Re: Human language acquisition

>>JL: If the reinforcement is non-contingent on grammar, then how are
> the kids learning grammar?
>>
>>GS: The reinforcement is contingent on behavior that comes under stimulus
>>control of the parents utterances, and appropriate responding on the
>>child's part, thus, comes to depend on the grammar.
>>
>
> JL: Appealing to "stimulus control" without elaboration tells us nothing.
> At the very least "innate grammar", suggests a testable hypothesis.
> "Stimulus control" is, again, systematically irrefutable.
>
> GS: Nonsense. It is easily refutable, but the necessary experiments are
all
> unethical. It is the mentalistic view that is irrefutable, because
> "cognitions" can simply be invented at will. I gave you all the
elaboration
> necessary, I told you that reinforcement could be, and no doubt would be,
> contingent on behavior that "conforms" to the parents’’ utterances. Thus,
if
> the child was told, go get the Cheerios, and it came back with the dog,
the
> parent would say "no" or provide no consequence or whatever. Similarly, if
a
> parent said, "Touch the square with the triangle," the parent could
> reinforce correct responses. This is simplified, however. In practice, a
> great deal of our listening repertoire (as well as our speaking
repertoire)
> relies on the establishment of a generalized imitative repertoire.

JL: But this suggests that the difference between a dog barking in response
to his name being called and a child responding correctly to "Will the
boy the birthday party is for please stand up!" is simply a matter of
degree.

GS: Is the dog’s barking an operant under stimulus control of its name being
called? If so, then the two behaviors mentioned have something in common -
assuming the child’s behavior is operant behavior under stimulus control. I
don’t have any problem with this.

>
> JL: MacCorquodale (a behaviourist) says:
>
> GS: I know who Ken MacCorquodale was.
>
> ( http://www.behavior.org/loebner/maccorquodale/maccorquodale2.cfm )
>
> JL: "The fact is simply that we do not yet know if verbal behavior is
within
> the domain of Skinner’’’’s system and whether the technical terms
stimulus,> response, reinforcement are literally applicable to verbal
behavior and
> correctly parse it into its functional parts of speech."
>
> GS: And this is correct. I was offering an interpretation of how someone
who
> cannot speak would come under stimulus control of what we call grammar and
> syntax. There are two separate issues regarding "language acquisition:"
1.)
> whether Skinner’’s interpretation is cogent, and 2.) whether or not it can
be
> shown to be "correct." The first hurdle is important because if his
> interpretation is not cogent, or is internally inconsistent, or can be
shown
> to be otherwise flawed, then there is no reason to go on to the next step.
> It is widely believed that Chomsky pointed out flaws in Skinner’’s
argument,
> but anyone who has read both the book and Chomsky’’s review knows 1.) that
> Chomsky never read Verbal Behavior, and 2.) he does not understand the
> notion of the operant response class.

JL: Maybe you never read it either. How can we know? We proceed on the
reasonable assumption that both of you did.

GS: You can read the book, and then see if Chomsky’s review seems to be
about the book. Most behaviorists think it does not. Besides, Chomsky
admitted to Searle that he never read the book, at least that is what Searle
said when he visited in the late ‘80s.

>
> JL: He was responding to Chomsky, who said it best:
>
> ( http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001148/00/chomsky.htm )
>
> GS: I don’’t need the link. *I* read both the book and the review.
>
> JL (quoting Chomsky):" It appears that the word control here is merely a
> misleading
> paraphrase for the traditional denote or refer.
>
> GS: This is true only in the relation referred to as the "tact." And there
> is nothing misleading about it. Indeed, there is a successful technology
in
> which autistics are given rudimentary to complex verbal repertoires,
> precisely because the functional response classes that Skinner posited
make
> it clear what variables must be manipulated.

JL: Maybe so, but they are human and so may have grammatical ability that
requires some special effort to express.

GS: Right. It requires the careful arrangement of contingencies of
reinforcement.

JL: Try it with normal chimps.

GS: Isn’t there a rudimentary grammar involved in the ape language stuff? In
any event, the position does not say that any animal that "possesses"
operant behavior will be the equivalent of humans - it just says that the
processes are of the same general kind.

JL: It
is misleading because, in spite of the fact that MacCorquodale attempted
to back-pedal for Skinner by saying it was all stated hypothetically,
the thrust of Skinner's writing is that a behavioural analysis of
language is a done deed - only the details need filling in.

GS: Skinner never claimed that the analysis was anything but interpretation.
Of course he thought he was right - but this is all beside the point. K.M.
did not "backpedal" he took Chomsky to task for his lame "review."

JL: Chomsky put
that idea to rest by showing that it is a non-starter, and I emphasize
that systematic irrefutability, the coining of terminology vague enough
to cover any possible situation and perpetually deferring the provision
of explanatory details to the future, is its foundation.

GS: The definition of discriminative stimulus is quite straightforward and
unambiguous. Unlike say, "explicit memory" and other cognitive nonsense that
is defined in terms of other controversial terms.

