International Journal of Psychology, 2016 Vol. 51, No. 1, 58–63, DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12182
Functional relations and cognitive psychology: Lessons from human performance and animal research Robert W. Proctor and Peter J. Urcuioli Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
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e consider requirements for effective interdisciplinary communication and explore alternative interpretations of “building bridges between functional and cognitive psychology.” If the bridges are intended to connect radical behaviourism and cognitive psychology, or functional contextualism and cognitive psychology, the efforts are unlikely to be successful. But if the bridges are intended to connect functional relationships and cognitive theory, no construction is needed because the bridges already exist within cognitive psychology. We use human performance and animal research to illustrate the latter point and to counter the claim that the functional approach is unique in offering a close relationship between science and practice. Effective communication will be enhanced and, indeed, may only occur if the goal of functional contextualism extends beyond just “the advancement of functional contextual cognitive and behavioral science and practice” to “the advancement of cognitive and behavioral science and practice” without restriction. Keywords: Behaviour analysis; Contextual behavioural science; Functional contextualism; Human performance; Radical behaviourism.
This special issue has the admirable goal of increasing communication between two approaches to research that have typically been seen as at odds with each other, those of cognitive psychology and functional psychology (behaviour analysis). The two of us have had lengthy careers as research psychologists, RWP within the cognitive psychology tradition and PJU within the functional psychology tradition. We also have worked with a range of authors on intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary projects. Based on our experiences and understanding of the issues defining and separating the two approaches, the present article offers our perspectives and insights as to how effective communication can proceed between researchers with dissimilar empirical and theoretical/philosophical backgrounds and, more specifically, how constructive communication between cognitive and functional psychology is possible. Our specific research backgrounds are quite disparate, with RWP’s being mainly in the area of cognitive psychology known as human performance and PJU’s being mainly in the areas of animal learning and cognition and behaviour analysis. Nevertheless, we have empirical and theoretical interests in common and have worked together
on research of mutual interest (Urcuioli, Vu, & Proctor, 2005; Vu, Proctor, & Urcuioli, 2003). The fundamental basis for our fruitful collaboration and communication is that we are both trained, and view ourselves first and foremost, as experimental psychologists, meaning that we put a premium on data obtained from well-controlled experiments typically designed to test specific, and often theoretically derived, hypotheses. Although we speak somewhat different languages that reflect our particular specialties and research niches, we have a mutual appreciation of construct clarity, hypothesis testing and science’s data-driven approach to answering questions and discovering key variables and, with them, the processes and mechanisms of behaviour. We think it helpful to differentiate between two different senses of the distinction between “functional” and “cognitive” approaches in psychology. One sense is the empirical identification of the important functional relations between variables versus cognitive (representational) theoretical accounts of those relations (see, e.g. Dux & Marois, 2009; Hall, 1996; Wright, 2013; Zentall, Wasserman, & Urcuioli, 2014). Another sense is that of radical behaviourism, and more specifically, contextual
Correspondence should be addressed to Robert W. Proctor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907–2004, USA. (E-mail [email protected]). The content is based on discussions among both authors. Robert W. Proctor was lead author in writing, with Peter Urcuioli adding material and revisions.
© 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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behavioural science, as opposed to cognitive psychology. We discuss each of these, in turn, agreeing that the former provides a basis for advancement of psychological knowledge but expressing doubts as to whether the latter does as well.
FUNCTIONAL RELATIONS AND COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS In his article, “Why the Cognitive Approach in Psychology would Profit from a Functional Approach and Vice Versa,” De Houwer (2011)appears to adopt the first sense of the functional versus cognitive distinction. In that article, he describes functional and cognitive as two different levels, stating, Whereas the description of behavioral effects can provide an explanation of behavior in terms of elements in the environment, the description of mental constructs can provide an explanation of behavioral effects in terms of mental constructs. The functional and cognitive approaches thus focus on two separate levels of explanation … (p. 205)
De Houwer views cognitive explanations as being built from empirically established functional relations but also as a way to guide or enhance the search for new functional relations through “organizing existing functional knowledge (i.e., their heuristic value) and generating new functional knowledge (i.e., their predictive value)” (p. 206; see also Zentall, 2013). De Houwer (2011) concludes his article by enumerating the following recommendations for psychological research (pp. 207–208): Behavioral effects and mental constructs need to be separated conceptually. Behavioral effects should be defined in terms of the causal impact of specific elements in the (present or past) environment on specific aspects of behavior. Behavioral effects should not be treated as proxies of mental constructs. All empirical findings should first be described, as much as possible, in terms of behavioral effects. Research should be directed both at developing mental explanations of behavioral effects (i.e. what are the mental processes and representations that mediate these effects) and at improving functional explanations of behavior.
