perception – PsyPhi

No ‘content’ in EcoPsych and Direct Perception

TL/DR: While a valid concern, I don’t think EcoPsych relies on ‘environmental’ content.

I share the worry with Dr. Edward Baggs, that Enactivist criticism of Ecological Psychology’s Direct Perception hints at a possible dualism -even if I think it may mostly arise from reading EcoPsych unfavourably or indeed unfavourably expressing EcoPsych.

The idea is this. Representationalists assume content is in the brain (created and/or passed on from the senses as input). Perception is simply input for the brain-processor which sends output signals to the passive body, hence Indirect Perception, what our eyes see is ultimately not what we experience, we experience what the brain creates (subject to criticism of being idealist and/or dualist, but that’s a different blog post). EcoPsych instead says, hang on, the world is its own best model, there is absolutely no need to conceptualize the perceptual system as mere, passive, input devices, and there is no need to conceptualize the brain as a processor -we need no processing (in the traditional sense anyways). Rather, perception is active and intelligent on its own, what you are currently experiencing is unmediated by any interpretational processes, what you experience is what your perceptual system detects. Perception requires movement, perception and action are in this sense inseparable (your legs, e.g., are also a part of seeing, cue embodied theories). However, importantly, perception is action, action is perception. It’s a continuous and simultaneous loop…

Enactivism asks however, if this means that EcoPsych simply places content on the outside, as opposed to representationalists on the inside. If so, we are not really losing the dualistic consequences that believing in content brings with it.

I think one problem may arrive from reading specificity (roughly: guaranteed perception) into Direct Perception. The straightforward answer here is that this is a bit too literal a take on Direct Perception, although it comes from considerations such that if what we see is the world then why does the world look different to different people -we have access to the same information. A simple answer from EcoPsych would be that firstly we all have different capabilities that we bring to any situation, we inhabit different bodies, we can have different goals, and they all bring effects on what we attend to and why.

Another issue is that some EcoPsych’s talk about properties and effectivities, as if you can divide up organism from environment, landing us in traditional dualisms again. I do not subscribe to this way of talking specifically about the organism or the environment because I think it too easily invites dualist interpretations -but those who do still would say the affordance is primary, that we then can talk about its corresponding parts doesn’t mean that they see them as non-constitutive. Which sounds fine to me, but, I also understand how people can misread this.

As for answering the central question of -do EcoPsychs conceptualize content to be on the outside, I think a resounding ‘no’ is in order. Organisms detect structure in ambient arrays (e.g. the optic array) and they perceive/act on affordances (which necessarily is a relational aspect of the current, and continuously evolving, organism-environment system). The information itself (the structure in an ambient array) is not content, in the case of vision it is (from a specific point of observation) all of the converging photons from all angles (as a whole, continuously flowing) on that point that has bounced off of surfaces where light has been partly absorbed, reflected, etc (which is part of how light becomes structured) that then reaches the eyes. The eyes themselves have evolved to detect differences in structure to the point that was necessary for survival, and we bring an entire cultural/societal/historical as well as developmental baggage with us as we have started naming structures that we are taught from young age to reproduce. But there is no content, there is no standing-in-for the things in the environment = a wooden table is made up of wooden particles which are made up of atoms, when light strikes the top of a dark wood, photons are to a larger degree than a light wood absorbed by the material, but then of course, this becomes circular because we have already defined “dark” and “light” through the property of absorption. (It should be added here that “illusions” where dark and light can look the same, or where a blue dress can look yellow, is only a valid counter-argument if you rely on traditional optics where you discount contextual factors like general lighting conditions etcetera.)

Non-(?)necessary discrimination between actualisation and realisation

In Gibson’s perspective, are they not really the same thing? Perception in Gibson’s terms seem to imply that “acting on” is implied by perception. I am confused with how this unfolds in practice. Take the definition I outlined in a previous post, that realisation is the perception of a possible interaction as opposed to actualisation which is the instantiation of an interaction. Perception is interaction?!

