toward a selectionist ontology in behavior analysis ailun – lecture 3 s. glenn - ailun 2008

Toward a Selectionist Ontology in Behavior Analysis

Ailun – Lecture 3

S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Part I: Ontology

• All scientific domains deal with ontological questions regarding “what exists”

• “There are only two bona fide ontological categories: individuals and classes”1

• Ontological status of theoretical entities is theory dependent2

• Ontological issues herein derive from a selectionist theoretical approach


Ordinary Language ClassificationClasses and Subclasses

Individuals (and their Parts)

Astronomical bodies Stars Planets

Sun, Earth Sun (core) Earth (Himalayas)

Hurricanes Category 3 Category 4

Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Bart Rita (eye of Hurricane Rita) Bart (the eye wall of Hurricane Bart)

Lever pressing operants Human lever pressing Rat lever pressing

Tom’s pressing, Rat 101’s pressing Tom’s lever pressing (Press #1) R 101’s lever pressing (Press #2000)

Corporations For-profit corporation Not-for-profit corporation

Fiat, Assoc for Behavior Analysis (ABA) Fiat, Inc (Lingotto factory) ABA (Exec Council)


Characteristics of Individuals1,2

• Spatiotemporally restricted (e.g. Earth)– Have duration (extend in time)– Have beginning and end – Are located in space– Can be given a proper name

• Can have parts (e.g. Himalayas)• Can be parts of a larger whole (Our solar

system)• Can change over time (e.g. newborn becomes

adult) • Can relate as a unitary object/event to other

objects/events (Earth revolves around Sun)S. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Characteristics of Classes1,2

• Defined intensionally by their common properties

• Don’t have parts, have members (which are individuals)

• Members belong to a class because they have the characteristics of the class

• Spatiotemporally unrestricted (the class isn’t located at any particular segment of space/time)

• A class doesn’t change, develop or evolve

• Not limited to finite number of membersS. Glenn - AILUN 2008

Individuals and Classes in Science3

• Individuals are what scientists observe, measure and classify, and what are “acted upon by natural processes” (p. 147)

• A goal of all sciences is “to discover ways to divide up the world into classes that function in natural regularities” (p. 147) Such classes are called “natural kinds”

• The ‘natural regularities’ are repeated observed relations among individuals constituting a ‘natural kind’

• The repeated relations (natural regularities) are described by scientific generalizations (principles) that specify the processes accounting for change in the individuals

• The terms in the principles are class terms; they do not refer to individuals • The principles “explain” the observed changes in individuals by appealing to

the regularities specified in the scientific generalizations• The classes specified in principles are, over time, organized in a framework

that allows prediction and control of the observed natural or social phemonena


Part II: Individuals & Classes in Operant and Organic Selectionist

Theory

Genes Organisms Species


H. Sapiens C. livia

S 301

301’sGene #22

B. F. Skinner

Fred’sGene #55

Indi

vidu

als

Cla

sses

Units of Selection at Two Levels

Responses : Operants ::

Organisms : Species6

All the above terms specify both individuals and classes• Individuals

– Specific responses (Tom’s 1st lever press) are parts of specific operants (Tom’s lever pressing)

– Specific organisms (Tom) are parts of specific species (H.Sapiens)• Classes

– Tom’s lever presses are members of the class “responses” just as Tom is a member of the class “organisms”

– Tom’s lever pressing operant is a member of a class called “operants” just as Tom is a member of classes called “organisms”

• The principles of selectionist theories specify relations among the classes– Evolutionary theory is about organisms, genes, and species, not

about Tom, gene # 40 or H. sapiens– Operant theory is about responses, operants (and perhaps at

some time, firing patters in NS). Not about Tom’s 1st leverpress, or his history of leverpressing


Operants as Ontological Individuals5 • Consider each behavioral event (localized with respect to

organism, time, place) as an individual having specifiable properties (form, IRT, duration, force, effect)

• Some behavioral events are reliably followed by specific changes in the environment (they are part of a response/consequence contingency)

• If a contingency between behavioral events and specific consequences results in an increase in the frequency of behavioral events having those properties, a lineage of ‘ancestor/descendant’ behavioral events forms

• This lineage is an individual – its properties (rate, variability, average IRT, topography) can change over time

• The individual responses are parts of that particular individual operant lineage

• Origin of the lineage, its properties, and the properties of its parts (behavioral events) are caused by (a function of) the contingency (recurring response/consequence relations) that has operated in the past


Operant as a“Natural Kind”5 A class term in a generalized principle of behavioral selection• The process of behavioral selection accounts for origin and

maintenance of operant lineages and the characteristics of their parts (responses)

• Each operant lineage is an individual that changes over time as the properties of its parts are differentially selected by their relation to their external environment

• The class of lineages that are formed and altered in this way is a class of “operants”.