We see little with which to disagree regarding these specific recommendations or, more generally, the functional-cognitive approach advocated by De Houwer (2011). Certainly, one wants to keep behavioural effects and mental constructs separated, and caution should be exercised in treating behavioural effects as proxies of mental constructs. And we strongly agree © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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that research should be directed towards establishing functional relations and testing cognitive explanations. However, we believe that from the earliest days of our field to the present, most cognitive psychologists trained in the experimental psychology tradition have engaged in varying degrees in both functional and cognitive levels of analysis. For example, in his research on selection and control of action, RWP focuses more heavily on the functional relations and general principles, and is relatively conservative in his cognitive theorising (e.g. Proctor & Cho, 2006; Reeve & Proctor, 1990), whereas Bernhard Hommel places more emphasis on the theoretical side (e.g. Hommel, 2009; Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001). But these differences in relative emphasis and individual preference should not overshadow that, for both, the interplay between data and theory remains at the heart of experimental cognitive psychology. The work of Paul Fitts, a pioneer in applying information-processing analyses to basic and applied human performance, nicely illustrates our point that functional relations have long been a primary focus—indeed, an indispensable foundation of cognitive psychology. In his chapter on engineering psychology (applied experimental psychology) in the fifth volume of Sigmund Koch’s monumental work, Psychology: A Study of a Science, Fitts (1963) said, “The area covered by engineering psychology is best specified by the dependent variables that the field attempts to predict or to optimize and by the independent variables that it attempts to manipulate” (p. 910). Note that this definition is entirely in terms of functional relationships, although Fitts is a significant figure in cognitive psychology. Fitts’s groundbreaking research on stimulus–response compatibility effects (Fitts & Deininger, 1954; Fitts & Seeger, 1953) established key functional relations that continue to drive much research at functional and cognitive levels on action selection (see Proctor & Vu, 2006, for a review). Fitts is even better known for establishing Fitts’s law (Fitts, 1954), the relation between required accuracy of aimed movements and the time to execute them, which has inspired considerable functional and cognitive research (e.g. Blinch, Cameron, Hodges, & Chua, 2012). Although one might argue that Fitts is unique in the extent and quality of his contributions to the interplay between functional relations and cognitive psychology, he is most certainly not unique in this approach. A recent article on Nobel laureate Herbert Simon’s “legacy in how to investigate decision making” includes as one of three parts “only in conjunction with the collection of empirical data should formal computational models of decision-making processes be developed, and their predictions should be compared with human behavior” (Campitelli & Gobet, 2010, p. 355). In attention and performance research, a long list of individuals have made both theoretical and empirical contributions, including Donald Broadbent, Charles Eriksen, Michael Posner and
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Ann Treisman, among others (see Johnson & Proctor, 2004, for a review). RADICAL BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Although De Houwer (2011) emphasised mainly functional relations and cognitive psychology, the programme for the “Building Bridges between Functional and Cognitive Psychology” conference, from which the special issue of this journal emerged, stated: “To be clear, with ‘functional psychology’, we mean the Skinnerian approach to psychology (often also referred as ‘radical behaviorism’) and some post-Skinnerian approaches (in particular an approach known as ‘Contextual Behavioral Science’).” As we have just pointed out, we do not find it objectionable and, indeed, see benefits to, linking functional relations to cognitive explanations. However, we do see problems with attempting to bridge the divide between radical behaviourism and cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology represents a worldview, often called mechanism (Pepper, 1942), which seeks to establish explanations of behaviour through underlying mental representations and processes. Radical behaviourism, in contrast, is a variant of pragmatism that seeks to establish explanations solely in terms of functional relations (see, e.g., Sidman, 1997). Although some have argued that radical behaviourism is also mechanistic, Moxley (2013) makes the point that although Skinner’s early views were mechanistic, his later views, associated with radical behaviourism, were by his own admission pragmatic. Pragmatism is incorporated within the worldview that Pepper (1942) called contextualism, and the contextual behavioural science approach explicitly endorses this view of what is sometimes called “functional contextualism” (see Capaldi & Proctor, 1999, for a critical evaluation of varieties of contextualism in psychology). In advocating this approach, Vilardaga et al. (2009, p. 109) emphasise, “Functional contextualism can be viewed as a particular construal of the essence of radical behaviorism; indeed, that purpose is obvious in its first explication … ” Pepper (1942) was adamant in stating that the fundamental assumptions of the worldviews of mechanism and contextualism are so different that there is little to be gained from combining categories across them, concluding, “A combination of mechanism and contextualism reveals all the evils of eclecticism.” (p. 148). A recent example that appears to reveal these evils is the incorporation of the concept of “affordance” from Gibson’s (1979) ecological/contextualistic psychology, which emphasises direct perception, into cognitive, representational models (e.g., Caligiore, Borghi, Parisi, & Baldassarre, 2010). From the cognitive perspective, Proctor and Miles (2014) have argued that the affordance concept introduces considerable confusion into
the analyses of compatibility effects within the cognitive framework. From the ecological/Gibsonian perspective, Chemero and Turvey (2007) have made a similar argument: Gibsonian affordances are not compatible with the idea that cognition is computation. Computation requires representations, and Gibsonians understand affordances as perceived directly (i.e., non-representationally).... making affordances into representations distorts the concept so that it is barely recognizable, most importantly by making affordances incompatible with direct perception, the other main pillar of Gibsonian ecological psychology. (p. 479)
In this regard, we agree with the following statement by Hughes, Barnes-Homes, and Vahey (2012, p. 34) in their article advocating functional contextualism: Our second goal was to illuminate the subtle and seductive dangers of conflating the cognitive (mechanistic) and functional (contextual) approaches to psychological science … Unlike clothing items, candy or food combinations, “mixing and matching” these frameworks should be avoided at all costs given their different viewpoints on the goals of science, explanatory concepts and how evidence should be treated.