I think of studies on mirror neurons (if they exist, if it is assumed they do not do what trad. cog. sci. say they do and instead are simple sensory modality + movement overlap/association -happenstancily, not predeterminally- neurons/cluster of neurons/areas) in that, ‘visual perception of’ and ‘engaging in’ is the same thing physiologically -since, as I suppose Gibson would have it, perception (regardless of which kind) includes oneself always. If one is not separated from the environment, then one perceives what others and oneself do as the same thing (obviously, humans distinguish between self and others, but, even then, not innately -which in itself doesn’t have to decide in the matter, but may inform). Maybe this could be seen as the process behind empathy or sympathy for example. I feel disgust if I perceive rotting meat, because perception is that of systems and parallel modalities and not separate “input pathways”.

They may however have a practical, communicationally, significant aspect to them since it makes it easier to explain perspective or experience of a situation in those terms. Though I also get the feeling that they refer to the false dichotomy of conscious/unconscious perception. Something superfluous to the ecological model. Indeed, it perpetuates the false assumption of consciousness per se. Note here however that “how we consciously experience” situations, is central to psychiatry, for example, and can be useful to navigate within in therapy. Experimental psychology however, should refrain from allowing this massive source of frame-of-reference error to guide theory too heavily.

Temporary conclusion on subjective/objective perspective and affordances (3/3)

I should stop writing “Temporary” in front of my titles. It should be presupposed that all theory is always temporary.

I may have gained an understanding leading on from the previous posts on subjective and objective perspectives, on the definition of affordances and perception, relating Gibsons ecological view with traditional philosophy and cognitive psychology.

As Gibson defines perception of the environment and oneself as the same thing at the same point in time, neither a subjective nor objective perspective discriminates between what is perceived and not. Both are perceived, always, for any point of location of observation. This is true for both an objective perspective and a subjective perspective. Since both are perceived, any concept related to perception will necessarily imply this conclusion. If one assumes a non-static observation point (as we almost never have a static one, we move), then the experience of perceiving affordances are of both environment and self always coupled, non-separable, always pointing in both directions. This conclusion is then perpetuated by direct perception.

The only issue I am facing with this is that when one wants to begin defining from a philosophical perspective, one immediately wants to ground theory in realism, inviting subjective and objective perspectives, mind-dependence and independence, since, it is a way in which we can discriminate between dualism and monism for one. Coming from a strictly ecological perspective, or perhaps, Gibsonian ecological perspective, and grounding theory from ecology, one does not need these perspectives since they do not discriminate between anything, they do not show any difference when either perspective is subsumed. It should then be for this reason that Gibson confuses me when he speaks of nothing being subjective nor objective or both, because the meaning of those perspectives do not have a bearing on experience or theory, i.e. change the perspective per se. They are presumably brought in because of tradition and norm, because they are words used widely in the classic literature -and are most fitting in philosophically (Hegelian argumentally) founded perspectives like traditional cognitive psychology.

Are affordances retained? 42.

You see, it doesn’t really matter. We are not in the area of discussing the physical world. We are not concerned with matter in the ontological sense at this point (although we, as written about in several previous posts, obviously take a realist stance if forced to define things in traditional linguistics and perspectives). The reason the answer is 42, then, is because we perceive and act in the “coupled” perspective (self & environment) always. We assume affordances are retained, that the ground affords walking if we should want to walk tomorrow on that surface. But the question is misleading, because it forces upon the answerer to provide an explanation from a physical perspective. It forces one to deal with terms in a traditional cognitive language. It forces discussion on words like realism, objective, subjective, memory (for past) and imagination (for future). When I am lead to believe Gibson would rather speak of perception, movement, senses and affordances.

