Behavioral illusions: The Snark is a Boojum

Marken, Richard, Kennaway, Richard and Gulrez, Tauseef (2022) Behavioral illusions: The Snark is a Boojum. Theory and Psychology, 32 (3). pp. 491-514. ISSN 0959-3543

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Abstract

A behavioral illusion is a regularity of behavior that appears to reflect something about the functional characteristics of an organism when it does not. This illusion occurs when the methods appropriate to the study of an open-loop or zero feedback (Z)-system are used to study the behavior of what is, in fact, a closed-loop or negative feedback (N)-system. The situation is like the one described in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, where the sought-after Snark-analogous to the actual organism function-looks just like the feared Boojum-analogous to the illusory one. This article describes examples of three different kinds of behavioral illusion and explains how researchers can avoid the mistake of taking a Boojum for a Snark by reorienting the study of behavior toward identifying the perceptual variables that organisms control and away from seeking regularities in their overt behavior.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	cognitive illusion,perceptual control theory,reinforcement illusion,s-r illusion,test for controlled variable,2-thirds power-law,trajectories,feedback,model,s–r illusion,psychology(all),history and philosophy of science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	26 Jul 2022 13:30
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2022 03:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/86876
DOI:	10.1177/09593543211070271

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