>
> JL (quoting Chomsky): The assertion (115) that
> so far as the speaker is concerned, the relation of reference is "simply
> the probability that the speaker will emit a response of a given form in
> the presence of a stimulus having specified properties" is surely
> incorrect if we take the words presence, stimulus, and probability in
> their literal sense. That they are not intended to be taken literally is
> indicated by many examples, as when a response is said to be
> "controlled" by a situation or state of affairs as "stimulus." Thus, the
> expression a needle in a haystack "may be controlled as a unit by a
> particular type of situation" (116); the words in a single part of
> speech, e.g., all adjectives, are under the control of a single set of
> subtle properties of stimuli (121); "the sentence The boy runs a store
> is under the control of an extremely complex stimulus situation" (335)
> "He is not at all well may function as a standard response under the
> control of a state of affairs which might also control He is ailing"
> (325); when an envoy observes events in a foreign country and reports
> upon his return, his report is under "remote stimulus control" (416);> the
statement This is war may be a response to a "confusing
> international situation" (441); the suffix -ed is controlled by that
> "subtle property of stimuli which we speak of as action-in-the-past"
> (121) just as the -s in The boy runs is under the control of such
> specific features of the situation as its "currency" (332). No
> characterization of the notion stimulus control that is remotely related
> to the bar-pressing experiment (or that preserves the faintest
objectivity)
> can be made to cover a set of examples like these, in
> which, for example, the controlling stimulus need not even impinge on
> the responding organism."
>
> GS: This is mere assertion. There is nothing incorrect in asserting that
> complex properties of stimuli may exert stimulus control. It may be wrong,
> but it is not illogical, and it does not violate the definition of
> "discriminative stimulus." And, indeed, stimulus control by complex
features
> of stimuli are produced in the laboratory with non-human animals. As in
> humans, it is often next to impossible to say what features are
controlling
> behavior, even though one established the stimulus control oneself, as
when
> pigeons are trained to peck one key if a photograph contains any part of a
> tree, and to peck another one if the photograph does not contain any part
of
> a tree. As to responding to stimuli that are no longer present, the
> Skinnerian interpretation is that the person is responding to their own
> behavior - a simple example of this would be a person that looks up a
phone
> number and says it to him or herself until completing the dialing. The
> behavior can be, however, far more subtle. It is true that the existence
of
> such behavior in many cases is inferred, but then all of "cognition" is
> inferred.
>

JL: You cannot really mean that "all of cognition" is inferred, unless by
cognition you mean only introspective phenomenology. In particular, fMRI
gives us images of cognitive processes in action.

GS: That anyone with more than a sixth grade education can claim this is a
tribute to the indoctrination perpetrated upon students. FMRI reveals
neurobiological processes. You might just as easily claim that what one is
observing is the "soul of the nervous system."

JL: Are we to accept that
the causal link between stimulus, brain activity and behaviour is
intrinsically less knowable than, say, the link between solar flares,
solar wind and the aurora borealis?

GS: I never implied this. I maintain that cognitive processes are unobserved
(one observes neurobiological activity) and metaphorical. The brain mediates
the effects of the environment.