Communicationally necessary separation of objective and subjective perspectives (in rECS) (1/3)

I began writing the situated relationships between the concepts (mentioned in my previous post) and realised something terribly important. Even in the simplified taxonomy, I haven’t separated out subjective from objective, and I found out just how important that is when writing about the specific relationships. They exist in different realms (akin to the ontological and epistemological issues I have been writing about), also, communicating subjective relationships will depend on the specific organism and its umwelt (Louise Barrett). I have, for now, had human activity in mind, in an effort to keep it simple. This will guide the way I henceforth communicate about relationships in rECS where necessary to specify, unless someone has a good reason not to…

Objectively, here, refers to a mind-independent, theoretical perspective. I am not concerned here on how we come in contact, how we experience the world, but rather on the relationships between the concepts in how they affect each other, separated from how they are experienced (or might be experienced). It is not to do with separating ontology from epistemology, but there are surface similarities. For example, talking about Realisation and Actualisation, in an objective perspective you cannot have Actualisation without Realisation (I have written otherwise in other places, and should be revised on the basis of not separating objective and subjective perspectives clearly). This is so because Realisation is defined as perception of affordances, and, you cannot interact, act on, Actualise, affordances without perceiving them. The same goes for Limitations, which may be present and affect Actualisation, but not necessarily be experienced.

But. In a subjective perspective, here defined as experiential, i.e. how we experience the world. We can Actualise affordances without “paying attention” or consciously or deliberately perceive, we just act. An example can be very quick decisions, we need not experience the Realisation of the acted on affordances. Again, in a theoretical sense, an objective perspective, it is clear that we have to have Realisation (perception of) on some level, whatever level that is, for us to be able to Actualise the intersituational-affordances-relationships. Reflexive behaviour could exemplify this, since they are usually experientially Realised after one begins Actualising, after the affordances have been Actualised or not at all.

Thus, it is important to create two separate taxonomies for experiential, subjective, relationships (which will become mostly an empirical endeavour to sort out experimentally) and another for theoretical, objective, relationships. The theoretical perspective will necessarily incorporate more aspects, more relationships and be truer to dynamic systems theory than the experiential perspective. This is explained by the examples above and by that what we experience is dependent on our senses, which obviously are “limited” (put in quotation marks because I do not wish to support the view that we ought to be ideal agents, should be measured on the basis of ideals or are heading that way through evolution, since this imposes a frame-of-reference error. We are humans, and have developed under the pressures of our environment, and this is what we are, nothing more and nothing less).

If I find the time to explicate those taxonomies is another question…

Simplified taxonomy of modified rECS (5/5)

Well well, this is how far I’ve come in trying to visualise the whole tree of concepts in the modified version of rECS (Chemero), with additions from Golonka & Wilson and myself.

Starting out in the bottom right, with energy array and physical properties, it is worth mentioning that an energy array also could be said to be physical properties since we are talking about for example visually, light particles/waves. They are separated due to their function.

Energy array + Physical properties give rise to Structure.

Structure, non-perceived, is not information.

Structure + Perception give rise to Information.

Information give rise to Affordances of the object/agent and the Limitations.

Limitations + Affordances can be Realised and/or Actualised.

Affordances can be Realised and/or Actualised (without the need of perceiving Limitations).

Affordances can be Realised which can give rise to Actualisation.

Affordances can be Actualised giving rise to Realisation.

These are not static one-way relationships, change in one, changes the others down to Perception. Practically, there should be arrows from Affordances, Realisation, Actualisation, Limitations, Information and Perception, to each other.. My MS Paint skills need a bit of retouching for that to happen. I am on my way of separating out all the concepts one by one and link them to their implicated and or necessary concepts. This is meant as a simple overview.

Watch this space as I will try and post a new blog post each day (roughly) for each concept.

Temporary conclusion on affordance definitions (my head will explode if I don’t give this a rest for a while). (4/5)

I’ve been entirely engulfed by ontology, epistemology and affordances the past days. My head is about to explode. But I’ve reached a temporary conclusion. A conclusion that is generally applicable, follow most of the “traditional” ideas from ecological cog, embodied cog and rECS. They depart in some aspects, but I believe them to be necessary to live up to the philosophical demands.

Affordances, need to be, or to be grounded in, [perceived]* physical properties. The reason I have is that there is no other possible way to define it without departing from realism. Please prove me wrong, I am staring myself blind at this.

Epistemologically, affordances are perceptible through information.

