Talk:Perceptual control theory

message: The Cleanup tag gives as reason "The article is difficult to understand". It would help if the person who applied the tag could identify specific sections that are written in an unclear way. Bear in mind that many articles about fields of science are hard for newcomers. Of course good science writing for the lay public aims to overcome this, but the reader is expected and required to do some work. Readers who are expert in some fields may not realize the extent to which they are newcomers to this.
There could be a section on each area of application. These may become substantial enough to merit being split off into a separate article, as with MOL. For example, there should be a section on PCT and sociology, which should be put in relationship with Control_theory_(sociology), and then the disconnected subsection of references to PCT and sociology could be properly handled. 
The article Control theory (sociology) has some things that seem a bit garbled to me, quite apart from not mentioning PCT. For example, the paragraph that begins "Control Theory, as developed by Walter Reckless in 1973, states that behavior is caused not by outside stimuli, but by what a person wants most at any given time" concludes with the frankly incoherent sentence "So, basically, if you have strong social bonds to positive influences, deviant behavior is less likely than someone who has no family or friends." Look at the talk page at Talk:Control theory (sociology) to see how a series of three editors started to deal with this a couple of years ago—the last of them deleted a plug for 'choice theory' in October 2009, and they agreed that this Walter Reckless's ideas amount to a Hobbsean "human nature is inherently depraved" approach to criminology which is unrelated to negative feedback control theory. 
More needs to be said about the distinction from engineering control theory in the section that has been added for that. A number of articles are related but assert some of the familiar misconceptions about negative feedback control, e.g. lag time. These include Control theory, Feedback controller, and Feedback. Bn (talk) 01:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for improvement 

message: On 4 February 2006, A cleanup tag was inserted (sans required parameters) by Scm83x. </br>
Smackbot added a date in June 2008.  </br>
On 20 May 2012, IP 68.55.112.31 added the reason "The article is difficult to understand." Because the syntax was not correct it did not display. On the same date, the same IP added and then reverted a further reason "Also, the article lacks sufficient information for the reader to evaluate the level of scientific support for the theory." The edit note says:
(Propose content for the mandatory "reason" parameter to the "cleanup" tag. Please feel free to change the "reason".)</br>
Recently, I fixed the syntax so we can see the reason displayed.</br>
Today, I put a note on the talk page for Scm83x stating intention to remove the tag. (The talk page for the IP says it's a work computer that is blocked for editing until April 17, 2012.)</br>
The page has been greatly improved. If there is no objection, I will remove the cleanup tag next week.</br>
Bn (talk) 05:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing cleanup tag 

message: This text need objectivity and context.
# A comparison with other state-of-the-art models on perception
# If this is a "model" as stated in the introduction, make it specific. What are the model's constituents? What are the model parameters? What is it a model of? Which different variants of the model exist? How can the validity of the model be tested?
# Use existing terminology, there has been written a lot about sensorimotor prediction to mention one example. This shows also that you know the alternatives (and why they are not good enough)
To the author: Do not see this too much as a criticism. Other cognitive models seems to have the same lack of rigour, as there are a.) global workspace theory (Baars), b.) society of mind (Minsky). See for examples of a little bit more specific models c.) copycat (Hofstadter), and d.) HTM. Also compare with models on the cognitive architectures wiki page. I would recommend to make use of well established notions such as Bayesian networks, Shannon information, entropy, sensorimotor mutual information, free-energy (Friston), empowerment (Klyubin), information-to-go (Polani), etc.  Andy (talk) 20:00, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch re the vague language about the source of the reference signal. However, you should try to get at least a little exposure to the relevant literature before shouting "crackpot". Bn (talk) 23:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  State-of-the-art 

message: The opening statement of the article states that PCT is non-mathematical. That's at best misleading, but more likely it's just wrong. While you can understand much of the theory without working through the math, it does have a mathematical basis in control theory (see the appendix in Powers' 1973 book) and the computer simulations are built on that math.
Bill Benzon (talk) 18:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-mathematical? 