That said, we see the functional contextualistic and cognitive representational worldviews as competing for scientific adequacy. If prediction and control of behaviour are the goals of each, the behavioural explanations offered by each should be evaluated on the basis of which provides the more comprehensive and/or more parsimonious account. Ideally, this competition should lead to scientific progress in both research camps. This assumes, of course, that there is some agreement about the criteria that should be used to judge the relative merits of each approach. Without a common basis for judgement, the two approaches will simply operate in parallel—that is, there will be no building of bridges. We are somewhat apprehensive in this regard given that according to the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science web site (http://contextualscience. org/acbs, 5 May 2015), the Association is “dedicated to the advancement of functional contextual cognitive and behavioral science and practice so as to alleviate human suffering and advance human well being.” Dedication to advancing a particular, radical behaviourist approach is understandable for those adhering to it, but broader communication—whether to radical behaviourism, cognitive psychology or clinical psychology—requires that those espousing the merits of this approach focus on data and provide explicit criteria to judge whether or not a contextual behavioural account provides equal or better insight than a cognitive account does. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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COMMUNICATION AND AWARENESS OF RELATED LITERATURES Given the torrent of research on so many topics in psychology, an individual researcher cannot possibly keep abreast of all of the relevant work that might bear on their interests. One of PJU’s graduate faculty mentors in the 1970s had a note attached to his picture in the lab saying: “I am so small, but the literature is so vast.” Fast forward 40+ years, and this situation has gotten exponentially worse. Nevertheless, a sincere effort should be made to have as broad knowledge of psychology as possible and to closely study another literature if its relevance to one’s current work becomes apparent. The following is one example of the beneficial effects of awareness of related literatures and of communication with researchers investigating ostensibly different topics. One of us (PJU) spent many years collaborating with a colleague, Thomas Zentall, on animal working memory. We were primarily interested in what pigeons remember during the retention interval of delayed matching-to-sample—specifically, how the working memory “code” might be influenced by task structure and task contingencies (e.g. Urcuioli & Zentall, 1986, 1992). In the course of this research, an interesting and unexpected pattern of memory performances occurred suggesting that dissimilar sample stimuli were coded in a similar fashion. We then obtained independent evidence for “common coding” (Urcuioli, Zentall, Jackson-Smith, & Steirn, 1989, Experiment 2) using a test which showed that different sample stimuli occasioning the same reinforced comparison choice were interchangeable with one another in new situations. At the time, we were unaware that our findings dovetailed with a large literature on acquired and stimulus equivalence, mediated associations and stimulus class formation (e.g., Hull, 1939; Jenkins, 1963; Spradlin & Saunders, 1986). A happenstance discovery of a study by Spradlin, Cotter, and Baxley (1973) describing the same transfer effects in developmentally disabled children had an energising effect and a positive scholarly impact on PJU’s subsequent research, which shifted to studying equivalence effects in pigeons. New avenues and lines of communication opened as researchers in human behaviour analysis became aware of this work and vice versa. In addition, researchers interested in animal comparative cognition (e.g. Wasserman & Zentall, 2006) began to hear about the literature on human equivalence. Effective communication has required flexibility and “translation” when describing research originating from different viewpoints, but the benefits have been palpable. The functional approach to this line of work has revealed significant and interesting relations that have informed what might be called “cognitive” theorising. In turn, this theorising has generated a substantial amount of experimental data showing a variety of novel behavioural © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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phenomena (e.g. Urcuioli, 2008). The interplay has been rewarding and productive.