Information, [any] structure of [any] energy array (brilliantly defined by Sabrina Golonka)

Epistemologically, sensory modalities discriminate between and within structures.

Perception, “the apprehension of [information] where 1) the structure is specific to an event or property in the world, 2) where the meaning of the structure (for that organism in that task) is about that event or property (i.e., a dog’s bark is about the event of a barking dog), and 3) where the meaning of the structure must be learned (or, more correctly, where an organism must learn how to coordinate action with respect to this structure).” (stolen again from Sabrina Golonka).

Realisation, perception of affordances.

Epistemologically, perceiving information and coming to an understanding (need not be conscious, obviously… as if there is a black and white divide of conscious and non-conscious…) of some/all/the situationally relevant agent/objects’ affordances.

Actualisation, agent/object(s) affordance(s) interaction with agent/object(s) affordance(s).

Epistemologically, bodily movement between and/or within agents/objects affordances and can be either compatible (by the agent(s) affordances or by extension, like using a stick or something) or not (like lifting the earth, the earth does not lend itself to be lift-able).

Constraints, boundaries of realisation and actualisation.

Epistemologically, restrict compatibility of affordances between and/or within agent(s)/object(s). The knee does not afford the leg to bend backwards. A local constraint that has consequences for bodily movement in the global environment. Being dynamically coupled to environment/objects/other agents, constraints vary depending on the current situationally available affordances.

*Edit 25/3

Reading list for Embodied Cognition

[Edit 19/7 2013: I am getting quite a lot of traffic to this post, so I thought I’d point you to my thesis reference list instead as this post is a bit messy and incomplete.]

I am collecting my readings on Mendeley, in a group called Embodied Cognition (should be the only one so far..). I figured I needed somewhere to collect all readings I go through, however, since I have yet to find a way to add books to the group, and thought I may as well put them here in case anyone else has any utility for it. Will update the post as I’ve read articles/books etc. Also, please feel free to comment with additional readings that you’ve found valuable in understanding EC.

(in the order I read them)

Added on 14/3 2013
Larry Shapiro – The embodied cognition research program (article)
Louise Barrett – Beyond the brain (book)
Alva Noë – Out of our heads (book)
Wilson & Golonka’s blog (all entries) psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com
Wilson & Golonka – Embodied cognition is not what you think it is (article)
Tim van Gelder – What might cognition be if not computation (article)
Montagne, Laurent, Durey & Bootsma – Movement reversals in ball catching (article)
Pfeifer & Bongard – How the body shapes the way we think (book)
Gerd Gigerenzer – Rationality for mortals (book)

Added on 16/3 2013
Haller & Krauss – Misinterpretations of significance (article)
Ziliak & McCloskey – The cult of statistical significance (article)

Added on 19/3 2013
Anthony Chemero – Radical embodied cognitive science (book)

Added on 8/4 2013
Semin & Smith – Embodied grounding (book)
Gibson – The ecological approach to visual perception (book)

In progress;
Pan, Bingham & Bingham – Embodied memory: Effective and stable perception… (article)
Holmes & Heath – Goal-directed grasping: The dimensional properties of an object… (article)
Mann, Dicks, Cañal-Bruland & van der Kamp – Neurophysiological studies may provide… (article)
Gray, Sims, Fu & Schoelles – The soft constraints hypothesis: A rational analysis approach… (article)
Hayhoe & Ballard – Eye movements in natural behavior (article)
Hayhoe – Vision using routines: A functional account of vision (article)

