Any list of human belongingness/preparedness?

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baylor

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 9:18 pm

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So it turns out some relationships are easier to learn than others.
i've come across numerous articles citing fear of snakes and the
famous taste aversion experiment. The conclusion drawn in each article
is that we're genetically prepared to make certain associations

Here's what i'm looking for but haven't found - has anyone cataloged
what these innate relationships are?

-baylor, who can't believe the signal to noise ratio in this group

Michael Olea

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 10:17 pm

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in article ajnasvst1fha2m9shpi3uch2d2cf81gg72@4ax.com, baylor at
baylor@no_spam.ihatebaylor.com wrote on 11/26/03 6:18 PM:

Quote:

Hi baylor.

It turns out there is a catchy name, "the scandal of induction", for the
problem you asked about before:

Quote:

2. Feature extraction. What constitutes the context? Let's say i fight
a two-headed goat monster with my wand of fire three times and each
time i get hurt and the goat monster doesn't. My rate of reinforcement
for using the wand of fire is 0%. In each of these cases, i fought the
same goat monster (we'll call him Bubba) in the same room during full
moons. What would i likely learn as the context? That two-headed goat
monsters are flame retardant? That fire wands don't work against Bubba
specifically? That fire wands don't work in Bubba's cave? That fire
wands don't work during a full moon? That fire wands don't work if
it's Bubba AND he's in his cave AND it's a full moon? Do i learn all
of these associations with some given level of strength or
probablility? And how would it reconcile with the matching law?

The logician V. O. Quine talks about it in his book "Word and Object", and
Pinker elaborates on it in "The Language Instinct". Taking that line of
reasoning a little further leads Quine (in "Natural Kinds") to the notion of
"innate similarity spaces". Now, I have not yet read Natural Kinds (ordered
it, should be here in a week), but have seen it quoted - the gist, far as I
can tell, is that natural selection sifts out adaptive similarity measures
in distinct domains. I don't know of a catalogue of innate genetically
prepared dimensions of associability, but: 1) a web search of "Natural
Kinds" turned up a lot of references in Citeseer (freely downloadable
papers), and many of those look like they might flesh out some of that
catalogue, and 2) in the last chapter of "The Language Instinct" Pinker (and
I have to apologize for recommending Pinker before - I had not yet been
informed that Pinker is a moron) speculates what that catalogue would look
like (and I thought about typing that list here, but I'm gonna play guitar
instead).

Cheers - Michael

Glen M. Sizemore

Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 7:09 am

Guest

B: So it turns out some relationships are easier to learn than others.
i've come across numerous articles citing fear of snakes and the
famous taste aversion experiment. The conclusion drawn in each article
is that we're genetically prepared to make certain associations

Here's what i'm looking for but haven't found - has anyone cataloged
what these innate relationships are?

GS: You mean enumerate every instance of "preparedness?" Or enumerate the
categories into which possible instances can be placed?

If the latter, we must have a way to categorize the behavior that reflects
its fundamental properties. Part of the problem, already, is that you've
already phrased the problem badly - the phrases "some relationships are
easier to learn than others" and "we're genetically prepared to make certain
associations" glosses over the very issues that matter most.

Both cases that you cite could be viewed as instances where the behavioral
processes in question have many more similarities than differences. Indeed,
both are instances Pavlovian conditioning, and one may show that they are
affected in similar ways by similar independent variables.

This raises the issue of "What do we count as instances of 'preparedness?'"
I don't try to reinforce, for example, lever-pressing in cats with lettuce,
and I don't try to establish stimulus control in humans with a 40 k Hz tone.
Similarly, I would not attempt to train an escape response in a pig that
consisted of flying to a perch.

However, when one deals effectively with such details, one may discover all
sorts of similarities across species.

Would it be important to publish a paper that said one failed to establish a
lettuce-reinforced response in a cat? Obviously not. But what is important
in this realm, and why?

"baylor" <baylor@no_spam.ihatebaylor.com> wrote in message

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