CONCLUSION As we noted earlier, there are two senses in which “functional” can be taken, functional relations between variables and radical behaviourism (or, contextual behavioural science). We see much opportunity to benefit directly via bridges between researchers who take a functional approach of the first type and those who take a more cognitive, theoretical approach. These approaches are necessarily intertwined, though, as the theoretical analyses for particular functional relations guide in the search for other, informative functional relations. This has been, and will continue to be, highly beneficial to the extent that a functional-cognitive approach emphasises keeping the functional level (data) conceptually distinct from the cognitive level (theory). Communication and competition between contextual behavioural science (the second type of functional approach) and cognitive psychology could also be beneficial to the extent that they can be compared (using agreed-upon criteria) in their explanatory and predictive powers. This is a tall order, however, because we see the functional contextualistic approach as a different worldview than the cognitive (representational) approach, rather than just a different level of explanation. Consequently, trying to combine and even compare the two may be a fool’s errand. If we are wrong in this rather blunt assessment, then it is crucial for radical behaviourists and cognitive psychologists to listen to and to communicate effectively with one another, tasks that require considerable scholarly effort. Certainly, there is hopeful talk along these lines as reflected in a response by Hughes and Barnes-Holmes (2014) to a recent article co-authored by PJU on associative processes in concept learning (Zentall et al., 2014): We look forward to increased collaboration and communication between animal learning and RFT [relational frame theory] researchers as we continue to explore the commonalities that bind, and the difference that separate, human from other species in the animal kingdom. (p. 159)
The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. Contemporary cognitive psychology has thrived at many things that radical behaviourism has not, as Hughes et al. (2012, p. 18) acknowledge: “Arguably, the majority of empirical work within contemporary psychology … has been conducted by researchers operating within a mechanistic world-view.” Consequently, we think that radical/contextual behaviourists have more to gain, at least initially, by communicating with cognitive psychologists and by appreciating and becoming conversant in cognitively inspired research relevant to their interests.
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Effective communication must avoid inaccurate or stereotyped depictions of cognitive psychology (or psychological science, more generally) and positions that advocate only one approach as having the potential to unite basic and applied research. In short, the primary goal of functional contextualism cannot be just to advance itself but, rather, but to advance psychology. Besides, significant progress and success in the broader endeavour is the best way to advance a particular approach. Although the compartmentalization of research outlets has been a natural outgrowth of the expansion of research interests in psychological sciences, functional contextualists would do well to publish not only in journals targeted towards behaviour analysts but also in journals read by a wider range of psychologists, especially when the research described in a paper comes into direct contact with well-known topics and well-established effects originating in other areas of psychology To summarise, bridges between functional and cognitive psychology can serve to allow communication and engender better research if the common goal is to promote understanding of cognition and behaviour through scientific research. Such bridges will not function effectively, though, if the highest level goal of functionalists is to promote contextual behavioural science. Manuscript received January 2015 Revised manuscript accepted May 2015 First published online June 2015
REFERENCES Blinch, J., Cameron, B. D., Hodges, N. J., & Chua, R. (2012). Do preparation or control processes result in the modulation to Fitts’ law for movements to targets with placeholders? Experimental Brain Research, 223, 505–515. Caligiore, D., Borghi, A. M., Parisi, D., & Baldassarre, G. (2010). TRoPICALS: A computational embodied neuroscience model of compatibility effects. Psychological Review, 117, 1188–1228. Campitelli, G., & Gobet, F. (2010). Herbert Simon’s decisionmaking approach: Investigation of cognitive processes in experts. Review of General Psychology, 14, 354–364. Capaldi, E. J., & Proctor, R. W. (1999). Contextualism in psychological research? A critical review. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chemero, A., & Turvey, M. T. (2007). Gibsonian affordances for roboticists. Adaptive Behavior, 15, 473–480. De Houwer, J. (2011). Why the cognitive approach in psychology would profit from a functional approach and vice versa. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 202–209. Dux, P. E., & Marois, R. (2009). The attentional blink: A review of data and theory. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 1683–1700. Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47, 381–391.
