Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethology
Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:58:15 EST
From:         Stevan Harnad <harnad@PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject:      Communicating Private States: BBS Call for Commentators
Comments: To: Richard Thorington Am Soc Mammalogists <MNHVZ049@SIVM.BITNET>,
          anthro-l@ubvm.BITNET,
          behavioral ecology group <b-e-group@forager.unl.edu>,
          ethology@finhutc.BITNET, James Ha/Absnet <jcha@u.washington.edu>

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article by D Lubinski
and T Thompson on animal communication of private states. It has been
accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an
international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer
Commentary on important and controversial current research in the
biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS
Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as
a commentator on this article, to suggest other appropriate
commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate,
please send email to:

harnad@clarity.princeton.edu  or harnad@pucc.bitnet        or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542  [tel: 609-921-7771]

To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some
indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your
areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An
electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by anonymous
ftp according to the instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________

 SPECIES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION BASED ON PRIVATE STATES

                David Lubinski
                Department of Psychology
                Iowa State University
                Ames, IA 50011-3180

                Travis Thompson
                John F. Kennedy Center for Research
                 on Education and Human Development
                Vanderbilt University
                Nashville, TN 37203

ABSTRACT: The way people come to report to one another about private
stimulation (e.g., feeling states) arising within their own bodies is
not well understood. Although the Darwinian assumption of phylogenetic
continuity between species has been the basis of animal modeling for
many human biological and behavioral phenomena, few models exist for
human communication based on private stimulation. This target article
describes such an animal model drawing upon concepts and methods from the
study of discriminative stimulus effects of drugs and recent research
on interanimal communication. We discuss how humans acquire the
capacity to identify and report private stimulation. Intra- and
interspecific differences are also discussed, including constitutional
individual differences in neurochemical mechanisms for transducing
interoceptive stimuli, enzymatic and other metabolic differences,
differences in learning ability, and general differences in
discrimination learning histories, along with their relation to
psychiatric and developmental disabilities.

KEYWORDS: private events, communication, verbal behavior, animal
models, emotions, drug states, animal communication, experimental
analysis of behavior, autism, language, symbols

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To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from
princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is
bbs.lubinski). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just
let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you
feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article.
-------------------------------------------------------------
   To retrieve a file by ftp from a Unix/Internet site, type either:
ftp princeton.edu
   or
ftp 128.112.128.1
   When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
   Enter password as per instructions (make sure to include the specified @),
   and then change directories with:
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
   To show the available files, type:
ls
   Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.lubinski
   When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit

   Certain non-Unix/Internet sites have a facility you can use that is
   equivalent to the above. Sometimes the procedure for connecting to
   princeton.edu will be a two step process such as:

ftp
   followed at the prompt by:
open princeton.edu
  or
open 128.112.128.1

   In case of doubt or difficulty, consult your system manager.

----------

   JANET users who do not have an ftp facilty for interactive file
   transfer (this requires a JIPS connection on your local machine -
   consult your system manager if in doubt) can use a similar facility
   available at JANET site UK.AC.NSF.SUN (numeric equivalent
   000040010180), logging in using 'guestftp' as both login and
   password. The online help information gives details of the transfer
   procedure which is similar to the above. The file received on the
   NSF.SUN machine needs to be transferred to your home machine to read
   it, which can be done either using a 'push' command on the NSF.SUN
   machine, or (usually faster) by initiating the file transfer from
   your home machine. In the latter case the file on the NSF.SUN machine
   must be referred to as directory-name/filename (the directory name to
   use being that provided by you when you logged on to UK.AC.NSF.SUN).
   To be sociable (since NSF.SUN is short of disc space), once you have
   received the file on your own machine you should delete the file from
   the UK.AC.NSF.SUN machine.

   This facility is very often overloaded, and an off-line relay
   facility at site UK.AC.FT-RELAY (which is simpler to use in any
   case) can be used as an alternative. The process is almost identical
   to file transfer within JANET, and the general method is illustrated
   in the following example. With some machines, filenames and the
   username need to be placed within quotes to prevent unacceptable
   transposion to upper case (as may apply also to the transfer from
   NSF.SUN described above).

transfer
Send or Fetch: f
From Remote Filename: princeton.edu:/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.lubinski
To Local Filename: bbs.lubinski
Remote Sitename: uk.ac.ft-relay
Remote Username: anonymous
Remote Password: [enter your full email address including userid for
                  this, or it won't be accepted]
Queue this request? y


   Or if you wish you can get a listing of the available files, by giving
   the remote filename as:

princeton.edu:(D)/pub/harnad/BBS

   Because of traffic delays through the FT-RELAY, still another method
   can sometimes be recommended, which is to use the Princeton bitftp
   fileserver described below. Typically, one sends a mail message of
   the form:

FTP princeton.edu UUENCODE
USER anonymous
LS /pub/harnad/BBS
GET /pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.lubinski
QUIT

   (the line beginning LS is required only if you need a listing of
   available files) to email address BITFTP@EARN.PUCC or to
   BITFTP@EDU.PRINCETON, and receives the requested file in the form of
   one or more email messages.

   [Thanks to Brian Josephson (BDJ10@UK.AC.CAM.PHX) for the above
   detailed UK/JANET instructions; similar special instructions for file
   retrieval from other networks or countries would be appreciated and
   will be included in updates of these instructions.]

---

Where the above procedures are not available (e.g. from Bitnet or other
networks), there are two fileservers:
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
       and
bitftp@pucc.bitnet
that will do the transfer for you. To one or the
other of them, send the following one line message:

help

for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in
the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or
bitftp will then execute for you).

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Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU