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Date:         Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:17:38 EST
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject: Re: Science of groups, Limits of patience

[Martin Taylor 930107 14:00]
(Rick Marken 920107.0900)

Who was it said "It ain't so much what you don't know as what you
know that ain't so"...

>Of course, when my patience returns I might be willing to DISCUSS the
>problems of SR and output generation models of behavior -- but, I will
>do it knowing full well that it will be of absolutely no use.

I think it is always of some use.  Every return to the theme clarifies
matters on minds with both presuppositions.  Weren't you of the other
persuasion once yourself?  Some of the discussions might just hit the
right button for some people.

I'm working on the "information theory leads to PCT" paper.  Since I have
to go right back to the basics of what "probability" means, and thence
to statistics in the real world, it becomes clearer that although PCT
hangs everything together in (so far as I can see) the only realistic way,
nevertheless there are useful findings to be obtained from both S-R and
preplanning studies.  The problem with each is that the findings are often
hard to use in real life situations, outside the tight laboratory controls.

As to whether the results from one person are useful in dealing with another,
that depends entirely on what it is that is being measured.  I have 30-year
old group (as you would say) data on the timing of reversing figures which
are every bit as tight as any PCT prediction of tracking.  I used it to
argue that instructions can bias what people perceive as opposed to what
they say they perceive (Canadian J. Psychol, 1963, 17, 210-223, esp fig 4).
The worst deviation of any point from the prediction line is about 7%, and
most are so much closer that I can't determine the error of prediction.  And
the results from the two groups are closer to each other than they are to
the prediction line, so there was something wrong with the prediction, even
if the error was very small.

Although it does not involve group data, you (Rick) might also be interested
in a follow-up study on perception of a reversing figure by individual subjects,
in which we found that one subject seemed to devote 26 "elementary perceiving
units" to the perception of the figure, while the other devoted sometimes 32
and sometimes 33 units.  The data fits were perhaps not formally statistical,
and the subjects were treated individually, but this is a pure S-R study
that I think says something important about the perceiving system of the
subjects.  Now I think it says something about the distribution of perceptual
control among non-orthogonal ECSs.

In the past, metaphors like gold nuggets among the garbage have been used
on CSG-L.  The metaphor is reasonable, but the question is whether the
nugget-to-garbage ratio is low enough to allow a real psychologist (PCT
oriented) to discard without consideration what fantasy psychologists
(non-PCT oriented) have done.  I think there is a lot of good stuff that
can be used.  Bill and Rick and others think not.  We shall have to see,
but it will take a lot to convince me that the N/G ratio is zero.

Martin