Fitts, P. M. (1963). Engineering psychology. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science. The process areas, the person, and some applied fields: Their place in psychology and science (Vol. 5, pp. 908–933). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Fitts, P. M., & Deininger, R. L. (1954). S-R compatibility: Correspondence among paired elements within stimulus and response codes. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 48, 483–492. Fitts, P. M., & Seeger, C. M. (1953). S-R compatibility: Spatial characteristics of stimulus and response codes. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 46, 199–210. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin. Hall, G. (1996). Learning about associatively activated stimulus representations: Implications for acquired equivalence and perceptual learning. Animal Learning & Behavior, 24, 233–255. Hommel, B. (2009). Action control according to TEC (theory of event coding). Psychological Research, 73, 512–526. Hommel, B., Müsseler, J., Aschersleben, G., & Prinz, W. (2001). The theory of event coding (TEC): A framework for perception and action planning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 849–937. Hughes, S., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2014). Associative concept learning, stimulus equivalence, and relational frame theory: Working out the similarities and differences between human and nonhuman behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 101, 156–160. Hughes, S., Barnes-Homes, D., & Vahey, N. (2012). Holding on to our functional roots when exploring new intellectual islands: A voyage through implicit cognition research. The Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 1, 17–38. Hull, C. L. (1939). The problem of stimulus equivalence in behavior theory. Psychological Review, 46, 9–30. Jenkins, J. J. (1963). Mediated associations: Paradigms and situations. In C. N. Cofer & B. S. Musgrave (Eds.), Verbal behavior and learning: Problems and processes (pp. 210–245). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Johnson, A., & Proctor, R. W. (2004). Attention: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Moxley, R. A. (2013). Pragmatic selectionism: The philosophy of behavior analysis. The Behavior Analyst Today, 4, 289–305. Pepper, S. C. (1942). World hypotheses. Berkeley: University of California Press. Proctor, R. W., & Cho, Y. S. (2006). Polarity correspondence: A general principle for performance of speeded binary classification tasks. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 416–442. Proctor, R. W., & Miles, J. D. (2014). Does the concept of affordance add anything to explanations of stimulus–response compatibility effects?. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 60, pp. 227–266). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Proctor, R. W., & Vu, K.-P. L. (2006). Stimulus–response compatibility principles: Data, theory, and application. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Reeve, T. G., & Proctor, R. W. (1990). The salient features coding principle for spatial- and symbolic-compatibility effects. In R. W. Proctor & T. G. Reeve (Eds.), Stimulus–response compatibility: An integrated perspective (pp. 163–180). Amsterdam: North-Holland. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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Sidman, M. (1997). Equivalence: A theoretical or a descriptive model? Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 23, 125–145. Spradlin, J. E., Cotter, V. W., & Baxley, N. (1973). Establishing a conditional discrimination without direct training: A study of transfer with retarded adolescents. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 77, 556–566. Spradlin, J. E., & Saunders, R. R. (1986). The development of stimulus classes using match-to-sample procedures: Sample classification vs. comparison classification. Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities, 6, 41–58. Urcuioli, P. J. (2008). Associative symmetry, “anti-symmetry,” and a theory of pigeons’ equivalence-class formation. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 90, 257–282. Urcuioli, P. J., Vu, K.-P. L., & Proctor, R. W. (2005). A Simon effect in pigeons. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 93–107. Urcuioli, P. J., & Zentall, T. R. (1986). Retrospective coding in pigeons’ delayed matching-to-sample. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 12, 69–77. Urcuioli, P. J., & Zentall, T. R. (1992). Transfer across delayed discriminations: Evidence regarding the nature of prospective working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 18, 154–173.
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Urcuioli, P. J., Zentall, T. R., Jackson-Smith, P., & Steirn, J. N. (1989). Evidence for common coding in many-to-one matching: Retention, intertrial interference, and transfer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 15, 264–273. Vilardaga, R., Hayes, S. C., Levin, M. E., & Muto, T. (2009). Creating a strategy for progress: A contextual behavioral science approach. The Behavior Analyst, 32, 105–133. Vu, K.-P. L., Proctor, R. W., & Urcuioli, P. (2003). Transfer effects of incompatible location-relevant mappings on subsequent visual or auditory Simon tasks. Memory & Cognition, 31, 1146–1152. Wasserman, E. A., & Zentall, T. R. (2006). Comparative cognition: Experimental explorations of animal intelligence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wright, A. A. (2013). Functional relationships for investigating cognitive processes. Behavioural Processes, 93, 4–24. Zentall, T. R. (2013). Comparative cognition: An approach whose time has come. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 100, 257–268. Zentall, T. R., Wasserman, E. A., & Urcuioli, P. J. (2014). Associative concept learning in animals. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 101, 130–151.
Functional relations and cognitive psychology: Lessons from human performance and animal research Robert W. Proctor and Peter J. Urcuioli Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
W
e consider requirements for effective interdisciplinary communication and explore alternative interpretations of “building bridges between functional and cognitive psychology.” If the bridges are intended to connect radical behaviourism and cognitive psychology, or functional contextualism and cognitive psychology, the efforts are unlikely to be successful. But if the bridges are intended to connect functional relationships and cognitive theory, no construction is needed because the bridges already exist within cognitive psychology. We use human performance and animal research to illustrate the latter point and to counter the claim that the functional approach is unique in offering a close relationship between science and practice. Effective communication will be enhanced and, indeed, may only occur if the goal of functional contextualism extends beyond just “the advancement of functional contextual cognitive and behavioral science and practice” to “the advancement of cognitive and behavioral science and practice” without restriction. Keywords: Behaviour analysis; Contextual behavioural science; Functional contextualism; Human performance; Radical behaviourism.
