Jerry Alan Hogan
Project The Study of Behavior Prologue
In the course of my career, I have noticed that my field—ethology (experimental psychology/behavioral biology)—has become more and more disjointed. Many new fields have become established, including cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, behavioral ecology, behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, evo-devo, and several others. Much progress has been made in all these fields, with new facts being discovered and new concepts being formulated. However, as researchers become more and more focused on their own field, communication across fields has become less and less. The reasons for this state of affairs are many, but in some cases the problem is one of understanding what someone else is talking about. There is a long history of controversies in science being due to one group of scientists using words and concepts that other groups fail to understand. I have commented on this problem in several of my published papers, but I think that this would be a good time for a more comprehensive treatment of these issues. The ultimate goal of studies in all these fields is to understand behavior. What I propose to do is to write a monograph that presents a framework for studying behavior that can be used to integrate results and concepts from the many current fields being investigated. The Monograph What I plan to do is expand on ideas that I developed in a paper published in 1994 (The concept of cause in the study of behavior. In Hogan & Bolhuis, eds: Causal Mechanisms of Behavioural Development. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 3-15). In that paper I showed how one could translate Aristotelian concepts of cause into modern terms applicable to the study of behavior. Specifically, I suggested that one could ask questions about the structure, causation, and consequences of behavior, and that these questions could be asked with respect to the motivation, development, and evolution of behavioral entities, at the different levels of organization, from the molecular to the physiological to the individual organism to social groups. The questions of structure, cause, and consequence are orthogonal to each other, and answers to all the questions are necessary for a complete understanding. The monograph will comprise four major sections: 1) What is behavior and how can we study it? 2) Motivation of behavior. 3) Development of behavior. 4) Evolution of behavior. Questions of structure, cause, and consequence will be asked in each section. In section 1, I will discuss the philosophical and historical background of my approach as presented in my 1994 paper, and will then discuss in some detail the units of behavior that are to be studied. These include behavior patterns (motor mechanisms), perceptual mechanisms, central coordinating mechanisms, behavior systems, memories, ideas, intentions, and the like. In section 2, with respect to the identified behavioral units, I will consider the various causal factors responsible for their activation, maintenance, and cessation. These are the external situation, and the internal state of the organism. Specific topics will include releasing, directing, and priming effects of stimuli, and internal signals including circadian rhythms. A special feature of this section will be a discussion of how the concepts being used can apply to thinking and intelligence. I will also consider the various consequences that result from the occurrence of behavior. These include feedback mechanisms and homeostasis. Finally, I will discuss the consequences of more than one behavioral unit being activated at the same time. In section 3, development will be the focus. I will begin by reviewing basic principles of embryology and neuroembryology, and will discuss the nature-nurture issue in the framework of epigenetics. I will then give examples of how perceptual and motor mechanisms develop in a variety of species and show what general principles of development can be derived from these examples. As in section 2, a special feature will be a discussion of how the development of meaning and memories can be understood with these principles. A discussion of the development of behavior systems such as hunger, sex, aggression, and fear will follow, with an extended discussion of how human language can be understood as a behavior system. The last part of this section will consider the consequences of development which include the concept of reinforcement and the process of learning, developmental adaptations, and questions of the role of selection in development. In section 4, I will consider the evolution of behavior, in the context of principles of evolutionary biology. I will consider the various mechanisms of evolution including mutation, developmental influences (evo-devo), and cultural evolution, and also the role of (natural, sexual, artificial) selection in the process of evolution. Numerous examples from behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology will be discussed. The monograph is not meant to be either a review of the literature or a textbook. Rather, it is an attempt to integrate the concepts and data of the various fields with a behavioral interest into a single framework. It is hoped that such an endeavor will make it easier for scientists in different fields to communicate with each other, and will lead to new insights such communication could bring. Teaching In any project of this kind, it is very important to have feedback from interested persons as the writing progresses. I would expect to have interactions with other scholars at the institute, but a formal arrangement with interested graduate students would provide additional commentary. I propose to give a graduate course the second term of 2013 (August-November, 2013). The course would meet weekly for a 2-hour session. Each session would be devoted to a discussion of a set of assigned readings relevant to a specific topic in the monograph. In addition to class discussion, each student would be required each week to turn in a ‘reaction paper’—a 300-word comment on some aspect of the assigned readings, the aspect to be chosen by the student him/herself. Depending on the number of students wishing to take the course, each student could also make a presentation of about half an hour relevant to the topic of the day. This presentation could include extra material researched by the student. Some practical matters
It was my understanding with César Ades that an appointment at the Institute would be for a period of 6 months. For several reasons, it would be difficult for me to be away from Toronto for 6 consecutive months. One important reason is keeping my Canadian medical insurance in force. So, what I am proposing is that I would spend 4 months (August to November, 2013) in São Paulo, return to Canada for the Christmas period, and finish my appointment in early 2014. I can also consider other possible arrangements.
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