Russel and Norvig 1995   (article)
Pfeifer and Scheier 1991   (article)
Pfeifer and Scheier 1999   (article)
O’Regan and Noë 2001   (article)
McFarland and Bisser 1993   (article)
Monteliore and Noble 1989   (article)
Thompson 1996   (article)
Bird and Layzell 2002   (article)
Schelling 1969   (article)
Epstein and Axtell 1996 (article)
Bo{r/v}et & Pfeifer 2005   (article)
Bartlett 1932   (article)
Ashby 1956   (article)
Freeman 1991   (article)
Clancy 1997   (article)
Neath and Suprenant 2003 (article)
Dewey, ?. (1896). ?   (article)
Titchener, ?. (1895). ?   (article)
Kahneman and Tversky, 1996   (article)
Gilovich, Griffin and Kahneman, 2002,   (article)
Tversky and Kahneman, 1986   (article)
Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972   (article)
Thriver 2002   (article)
Cosmides 1989   (article)
Wundt 1912, 1973   (article)
Shaffer and McBeath, 2002   (article)
Fillenbaum, 1977   (article)
Sweetser 1990   (article)
Sher and McKenzie, 2006   (article)
Shaffer et.al., 2004   (article)
Fodor and Pylyshyn   (article)
Chomsky   (article)
Kuhn 1962   (article)
Feyerabend 1963, 1965   (article)
Titchener, 1895   (article)
Titchener and Lange   (article)
Dewey, 1896   (article)
Fodor, 1981   (article)
Gibson, 1979   (article)
Barwise and Perry, 1981, 1983   (article)
Brooks (1991, 1999)   (article)
Clark (2001)   (article)
Thelen and Smith, 1994   (article)
Thelen 1995   (article)
Kirsh and Maglio 1994   (article)
Clark 1997   (article)
Adams and Aizawa (2008)   (article)
Beer 2003   (article)
van Rooii, Bongers & Haselages (2002)   (article)
Markman and Dietrich 2000a   (article)
Markman and Dietrich 2000b   (article)
Dietrich and Markman 2003   (article)
Grush, 1997,   (article)
Grush, 2004,   (article)
Turvey et.al., 1981   (article)
Michaels and Carello, 1981,   (article)
Heft 1989   (article)
Heft 2001   (article)
Turvey 1992   (article)
Michaels 2000   (article)
Read 1996   (article)
Dennett 1998   (article)
Cosmelli, Lachaux and Thompson 2007   (article)
Thompson and Varela 2001   (article)
Bickle, 2003,   (article)
Churchland, Neurophilosophy, (book)
Thelen and Smith 1994 (article)
Pfeifer and Scheier 1999 (article)
Edelman 1987 (article)
Searle 1980 (article)
Schwanen and Plugel 1991 (article)
Barsalou 1999 (article)
Glenberg 1997 (article)
van Orden, Holden and Turvey 2005 (article)
Montessori 1967 (article)

Only read articles available on Mendeley. Books available on loan, from me, if you fancy a visit to Lund, Sweden, otherwise they’re available in bookstores online.

Exploding boxes and affordances

If I have understood this correctly, there is an issue with two boxes being identical but only one having a specific affordance -in this case being “pick-up-able” or “touch-able”. Both boxes, to us, are perceived to have the affordance but this is not the case. Therefore, we can’t rely on perception to decide which affordances are available to us.

I am not sure this makes sense. The central point of the masses of words beneath is, does it not assume us to be constant naive explorers of the world? And is this a fair assumption? (Now you don’t have to read all the details, you’re welcome.)

It strikes me however that, the consequence of trying to explore a possible affordance, gives information on which affordances are available to us. Because we are explorers/seekers, we navigate our environment and find out what is, and isn’t. We rely on perception to do so. Is ice walk-on-able? Sometimes. How do we go about finding out? We poke the ice infront of us with a stick, indirectly finding out if the ice is walk-on-able. So we use secondary mechanisms to find out if something has an affordance, if it is not directly perceptible to us, but this relies on that we have seen evidence of it not being able to be relied on by direct perception of our environment. The assumption in the issue may be that we are constant naive explorers, which we aren’t.

Is it not true that both boxes still persist in holding the affordance, only that, in one case we end up exploded and the other we don’t? A big enough box provides the affordance of sitting, regardless of what the consequence of sitting on it is?

It seems to me that this is a classic case of philosophy of mind issues -where we can’t rely on direct perception to perceive what is “actually out there”. For all its worth, if we are to be assumed to be naive explorers, I posit that we will always sit on the exploding chair, touch the exploding box, walk on what is perceived as a solid and rigid surface and so on -because the visual properties, surface and rigidity and so on, lend us to perceive the existence of such an affordance.