This special issue has the admirable goal of increasing communication between two approaches to research that have typically been seen as at odds with each other, those of cognitive psychology and functional psychology (behaviour analysis). The two of us have had lengthy careers as research psychologists, RWP within the cognitive psychology tradition and PJU within the functional psychology tradition. We also have worked with a range of authors on intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary projects. Based on our experiences and understanding of the issues defining and separating the two approaches, the present article offers our perspectives and insights as to how effective communication can proceed between researchers with dissimilar empirical and theoretical/philosophical backgrounds and, more specifically, how constructive communication between cognitive and functional psychology is possible. Our specific research backgrounds are quite disparate, with RWP’s being mainly in the area of cognitive psychology known as human performance and PJU’s being mainly in the areas of animal learning and cognition and behaviour analysis. Nevertheless, we have empirical and theoretical interests in common and have worked together
on research of mutual interest (Urcuioli, Vu, & Proctor, 2005; Vu, Proctor, & Urcuioli, 2003). The fundamental basis for our fruitful collaboration and communication is that we are both trained, and view ourselves first and foremost, as experimental psychologists, meaning that we put a premium on data obtained from well-controlled experiments typically designed to test specific, and often theoretically derived, hypotheses. Although we speak somewhat different languages that reflect our particular specialties and research niches, we have a mutual appreciation of construct clarity, hypothesis testing and science’s data-driven approach to answering questions and discovering key variables and, with them, the processes and mechanisms of behaviour. We think it helpful to differentiate between two different senses of the distinction between “functional” and “cognitive” approaches in psychology. One sense is the empirical identification of the important functional relations between variables versus cognitive (representational) theoretical accounts of those relations (see, e.g. Dux & Marois, 2009; Hall, 1996; Wright, 2013; Zentall, Wasserman, & Urcuioli, 2014). Another sense is that of radical behaviourism, and more specifically, contextual
Correspondence should be addressed to Robert W. Proctor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907–2004, USA. (E-mail [email protected]). The content is based on discussions among both authors. Robert W. Proctor was lead author in writing, with Peter Urcuioli adding material and revisions.
© 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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behavioural science, as opposed to cognitive psychology. We discuss each of these, in turn, agreeing that the former provides a basis for advancement of psychological knowledge but expressing doubts as to whether the latter does as well.
FUNCTIONAL RELATIONS AND COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS In his article, “Why the Cognitive Approach in Psychology would Profit from a Functional Approach and Vice Versa,” De Houwer (2011)appears to adopt the first sense of the functional versus cognitive distinction. In that article, he describes functional and cognitive as two different levels, stating, Whereas the description of behavioral effects can provide an explanation of behavior in terms of elements in the environment, the description of mental constructs can provide an explanation of behavioral effects in terms of mental constructs. The functional and cognitive approaches thus focus on two separate levels of explanation … (p. 205)
De Houwer views cognitive explanations as being built from empirically established functional relations but also as a way to guide or enhance the search for new functional relations through “organizing existing functional knowledge (i.e., their heuristic value) and generating new functional knowledge (i.e., their predictive value)” (p. 206; see also Zentall, 2013). De Houwer (2011) concludes his article by enumerating the following recommendations for psychological research (pp. 207–208): Behavioral effects and mental constructs need to be separated conceptually. Behavioral effects should be defined in terms of the causal impact of specific elements in the (present or past) environment on specific aspects of behavior. Behavioral effects should not be treated as proxies of mental constructs. All empirical findings should first be described, as much as possible, in terms of behavioral effects. Research should be directed both at developing mental explanations of behavioral effects (i.e. what are the mental processes and representations that mediate these effects) and at improving functional explanations of behavior.
We see little with which to disagree regarding these specific recommendations or, more generally, the functional-cognitive approach advocated by De Houwer (2011). Certainly, one wants to keep behavioural effects and mental constructs separated, and caution should be exercised in treating behavioural effects as proxies of mental constructs. And we strongly agree © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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that research should be directed towards establishing functional relations and testing cognitive explanations. However, we believe that from the earliest days of our field to the present, most cognitive psychologists trained in the experimental psychology tradition have engaged in varying degrees in both functional and cognitive levels of analysis. For example, in his research on selection and control of action, RWP focuses more heavily on the functional relations and general principles, and is relatively conservative in his cognitive theorising (e.g. Proctor & Cho, 2006; Reeve & Proctor, 1990), whereas Bernhard Hommel places more emphasis on the theoretical side (e.g. Hommel, 2009; Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001). But these differences in relative emphasis and individual preference should not overshadow