SpiritDogs: “[Dogs] are interested
in procuring resources, which, loosely translated, means things that they
want. If they want to smell a scent and they get to do it by pulling the
human over in that direction, they've been reinforced, and are likely to repeat
that behavior when they want to smell something interesting. I think the
way they form attachments to things in the environment is that they experience
good results. … I tend to doubt the pre-sexual theory, though. Freud was
the king of anecdote and speculation compared to today's knowledge base - he
thought that schizophrenia was due to some narcissistic disorder, and we now
know that it is an organic brain dysfunction, evidence of which we can see on
brain scans.”
Freud was a neuroscientist before he
invented his form of psychotherapy. And he was the first to admit that certain
of his ideas would either be proven or disproven by future advances in our
scientific understanding of the brain. As for being the “king” of anecdote, in
all my readings of Freud (which at this point, are just beginning), every time
he relates a story or case history (i.e., anecdote), he’s quick to point out
that “No certain decision can be made from a single case.” However, it’s his
careful analysis, from the perspective not only of his limited understanding of
neuroscience, but from the view of evolution and thermodynamics as well, that
is (usually) quite brilliant.
With all that said, I still find
some Freudian concepts, the Oedipus complex, for one, hard to swallow. (But
since it doesn't relate to canine behavior in any way, it doesn't really bother
me.)
It’s funny that you should mention
brain scans, because Freud’s ideas have been getting a big re-birth recently,
thanks primarily to MRI studies showing that some key psychoanalytic concepts
have a basis in the neuroanatomy of the brain.
One of the first studies was Roy
Baumeister’s, “Ego-Depletion:
Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?” In it Baumeister et all write the
"...theory that volition is one of the self's crucial functions can be
traced back at least to Freud (1923/ 1961a, 1933/1961b), who described the ego
as the part of the psyche that must deal with the reality of the external world
by mediating between conflicting inner and outer pressures. ... Freud also
seems to have believed that the ego needed to use some energy in making such a
decision. ... [and] he recognized the conceptual value of postulating that the
ego operated on an energy model."
Another
study, done on dogs, probably inspired by the Baumeister study,
shows that dogs exhibit “ego depletion” as well.
In April, 2010, two scientists at
Oxford published a paper, “The default mode,
ego-functions and free energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas.”
It posits that Freud's view of how the Ego (the conscious mind) is designed to
monitor and, if necessary, suppress impulses coming from the Id (that is the
more archaic parts of the mind, or the "unconscious";), is, in fact,
grounded in actual physical brain structures, as well as the types of brain
waves that different parts of the brain, such as the limbic system (which
controls emotion) and the pre-frontal cortex (the seat of executive function)
use as part of their operating systems. They write, "Freudian concepts may
have a real neurobiological substrates [that] could be usefully revisited in
the context of modern neuroscience." They go on to say that new advances
"allow us to recast Freudian ideas in a mechanistic and biologically
informed fashion."
As for your explanation (and
Corvus’), that dogs are interested in seeking out resources, and that the
pulling behavior is reinforced, that tells me: a) you haven’t read my article
very carefully, and b) you’re imputing a human-like thought process onto the
behavior.
True, you’ve camouflaged it a bit by
defining a resource as something the dog wants, but that still pre-supposes
that the pulling – or, indeed, as Jaak Panksepp (who was initially an
evolutionary psychiatrist, by the way), would call it, the “seeking” – behavior
is part of a linear thought process rather than a simpler biological impulse: a
drive to connect.
Going back to the “pre-sexual”
aspect of my article, it’s clear to me that Freud was right in saying that
“Even though it is certain that sexuality and the distinction between the sexes
did not exist when life [on earth] began, the possibility remains that the
instincts which were later to be described as sexual may have been in operation
from the very first." As I put it: “Atoms need to connect to one another
in order to form molecules. Molecules form connections so as to evolve into
living organisms. Living organisms are vitally driven to connect to sources of
energy: air, water, sunlight, food, etc. The human body and brain operate
together through myriads of connections: we couldn't sustain life without them.
It makes sense that the body's connectors and connectees would need to have
some form of [energetic] attraction to one another in order to ‘hook up.’”
I also make a very clear comparison
between the “non-realness” of my hypothetical drive to connect and the
“non-realness” of positive reinforcement (and +R is just a clinical outgrowth
of Freud’s pleasure principle, by the way). If my argument is correct, it means
that any argument for +R and against the idea of the pre-sexual drive to connect is more a
matter of personal choice than of science.
I wrote: “The truth is, positive
reinforcements are not actual, physical objects any more than my hypothetical
drive to connect is. They're more akin to a function of statistics, measured
solely in terms of a behavior's response strength. We can only know if a
tangible object, such as a toy or liver treat, might or might not have
provided the mechanism for reinforcement by interpreting the resultant behavior
after the fact, through a +R lens. Since it's also possible to interpret any
behavior through the opposite lens6, behavioral science loses credibility in
this regard. Then, once you add the necessity for determining what kind of
reinforcement schedule was at play (and there are far too many to list here)7,
it simply boggles the mind how anyone can say they know with any certainty,
other than as a pure leap of faith, that any behavior of any kind has been
reinforced, or what the mechanism of reinforcement actually was.”
If you haven’t read the footnotes of
my article, I actually agree with the idea that the pulling behavior is being
positively reinforced, with a caveat: “9) With all that said, I would actually
agree that when a dog pulls, his behavior is being reinforced, but that the
reinforcement comes from the pleasure the dog feels when he's cathecting his
pent-up energy onto objects of attraction. This explanation is actually much
simpler, far less abstract, and doesn't rely on statistics or arcane mental
manipulanda. Plus the solution is much simpler too: provide the dog with a
stronger feeling of pleasure (i.e., a stronger cathexis) by playing with him,
on his level, and the pulling behavior will begin to diminish in strength, and
may eventually stop on its own. Meanwhile it's hard for a dog to form a
cathexis with clicker, or with someone who's dominating him.”
Click below for more on why I think
Freud is more relevant than Skinner or Pavlov.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201003/sigmund-freud-and-the-art-dog-training-part-i
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201004/sigmund-freud-and-the-art-dog-training-part-ii
LCK