So it depends on reliance then. If we rely solely on direct perception (making us constant naive explorers) then objects retain their perceived affordances, regardless of which affordances actually are available to us. If two objects are identical in all perceptible ways, then we can not rely on direct perception to know which affordances are available to us. However. We are not constant naive explorers. We see others interact with objects, get burned on stoves that look like they are turned off. So what do we do? We quickly touch the stove, or look at the knob or hold our hand above the stove.

As for objects, without the involvement of interaction with other things, it is my view that they retain, many, finite number of affordances. These affordances will be available to other objects, but not all affordances to all other objects. Which ones are, will only be realised when another thing, with its own affordances, interact with it, perceive it. With this said, affordances are not the actual relationship between things, it is the fit between one objects affordance and another objects affordance. If they are compatible, then to the specific object, the other object has the specific affordance. They form a relationship, but importantly, both have their affordances retained in the non-presence of each other, if, the affordances are available when interacting with each other.

Example, the structure of DNA contains four characters, only A can bind to B but not C and D and vice versa, in A and Bs absence of each other they both retain the affordance of being able to bind to one other and they both do not have the affordance of binding to C and D. In A and Bs presence of each other they can bind to each other, and thereby realise both of their affordances. In essence, they retain their separate affordances in absence because they can be realised in presence.

No wonder social relationships are so damn important evolutionarily, seeing others being blown up by boxes would surely rule out to me going near any box even similar in visual makeup to the one that exploded!

Ugh.. always feel I lack knowledge when I finish a thought. Either way, these are thoughts associated to http://theboundsofcognition.blogspot.se/2011/01/s-does-not-visually-perceive-pick-up.html and http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.se/2011/02/fcking-affordances-how-do-they-work.html

More responses, this time Daniel Simons/Dave Nussbaum

Daniel Simons
“The expectancy effects study is rhetorically powerful but proves little. In their Experiment 1, Doyen et al. tested the same hypothesis about priming stereotypes that Bargh tested. But in Experiment 2, Doyen et al. tested a hypothesis about experimenter expectancies. That is a completely different hypothesis. The second study tells us that experimenter expectancies can affect walking speed. But walking speed surely can be affected by more than one thing. So Experiment 2 does not tell us to what extent, if any at all, differences in walking speed were caused by experimenter expectancies in Bargh’s experiment (or for that matter, anywhere else in the natural world outside of Doyen’s lab). This is the inferential error of confusing causes of effects with effects of causes. Imagine that Doyen et al. had clubbed the subjects in the elderly-prime condition in the knee; most likely that would have slowed them down. But would we take that as evidence that Bargh et al. had done the same?”

I was waiting for this to be said. Thank you, sir.

“The inclusion of Experiment 2 served a strong rhetorical function, by planting in the audience’s mind the idea that the difference between Bargh vs Doyen Exp 1 was due to expectancy effects (and Ed Yong picked up and ran with this suggestion by referring to Clever Hans). But scientifically, all it shows is that expectancy effects can influence the dependent variable in the Bargh experiment. That’s not nothing, but anybody who already believes that experiments need to be double-blind should have seen that coming. If we had documentary evidence that in the actual 1996 studies Bargh et al. did not actually eliminate expectancy effects, that would be relevant. (We likely never will have such evidence; see next point.) But Experiment 2 does not shed nearly as much light as it appears to”

Which was an idea popularised by Ed Yong. Nevertheless, it is a free-standing experiment including assumptions that were not present in Bargh’s study.

“That is, just because the original study could reject the null and the replication could not, that doesn’t mean that the replication is significantly different from the original study. If you are going to say you failed to replicate the original result, you should conduct a test of that difference.

As far as I can tell neither Doyen et al. nor Pashler et al. did that. So I did. I converted each study’s effect to an r effect size and then comparing the studies with a z test of the difference between independent rs, and indeed Doyen et al. and Pashler et al. each differed from Bargh’s original experiments. So this doesn’t alter the present discussion. But as good practice, the replication reports should have reported such tests.”