"Joe Legris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Glen M. Sizemore wrote:
> >>JL: If the reinforcement is non-contingent on grammar, then how are
> > the kids learning grammar?
> >>
> >>GS: The reinforcement is contingent on behavior that comes under
stimulus
> >>control of the parents utterances, and appropriate responding on the
> >>child's part, thus, comes to depend on the grammar.
> >>
> >
> > JL: Appealing to "stimulus control" without elaboration tells us
nothing.
> > At the very least "innate grammar", suggests a testable hypothesis.
> > "Stimulus control" is, again, systematically irrefutable.
> >
> > GS: Nonsense. It is easily refutable, but the necessary experiments are
all
> > unethical. It is the mentalistic view that is irrefutable, because
> > "cognitions" can simply be invented at will. I gave you all the
elaboration
> > necessary, I told you that reinforcement could be, and no doubt would
be,
> > contingent on behavior that "conforms" to the parents’ utterances. Thus,
if
> > the child was told, go get the Cheerios, and it came back with the dog,
the
> > parent would say "no" or provide no consequence or whatever. Similarly,
if a
> > parent said, "Touch the square with the triangle," the parent could
> > reinforce correct responses. This is simplified, however. In practice, a
> > great deal of our listening repertoire (as well as our speaking
repertoire)
> > relies on the establishment of a generalized imitative repertoire.
>
> But this suggests that the difference between a dog barking in response
> to his name being called and a child responding correctly to "Will the
> boy the birthday party is for please stand up!" is simply a matter of
> degree.
>
> >
> > JL: MacCorquodale (a behaviourist) says:
> >
> > GS: I know who Ken MacCorquodale was.
> >
> > ( http://www.behavior.org/loebner/maccorquodale/maccorquodale2.cfm )
> >
> > JL: "The fact is simply that we do not yet know if verbal behavior is
within
> > the domain of Skinner’’s system and whether the technical terms
stimulus,
> > response, reinforcement are literally applicable to verbal behavior and
> > correctly parse it into its functional parts of speech."
> >
> > GS: And this is correct. I was offering an interpretation of how someone
who
> > cannot speak would come under stimulus control of what we call grammar
and
> > syntax. There are two separate issues regarding "language acquisition:"
1.)
> > whether Skinner’s interpretation is cogent, and 2.) whether or not it
can be
> > shown to be "correct." The first hurdle is important because if his
> > interpretation is not cogent, or is internally inconsistent, or can be
shown
> > to be otherwise flawed, then there is no reason to go on to the next
step.
> > It is widely believed that Chomsky pointed out flaws in Skinner’s
argument,
> > but anyone who has read both the book and Chomsky’s review knows 1.)
that
> > Chomsky never read Verbal Behavior, and 2.) he does not understand the
> > notion of the operant response class.
>
> Maybe you never read it either. How can we know? We proceed on the
> reasonable assumption that both of you did.
>
> >
> > JL: He was responding to Chomsky, who said it best:
> >
> > ( http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001148/00/chomsky.htm )
> >
> > GS: I don’t need the link. *I* read both the book and the review.
> >
> > JL (quoting Chomsky):" It appears that the word control here is merely a
> > misleading
> > paraphrase for the traditional denote or refer.
> >
> > GS: This is true only in the relation referred to as the "tact." And
there
> > is nothing misleading about it. Indeed, there is a successful technology
in
> > which autistics are given rudimentary to complex verbal repertoires,
> > precisely because the functional response classes that Skinner posited
make
> > it clear what variables must be manipulated.
>
> Maybe so, but they are human and so may have grammatical ability that
> requires some special effort to express. Try it with normal chimps. It
> is misleading because, in spite of the fact that MacCorquodale attempted
> to back-pedal for Skinner by saying it was all stated hypothetically,
> the thrust of Skinner's writing is that a behavioural analysis of
> language is a done deed - only the details need filling in. Chomsky put
> that idea to rest by showing that it is a non-starter, and I emphasize
> that systematic irrefutability, the coining of terminology vague enough
> to cover any possible situation and perpetually deferring the provision
> of explanatory details to the future, is its foundation.
>
> >
> > JL (quoting Chomsky): The assertion (115) that
> > so far as the speaker is concerned, the relation of reference is "simply
> > the probability that the speaker will emit a response of a given form in
> > the presence of a stimulus having specified properties" is surely
> > incorrect if we take the words presence, stimulus, and probability in
> > their literal sense. That they are not intended to be taken literally is
> > indicated by many examples, as when a response is said to be
> > "controlled" by a situation or state of affairs as "stimulus." Thus, the
> > expression a needle in a haystack "may be controlled as a unit by a
> > particular type of situation" (116); the words in a single part of
> > speech, e.g., all adjectives, are under the control of a single set of
> > subtle properties of stimuli (121); "the sentence The boy runs a store
> > is under the control of an extremely complex stimulus situation" (335)
> > "He is not at all well may function as a standard response under the
> > control of a state of affairs which might also control He is ailing"
> > (325); when an envoy observes events in a foreign country and reports
> > upon his return, his report is under "remote stimulus control" (416);
> > the statement This is war may be a response to a "confusing
> > international situation" (441); the suffix -ed is controlled by that
> > "subtle property of stimuli which we speak of as action-in-the-past"
> > (121) just as the -s in The boy runs is under the control of such
> > specific features of the situation as its "currency" (332). No
> > characterization of the notion stimulus control that is remotely related
> > to the bar-pressing experiment (or that preserves the faintest
objectivity)
> > can be made to cover a set of examples like these, in
> > which, for example, the controlling stimulus need not even impinge on
> > the responding organism."
> >
> > GS: This is mere assertion. There is nothing incorrect in asserting that
> > complex properties of stimuli may exert stimulus control. It may be
wrong,
> > but it is not illogical, and it does not violate the definition of
> > "discriminative stimulus." And, indeed, stimulus control by complex
features
> > of stimuli are produced in the laboratory with non-human animals. As in
> > humans, it is often next to impossible to say what features are
controlling
> > behavior, even though one established the stimulus control oneself, as
when
> > pigeons are trained to peck one key if a photograph contains any part of
a
> > tree, and to peck another one if the photograph does not contain any
part of
> > a tree. As to responding to stimuli that are no longer present, the
> > Skinnerian interpretation is that the person is responding to their own
> > behavior - a simple example of this would be a person that looks up a
phone
> > number and says it to him or herself until completing the dialing. The
> > behavior can be, however, far more subtle. It is true that the existence
of
> > such behavior in many cases is inferred, but then all of "cognition" is
> > inferred.
> >
>
> You cannot really mean that "all of cognition" is inferred, unless by
> cognition you mean only introspective phenomenology. In particular, fMRI
> gives us images of cognitive processes in action. Are we to accept that
> the causal link between stimulus, brain activity and behaviour is
> intrinsically less knowable than, say, the link between solar flares,
> solar wind and the aurora borealis?
>
> -- 
> Joe Legris
>