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From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.psychology,comp.ai,comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior
Message-ID: <5959@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 28 Nov 88 20:16:38 GMT
References: <3978@charon.unm.edu> <1753@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 43

In article <1753@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> spam@clutx.clarkson.edu (Roger
Gonzalez) wrote:
>Could people please email me a list of neural "mechanisms" that
>are probably hard-wired into humans (or other critters).  I'm
>looking for things like pain, sexual/maternal(?) attraction,
>curiosity, urge to survive, etc. ... things that are not learned.
>I'm working in neural networks, and I'm basically looking at (for example)
>the future problem of a very unmotivated simu-beast.  I decided that
>I should probably give it curiosity for starters or something similar
>to make it want to explore.  Any help would be appreciated.

The best starting point in my opinion would be Skinnerian behaviorism.
The basic mechanisms of operant conditioning have been found in all
animals capable of emitting operants, and so are the closest thing we
know to a "hard-wired" basis of behavior.  Of course, it takes at least
one semester of graduate-level study to really understand operant
conditioning, so don't expect to be able to jump right in and start
coding.  Also remember that any simulation which does *not* obey the
rules of operant conditioning will not be an accurate simulation of an
animal.

On a related point that's been brought up in this discussion, I think
some people are getting confused on some developmental points.  The
fact that we can interrupt the development of a behavior does not mean
the behavior is purely learned.  The classic example involves the
kitten in a harness experiments; if kittens aren't allowed to wander,
but are kept in a harness through certain phases of development, then
they won't extend their paws when placed near a surface.  That doesn't
mean that the paw extension is learned, only that its development
depends on certain environmental factors present in the lives of all
healthy kittens in the wild.  The fact that it is present in all
healthy cats suggests that it is innate.

Nature vs. nurture is one of the oldest and least resolvable debates in
psychology.  Until we can actually decode genomes, which may well be
two centuries from now, we won't have any real way to tell whether the
average behavior is learned or innate.  Mother-bonding is innate, and
operant conditioning is innate.  That's about all we can say now.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Those who restrain desire, so so because theirs is weak enough to be
 restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the
 unwilling." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"