that, for both, the interplay between data and theory remains at the heart of experimental cognitive psychology. The work of Paul Fitts, a pioneer in applying information-processing analyses to basic and applied human performance, nicely illustrates our point that functional relations have long been a primary focus—indeed, an indispensable foundation of cognitive psychology. In his chapter on engineering psychology (applied experimental psychology) in the fifth volume of Sigmund Koch’s monumental work, Psychology: A Study of a Science, Fitts (1963) said, “The area covered by engineering psychology is best specified by the dependent variables that the field attempts to predict or to optimize and by the independent variables that it attempts to manipulate” (p. 910). Note that this definition is entirely in terms of functional relationships, although Fitts is a significant figure in cognitive psychology. Fitts’s groundbreaking research on stimulus–response compatibility effects (Fitts & Deininger, 1954; Fitts & Seeger, 1953) established key functional relations that continue to drive much research at functional and cognitive levels on action selection (see Proctor & Vu, 2006, for a review). Fitts is even better known for establishing Fitts’s law (Fitts, 1954), the relation between required accuracy of aimed movements and the time to execute them, which has inspired considerable functional and cognitive research (e.g. Blinch, Cameron, Hodges, & Chua, 2012). Although one might argue that Fitts is unique in the extent and quality of his contributions to the interplay between functional relations and cognitive psychology, he is most certainly not unique in this approach. A recent article on Nobel laureate Herbert Simon’s “legacy in how to investigate decision making” includes as one of three parts “only in conjunction with the collection of empirical data should formal computational models of decision-making processes be developed, and their predictions should be compared with human behavior” (Campitelli & Gobet, 2010, p. 355). In attention and performance research, a long list of individuals have made both theoretical and empirical contributions, including Donald Broadbent, Charles Eriksen, Michael Posner and
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Ann Treisman, among others (see Johnson & Proctor, 2004, for a review). RADICAL BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Although De Houwer (2011) emphasised mainly functional relations and cognitive psychology, the programme for the “Building Bridges between Functional and Cognitive Psychology” conference, from which the special issue of this journal emerged, stated: “To be clear, with ‘functional psychology’, we mean the Skinnerian approach to psychology (often also referred as ‘radical behaviorism’) and some post-Skinnerian approaches (in particular an approach known as ‘Contextual Behavioral Science’).” As we have just pointed out, we do not find it objectionable and, indeed, see benefits to, linking functional relations to cognitive explanations. However, we do see problems with attempting to bridge the divide between radical behaviourism and cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology represents a worldview, often called mechanism (Pepper, 1942), which seeks to establish explanations of behaviour through underlying mental representations and processes. Radical behaviourism, in contrast, is a variant of pragmatism that seeks to establish explanations solely in terms of functional relations (see, e.g., Sidman, 1997). Although some have argued that radical behaviourism is also mechanistic, Moxley (2013) makes the point that although Skinner’s early views were mechanistic, his later views, associated with radical behaviourism, were by his own admission pragmatic. Pragmatism is incorporated within the worldview that Pepper (1942) called contextualism, and the contextual behavioural science approach explicitly endorses this view of what is sometimes called “functional contextualism” (see Capaldi & Proctor, 1999, for a critical evaluation of varieties of contextualism in psychology). In advocating this approach, Vilardaga et al. (2009, p. 109) emphasise, “Functional contextualism can be viewed as a particular construal of the essence of radical behaviorism; indeed, that purpose is obvious in its first explication … ” Pepper (1942) was adamant in stating that the fundamental assumptions of the worldviews of mechanism and contextualism are so different that there is little to be gained from combining categories across them, concluding, “A combination of mechanism and contextualism reveals all the evils of eclecticism.” (p. 148). A recent example that appears to reveal these evils is the incorporation of the concept of “affordance” from Gibson’s (1979) ecological/contextualistic psychology, which emphasises direct perception, into cognitive, representational models (e.g., Caligiore, Borghi, Parisi, & Baldassarre, 2010). From the cognitive perspective, Proctor and Miles (2014) have argued that the affordance concept introduces considerable confusion into
the analyses of compatibility effects within the cognitive framework. From the ecological/Gibsonian perspective, Chemero and Turvey (2007) have made a similar argument: Gibsonian affordances are not compatible with the idea that cognition is computation. Computation requires representations, and Gibsonians understand affordances as perceived directly (i.e., non-representationally).... making affordances into representations distorts the concept so that it is barely recognizable, most importantly by making affordances incompatible with direct perception, the other main pillar of Gibsonian ecological psychology. (p. 479)
In this regard, we agree with the following statement by Hughes, Barnes-Homes, and Vahey (2012, p. 34) in their article advocating functional contextualism: Our second goal was to illuminate the subtle and seductive dangers of conflating the cognitive (mechanistic) and functional (contextual) approaches to psychological science … Unlike clothing items, candy or food combinations, “mixing and matching” these frameworks should be avoided at all costs given their different viewpoints on the goals of science, explanatory concepts and how evidence should be treated.