Again an insightful view of current events.

Dave Nussbaum contributes greatly to the understanding of conceptual and direct replication and the importance of these concepts. It also comes closer to my own opinion on why the Perception-Behaviour Link-experiments would be hard to ‘replicate’.

It is motivating to see the discourse focuses more and more on underlying issues rather than the symptoms. I am inclined to, still, believe that the controversy surrounding the specific Bargh study has to do with the underlying theory. I am however leaving that in my literature review, time to focus on the presentation of it instead ^^.

Bargh, Doyen and conclusions thereof.

I have just witnessed an interesting phenomenon.

I am concurrently to writing this blog-post, writing a literature review on priming and the Perception-Behaviour Link*. Another paper whom closely replicated the findings of Bargh et al. (1996)*, Doyen et al. (2012)**, were unable to replicate findings as well as provide an interesting demonstration of experimenter expectation. It is however presumptious to assume that the original literature* then also is explained by this bias. The reason is given in a reply by Bargh*** to the Doyen study, basically stating that the experiment was run as a blind study and so experimenter expectation can be safely ruled out. While Bargh’s reply unfortunately contains personal attacks and evidence towards being technologically unwilling, he is defended by others in that his experiment _has_ been replicated successfully and that one study cannot refute several made on the same topic. The studies given (by others than Bargh -he did not give any studies as support in his criticism) as support for this claim are these; Elderly prime effect on simulated driving speed, Gay male prime effect on hostility, elderly or youth prime effect on walking time and accessibility as precursor to goal-fulfilment and high vs. low self-conscious difference in being primed by an elderly stereotype on walking speed (xps 2 & 3). I have reviewed one of these in my literature review and it is at best a conceptual replication with several issues in methodology and statistical interpretation (specifics available on request).

In my book, it is not enough to conceptually replicate, since one is then stuck with reviewing another piece of research with its own flaws and fallacies. Granted, Doyen comes close to replicating but did differ on the point of blind experimenters (it was one of the manipulations in Doyen). The assumption was that Bargh’s work was non-blind (something I came to the conclusion of as well, although I’ve read the paper a gazillion times). This was not the case, and hence, it is also a conceptual replication. What _is_ interesting with the Doyen study is that it still supports the PBL, albeit unintentionally. The most important statistic presented is the believe-slow-walking speed comparison between automatic and manual measurement. Believe-fast-walking’s significant difference was removed when considering both automatic and manual, not so for believe-slow. A last alternative for this significant difference is then experimenter expectation. The thing is though, experimenter expectation is also an environmental stimuli that is unconsciously internalised and evidently had an effect on observable behaviour! Well, this is what the Preception-Behaviour Link strictly posits.

Again, it is a bit of a shame that many of the arguments Bargh uses in his criticism of the Doyen study are arbitrary, unsupported and, on occasion, false in light of other research (even some from the area of priming)****. It does however not reflect on his prior research. In conclusion, Doyen does not specifically cut Bargh’s research down, but rather, introduces another concept able to be accounted for within the Perception-Behaviour Link’s framework.

On a second note, if you have unpublished research on the replication of Bargh et al.’s 1996 study, I would very much like to read it. I believe it is of central importance to be open-minded to one’s own fallacies and others’ criticism (even if I very much like the Perception-Behaviour Link theory), the only way is forward and it is only obstructed when self-preserving opinions and values are set before empirical research.

*Bargh, J.A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behaviour: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 230-244.
**Doyen, S., Klein, O., Pichon, C., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). Behavioural priming: It’s all in the mind, but whose mind? doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029081
***Bargh, J.A. (2012, March 5). The natural unconscious: Nothing in their heads. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-natural-unconscious/201203/nothing-in-their-heads.´
****See comment section of Bargh’s blog post, specifically the one referring to Assimilation and Contrasting (which is found in Dijksterhuis, A., Spears, R., Postmes, T., Stapel, D.A., van Knippenberg, A., & Scheepers, D. (1998). Seeing one thing and doing another: Contrast effects in automatic behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 862-871.)