message: An unsigned IP made this the opening sentence of the History section:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, influenced by the work of Gestalt psychologists, laid the foundations for PCT in his 1942 The Structure of Behavior,The Structure of Behavior, A.L. Fisher (trans.), Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. although he remains mostly unacknowledged. 
This would require citations showing two things:
#That Merleau-Ponty understood negative feedback control as the explanatory principle for behavior.
#That his work in fact influenced the development of PCT.
Seeing no evidence for these prerequisites either in the WP article on him or in the literature of PCT, I have removed this passage. If such citations can be provided, we should find an appropriate place to mention him.
<BR>Bn (talk) 01:09, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maurice Merleau-Ponty 

message: An anonymous IP user inserted an ad tag, with the following edit comment: "This article currently reads as an extended advertisement for a marginal concept that is not accepted by most psychologists." 
This is a claim that PCT is a "fringe" topic relative to "mainstream" psychology. A challenge by WP:Fringe applies only in context of WP:Undue when a "fringe" topic is mentioned within an article about a "mainstream" topic. It does not apply to a standalone article on a topic whose notability is unquestioned. If that user wants to challenge the notability of PCT, he or she should please step forward with appropriate discussion here. A cite tag is appropriate to mark passages that seem controversial if they lack cited support from reliable sources.
I am removing the ad tag, awaiting that further discussion.
Bn (talk) 15:43, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting uninformed tag by anonymous IP 

message: user:Greyfell removed a ref to a review by Scott Alexander [last name omitted] on ground that his blog was not a reliable source. It is considered notable by WP standards, as witness the Slate Star Codex article. The content of that article, and of the RS publications on which it is based, indicate that it is widely regarded as a reliable source. Bn (talk) 23:35, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is not a reliable source, since per our own article, it is a blog. Blogs fail WP:SPS. It may be "widely regarded" by some readers as reliable, but this is not the same as having a reputation for accuracy and fact checking, which is the base-line standard for WP:RS.  It might be usable with clear attribution, but that would generally also require WP:IS coverage indicating why Alexander's personal opinion is encyclopedically significant.  Grayfell (talk) 23:40, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slate Star Codex RS 

message: The section states that "a generative model is built which replicates the data observed for individuals with very high fidelity (0.95 or better)". What is meant with "0.95"? A correlation coefficient? A coefficient of determination? Jwdietrich2 (talk) 10:39, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methodology 

message: I don't usually pay attention to this article, but I just happened to look at the most recent edit by  and one sentence in it raised a red flag for me; it says of PCT:
: 
A similar claim appears in the lead section:
:
And elsewhere in the article:
:
All of this seems to be accurately parroting the narrative in the cited article by PCT proponent Richard Marken, but I doubt the narrative is true, because there is cognitive psychology that does not fit this narrative. Even  notes the diversity of models as a weakness of cognitive psychology, quoting psychologist John Malone as saying: "there are many, many varieties of cognitive psychology and very little agreement about exactly what may be its domain".
I just did a quick Google search for circular systems cognitive psychology, and the top result is a 2015 article in Frontiers in Psychology by David Vernon et al. that includes a survey of some cognitive psychologists who use circular causal models such as the work of Lawrence W. Barsalou et al. on situated cognition and embodied cognition, Mark H. Bickhard et al. on interactivism, and others. To see whether this work is reflected in cognitive psychology textbooks, I checked a random textbook, Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications (9th ed.) by John R. Anderson, and it does have a section on the embodied cognition of Barsalou et al. with a quotation from Esther Thelen that begins: "To say that cognition is  means that it arises from bodily interactions with the world and is continually meshed with them." The section's summary says: "The embodied cognition perspective emphasizes that meaning is represented in the perceptual and motor systems that we use to interact with the world." Furthermore, Wikipedia's article on embodied cognition has a diagram that clearly shows it as part of cognitive psychology (and other fields): :File:The scope of embodied cognition 06.10.2021.png.
It appears to me that the phrases quoted above need to be modified to be more qualified and to indicate exactly which model(s) in cognitive psychology the PCT proponents are against. Otherwise the quoted phrases make false overgeneralizations about current cognitive psychology. In particular, the phrase  seems extremely loaded and non-neutral. (As if PCT wasn't a simplifying theory! Of course it is!) Biogeographist (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are right. Thanks for pointing out this problem and for rephrasing the problematic parts of the article. Jwdietrich2 (talk) 17:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on neutrality issues