Private Events and Memory: A Behaviorist Perspective

Intro to Private Events

Private events are internal events that occur within the skin, perceived by the individual but not directly observable by others. Examples include memory, thinking, feelings, creativity, insight, reasoning, and self-control.

Methodological Behaviorism (Thorndike, Watson)

Early behaviorists, known as methodological behaviorists, considered private events subjective and therefore beyond scientific study. They largely ignored these internal phenomena.

Contrasting Views

Traditional psychological theories often attribute behavior to internal events (e.g., "I hit someone because I'm angry."). Anger, in this view, is seen as the cause of hitting.

Radical Behaviorism (B.F. Skinner)

Radical behaviorism, the basis of this course, takes a different approach:

  • The skin is viewed as an arbitrary boundary.

  • Behaviors within the skin (private events) are not fundamentally different from observable behaviors.

  • The same mechanisms that control observable behavior also control private events.

  • Radical behaviorists reject the notion that private events cause behavior; instead, they view them as behaviors to be explained.

The Problem with Mentalistic Explanations

Radical behaviorists challenge explanations like:

  • "I eat because I am hungry."

  • "I eat too much because I am impulsive."

  • "I hit someone because I am angry."

  • "I cry because I am sad."

These explanations are considered inadequate because they use one behavior to explain another without identifying the ultimate cause.

Example: "I Hit Someone Because I Am Angry"

Consider the statement, "I shouted and stamped my feet because I'm angry." While it may seem reasonable to attribute shouting and stamping to anger, a behaviorist perspective digs deeper.

Anger, stamping feet, and shouting are all behaviors resulting from a prior event. To address these behaviors, we must examine past events to find the actual cause. Attributing them solely to anger is like saying stamping causes shouting, which doesn't make sense.

Ultimate Causes of Behavior

Radical behaviorism identifies the ultimate causes of all behavior, both internal and external, as products of past events. These causes can be:

  • Phylogenetic (evolutionary): Behaviors selected through human evolution.

  • Genetic or individual: Resulting from an individual's experience with the environment over time.

Radical Perspective: Why Are You Going to McDonald's?

Consider someone going to McDonald's. Explanations can include:

  • Phylogenetic: Human physiology requires salt, sugar, etc.

  • Past reinforcement: The behavior of going to McDonald's has provided food in the past.

  • Stimulus control: Eating may be under stimulus control if it's a particular time of day that you usually eat food during.

  • Response Costs: Little delay to get food. It's not that expensive.

Importantly, internal events like hunger or lack of willpower aren't cited as causes.

Philosophical Approach

The behavioral approach seeks to understand the environmental and historical factors that contribute to behavior, rather than attributing behavior to internal states or traits.

Memory as a Private Event

We will now look at memory from a behavioral perspective. Memory, typically considered an internal process, will be examined through the lens of behaviorism.

What is Memory?

In its simplest form, memory is the ability to make a correct response after a period has elapsed since being exposed to the stimulus that sets the occasion for the response. Or described as discrimination after a delay.

Behavioral researchers focus on memory as an activity, a verb (remembering) rather than a thing. This helps to avoid the pitfall of viewing memory as a causal agent.

Encoding and Retrieving

Instead of talking about memory as a thing, it can be better to think of it as the behavior of remembering. This eliminates it from being a object, to an action that someone does. To remember you need to do encoding as well.

Instead of purely looking at memory we can study the behavior of "remembering".

Studying Remembering

To study remembering from a behavioral perspective, two approaches are used:

  1. Remembering within the three-term contingency (Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence).

  2. Using animal models to study the basic processes of remembering.

Animal Models

Behaviorists use animal models to examine memory processes that may be generalizable across species. The goal is to determine if processes seen in humans also occur in other animals.

With humans there is a tendency to give them something to remember and then ask them to recall. With a similar approach we want to translate that same action for an animal.