That said, we see the functional contextualistic and cognitive representational worldviews as competing for scientific adequacy. If prediction and control of behaviour are the goals of each, the behavioural explanations offered by each should be evaluated on the basis of which provides the more comprehensive and/or more parsimonious account. Ideally, this competition should lead to scientific progress in both research camps. This assumes, of course, that there is some agreement about the criteria that should be used to judge the relative merits of each approach. Without a common basis for judgement, the two approaches will simply operate in parallel—that is, there will be no building of bridges. We are somewhat apprehensive in this regard given that according to the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science web site (http://contextualscience. org/acbs, 5 May 2015), the Association is “dedicated to the advancement of functional contextual cognitive and behavioral science and practice so as to alleviate human suffering and advance human well being.” Dedication to advancing a particular, radical behaviourist approach is understandable for those adhering to it, but broader communication—whether to radical behaviourism, cognitive psychology or clinical psychology—requires that those espousing the merits of this approach focus on data and provide explicit criteria to judge whether or not a contextual behavioural account provides equal or better insight than a cognitive account does. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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COMMUNICATION AND AWARENESS OF RELATED LITERATURES Given the torrent of research on so many topics in psychology, an individual researcher cannot possibly keep abreast of all of the relevant work that might bear on their interests. One of PJU’s graduate faculty mentors in the 1970s had a note attached to his picture in the lab saying: “I am so small, but the literature is so vast.” Fast forward 40+ years, and this situation has gotten exponentially worse. Nevertheless, a sincere effort should be made to have as broad knowledge of psychology as possible and to closely study another literature if its relevance to one’s current work becomes apparent. The following is one example of the beneficial effects of awareness of related literatures and of communication with researchers investigating ostensibly different topics. One of us (PJU) spent many years collaborating with a colleague, Thomas Zentall, on animal working memory. We were primarily interested in what pigeons remember during the retention interval of delayed matching-to-sample—specifically, how the working memory “code” might be influenced by task structure and task contingencies (e.g. Urcuioli & Zentall, 1986, 1992). In the course of this research, an interesting and unexpected pattern of memory performances occurred suggesting that dissimilar sample stimuli were coded in a similar fashion. We then obtained independent evidence for “common coding” (Urcuioli, Zentall, Jackson-Smith, & Steirn, 1989, Experiment 2) using a test which showed that different sample stimuli occasioning the same reinforced comparison choice were interchangeable with one another in new situations. At the time, we were unaware that our findings dovetailed with a large literature on acquired and stimulus equivalence, mediated associations and stimulus class formation (e.g., Hull, 1939; Jenkins, 1963; Spradlin & Saunders, 1986). A happenstance discovery of a study by Spradlin, Cotter, and Baxley (1973) describing the same transfer effects in developmentally disabled children had an energising effect and a positive scholarly impact on PJU’s subsequent research, which shifted to studying equivalence effects in pigeons. New avenues and lines of communication opened as researchers in human behaviour analysis became aware of this work and vice versa. In addition, researchers interested in animal comparative cognition (e.g. Wasserman & Zentall, 2006) began to hear about the literature on human equivalence. Effective communication has required flexibility and “translation” when describing research originating from different viewpoints, but the benefits have been palpable. The functional approach to this line of work has revealed significant and interesting relations that have informed what might be called “cognitive” theorising. In turn, this theorising has generated a substantial amount of experimental data showing a variety of novel behavioural © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science
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phenomena (e.g. Urcuioli, 2008). The interplay has been rewarding and productive.
CONCLUSION As we noted earlier, there are two senses in which “functional” can be taken, functional relations between variables and radical behaviourism (or, contextual behavioural science). We see much opportunity to benefit directly via bridges between researchers who take a functional approach of the first type and those who take a more cognitive, theoretical approach. These approaches are necessarily intertwined, though, as the theoretical analyses for particular functional relations guide in the search for other, informative functional relations. This has been, and will continue to be, highly beneficial to the extent that a functional-cognitive approach emphasises keeping the functional level (data) conceptually distinct from the cognitive level (theory). Communication and competition between contextual behavioural science (the second type of functional approach) and cognitive psychology could also be beneficial to the extent that they can be compared (using agreed-upon criteria) in their explanatory and predictive powers. This is a tall order, however, because we see the functional contextualistic approach as a different worldview than the cognitive (representational) approach, rather than just a different level of explanation. Consequently, trying to combine and even compare the two may be a fool’s errand. If we are wrong in this rather blunt assessment, then it is crucial for radical behaviourists and cognitive psychologists to listen to and to communicate effectively with one another, tasks that require considerable scholarly effort. Certainly, there is hopeful talk along these lines as reflected in a response by Hughes and Barnes-Holmes (2014) to a recent article co-authored by PJU on associative processes in concept learning (Zentall et al., 2014): We look forward to increased collaboration and communication between animal learning and RFT [relational frame theory] researchers as we continue to explore the commonalities that bind, and the difference that separate, human from other species in the animal kingdom. (p. 159)
The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. Contemporary cognitive psychology has thrived at many things that radical behaviourism has not, as Hughes et al. (2012, p. 18) acknowledge: “Arguably, the majority of empirical work within contemporary psychology … has been conducted by researchers operating within a mechanistic world-view.” Consequently, we think that radical/contextual behaviourists have more to gain, at least initially, by communicating with cognitive psychologists and by appreciating and becoming conversant in cognitively inspired research relevant to their interests.
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Effective communication must avoid inaccurate or stereotyped depictions of cognitive psychology (or psychological science, more generally) and positions that advocate only one approach as having the potential to unite basic and applied research. In short, the primary goal of functional contextualism cannot be just to advance itself but, rather, but to advance psychology. Besides, significant progress and success in the broader endeavour is the best way to advance a particular approach. Although the compartmentalization of research outlets has been a natural outgrowth of the expansion of research interests in psychological sciences, functional contextualists would do well to publish not only in journals targeted towards behaviour analysts but also in journals read by a wider range of psychologists, especially when the research described in a paper comes into direct contact with well-known topics and well-established effects originating in other areas of psychology To summarise, bridges between functional and cognitive psychology can serve to allow communication and engender better research if the common goal is to promote understanding of cognition and behaviour through scientific research. Such bridges will not function effectively, though, if the highest level goal of functionalists is to promote contextual behavioural science. Manuscript received January 2015 Revised manuscript accepted May 2015 First published online June 2015
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