investment in what people
are made of.  i was the one who suggested it's all physics at the
bottom.

i am, as we all are who are engaged in this conversation, very
concerned about trying to ask and answer the right questions.

   [From Rick Marken (920818)]


     >there's just tons of literature on
   >perception that suggest that perc. is a *lot* of work; in fact it
   > involves action--perhaps to the degree that p. and a. are inseparable.
   (``active vision'' is a current buzzphrase.)

   All the literature in the world won't convince me that I'm working hard as I
   glance around and perceive different aspects of the world (my neural
   networks may be computing some very complex functions of my sensory
   inputs, but it feels pretty effortless).

i am quite confounded to hear this.  you really think that how much
work a process takes is determinable by introspection?  that doesn't
sound very scientific to me.

   I have to imagine that active vision is controlled visual variables--
   and it seems to be from your examples (like squinting to reduce glare).
   Maybe these active vision people are, indeed, doing PCT.

i was using very gross examples, where i thought the work involved
would be obvious, that is, it involves muscles, rather than primarily
neurons.  active vision folks actually focus more on where the work
involved in perception is not as obvious as muscle movements (though
it can light up half your brain on the scanners!).  the paradigm
example of this is object perception.  going from the retinal map to
seeing objects is not a higher cognitive function--the process of
perceiving, even in the eye, never mind the brain, is extremely
complex, and not at all a matter of passing an uninterpreted signal
down the line.  at least, so say the tons of literature, and our
resident psychologist, whom i consulted just in case i had missed a
major shift in the field.

   [From Rick Marken (920818.1300)]

   around that  facilitates doing what needs to be done. The way I parse it,
   it sounds like you are saying that the environment (or our perception
   thereof) -- which is the stuff around-- guides (facilitates) behavior
   (what needs to be done).

not really.  remember, i started out denying that there was such a
thing as an ``environment.''  and i also denied that there is a locus
of control anywhere.

as an aside, i don't think behavior is ``what *needs* to be done.''  i
think it's what *is* done.

   This sounds like a verbal version of the sr
   explanation of behavior that you clain interactionism is not. Sayingthat
   we "lean on the world" doesn't help;

we lean on the world, we lean on each other, the world leans on
us--everything is incredibly well-connected and articulated.

 suppose I want to (need to) point
   straight forward? I can't lean on gravity to do that; if I lean on gravity
   I'll generally end up pointing down.

what?  ``leaning on the world'' is a metaphor; that's why it was in
quotes.

   As Mary Powers pointed out, interacting suggests
   that the actor and environment are cooperating to produce what needs
   to get done.

yup.  cooperation doesn't imply intentionality.  (or if it does,
substitute ``work together'' or something.)

   But the enviroment doesn't care whether what needs to get
   done, gets done or not;  the environment is just there, doing its own
   thing

i'm not sure caring is germane, but interactionism doesn't have a
concept of an ``environment'' that is an inert, alien (y'all keep say
it's governed by physics and organisms aren't), thing.  at it also
isn't particularly concerned w/ intentionality--which you seem to be
using to mean something very close to control.

   I think this is an important point.  I think a number of people have a
   problem with this. I take it for granted that perception is just what
   afferent neural firing looks like when you are a brain (which we
   are).

i am *not* a brain.  and though i've never seen you, you certainly
seem to be possessed of all the fingers and toes, as it were.

cheers.

				--penni
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