• This class (“operants”) plays a fundamental role in a theory of behavior change (learning).

• The category of behavioral events that exist as parts of lineages formed by contingencies of reinforcement is the category of “operant behavior”.


Confusion in Operant Ontology

• Operant: “A functional category of behavior”– Does this mean that the category or the

behavior is functional? – If the behavior is what is functional, then this

means “operant” is a category of behavior defined in terms of function (alters environment, produces consequences)

– If the category is what is functional, then this means “operant” is a category of behavior that functions in a specific way in scientific principles

• Could mean either or both, but important to recognize the difference


Confusion in Operant Ontology

• An operant: “A class of acts all of which have the same environmental effect”, e.g., in lab, “all acts that have the effect of depressing the lever”)6 – If “all acts” having the “same effect” are limited to those of

a specific organism, – then “operant” suggests a spatio-temporal locus so this

lever pressing is an individual, not a class.– Another possible meaning: all acts of any organism that

have the effect of depressing a lever (spatiotemporlly unrestricted)

– Then a genuine class—but not likely to function in any scientific laws

• Leverpresses of a rat for food and lever presses of the same rat for water would belong to different operants

• Responses having the same effect (switch closure) but different consequences are different operants


Confusion in Operant OntologyCatania • Operant: “A class of responses”

– “the class is defined in terms of [specific] environmental effect” = descriptive definition

– “a class modifiable by the consequences of responses in it [the class] = functional usage

– Note: By the second definition, the class must be modifiable (able to change over time)

• Classes don’t change over time• What actually is modified?

– Note: The “function” in the first definition is the function of the responses in the class

– The “function” in the second definition is the function of the consequences for the class


A Clearer Ontology8

Donahoe and Palmer• “Operants: responses that are less reliably evoked by

stimuli than respondents, or for which the stimulus is not well specified” (p. 360)

• Similar to Skinner’s “uncommitted” behavior (movement)

• Perhaps not easily identified as “responses”• “ ’Operant’ signifies that the response operates on the

environment to produce the eliciting stimulus [consequence], and that the stimulus guiding the response may not be well specified” (p. 38)

• Note: Both these definitions seem to pertain to the operant category and avoid using class terminology in defining spatiotemporally localized phenomena


Summary: Ontology in Behavior Analysis• Operant as individual (e.g. Tom’s leverpresses)

– An individual localized with respect to Tom’s lifetime (“seen” as a whole in the curves of a cumulative record)

– Made up of more localized individuals: individual presses (responses) are parts of the whole (seen in each up-tick of the record)

– The whole operant evolves as the characteristics of its parts change as a result of selection processes occurring at the behavioral level

• Operant as a natural kind (a class having function in natural regularities described by scientific principles)– Class members: Tom’s individual leverpressing operant and all other individual

operants of all organisms, living or dead or yet to be– Behavior analysis principles describe relations between the class called “operants” and

other classes (e.g. reinforcers, discriminative stimuli, motivating operations, conditional stimuli, etc.)

– The principles can be used to understand, predict and change the course of individual operants


References1 Ghiselin, M. T. (1999). Metaphysics and the Origin of Species. Albany: State

University of New York Press (p.37)2 Hull, D. L. (1977). The ontological status of species as evolutionary units. In R. Butts

& J. Hintikka (Eds). Foundational Problems in Special Sciences (pp. 91-102). Dordrecht-Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co. Reprinted in D. L. Hull (1989), The Metaphysics of Evolution (pp.70-88). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

3 Hull, D. L. (1981). Units of evolution: A metaphysical essay. In U. L. Jensen & R. Harre (Eds). The Philosophy of Evolution. Brighton: Harvester Press. Rerpinted in R.N. Brandon & R. M. Burian (1984). Genes, Organisms, Populations: Controversies over the units of Selection (pp. 142-160. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

4 Skinner (1953). Science and Human Behavior, New York: Free Press5 Glenn, S. S., Ellis, J., & Greenspoon, J. (1992). On the revolutionary nature of the

operant as a unit of behavioral selection. American Psychologist, 47, 1329-1336.6 Baum, W. M. Understanding Behaviorism: Science, Behavior, and Culture. Ner York:

HarperCollins College Publishers. (Quotation p. 75) 7 Catania, A. C. (2007). Learning (4th Edition). Cornwall-on-Hudson: Sloan Publishing.

(Quotations from Glossary) 8 Donahoe, J. W. & Palmer, D.C. (1994). Learning and Complex Behavior. Boston:

Allyn and Bacon.


toward a selectionist ontology in behavior analysis ailun – lecture 3 s. glenn - ailun 2008

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