Category Archives: personality

Personality and Motivation

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Agreeableness by state
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I have blogged extensively about personality and how it may be related to emotions. A common theme underlying my discussion of personality and emotion has been these traits/states arising as a result of adaptation to basic evolutionary tasks or problems that each living organism/species has to solve. Where there are problems to be solved or tasks to be accomplished or goals to be achieved,  there is also going to be motivations and drive to achieve them and underlying needs that drive that pursuit. Thus motivation and Personality/ emotion are also intricately linked and associated when one uses the underlying basic adaptive problems paradigm.

In my last post I had mentioned that Personality can be discussed in just descriptive terms as in trait theories, the most famous of which is the five factor model of personality or one could look at the underlying processes and mechanism and come up with theories that are grounded in motivational or cognitive terms as to what actually drives the behavior in consistence with the observable traits and behaviors.

I have recently come across an important paper in my view which tried to bridge this gap by explaining the motivational systems (or reaction norms as they call it) underlying the five factor model of personality.

To recall, the five factor model or OCEAN model posits the following five factors:

  1. Neuroticism or sensitivity to negative affect
  2. Conscientiousness or ability to delay gratification and persist with task at hand
  3. Extraversion: propensity to socialize and be more outgoing
  4. Agreeableness: empathetic and cooperativeness
  5. Openness to Experience: Intellect and curiosity etc.

Now, I have elaborated or tried to explain the OCEAN  traits as per my understanding, but Dennissen and Penke looked at how prominent personality researchers have interpreted the traits to arrive at a common motivational framework that is grounded in theory and then they developed a scale in accordance with theory to measure  these motivational  reaction norms – the important difference from tradition FFM message scales being that all statements referred to underlying motivations/ propensities etc and did not refer to specific behaviors in specific situations.  They then subjected their scale to factor analysis that came with a five factor structure that was consistent with FFM and also had predictive validity of similar sorts. They thus conclude that their theoretical framework is on the right track.

There are of course problems with such can interpretation, but I found some of their motivational reaction norms pretty consistent with my basic adaptive problems and basic developmental life tasks paradigm, while some I could find were slightly different or more nuanced interpretations.

Looking at the original data set of 9 personalty researchers from where they derived this framework, some of these I could resolve to my satisfaction.

Neuroticism is interpreted as sensitivity to social rejection/exclusion. I have problems with this interpretation in that focuses too much on social dimension, while to me it is general sensitivity to threat/stress.  In their paper they do discuss this:

As can be seen in Table 1, almost all theorists link neuroticism to individual differences in affect regulation, conceptualizing this factor as differences in the ability to handle stress (Buss, 1991), facilitation of performance under pressure (Hogan, 1996), affect regulation (McAdams, 1992; van Lieshout, 2000), and affect intensity. These conceptualizations all regard neuroticism as the sensitivity of a domain-general system to respond to environmental threats. Various studies have also linked neuroticism to individual differences in general differential reactivity to negative events or stressors.
I like the above interpretation of Neuroticism as it is consistent with the adaptive problem of avoiding Foes. However, the authors  chose this interpretation over the above:

By comparison, other conceptualizations treat neuroticismas a trait that is especially activated in situations in which people’s social relationships are threatened. For example, Matthews (2004) pointed out that ‘‘individual differences in human anxiety revolve primarily around social fears such as being criticized or rejected, rather than physical threats” (p. 260, italics added). Support for this conceptualization comes from research by Bolger and colleagues (1989), who found that interpersonal stressors were more important in causing negative mood than non-social ones, such as transportation problems or work overload. Similarly, Denissen and Penke (in press) found that neuroticism was particularly correlated with the intensity of people’s negative reactions to social threats.

Conscientiousness did not have many interpretations:

All theorists listed in Table 1 agree that conscientiousness is involved in task-related behaviors. Speci?cally, McAdams (1992) conceptualizes this factor as involved in work-related behaviors, MacDonald (1995) as the monitoring of non-attainment of goals, van Lieshout (2000) as executive regulation in the performance domain, Ashton and Lee (2001) as the intensity of engagement in task-related behaviors, Buss (1991) as the capacity for reliable work and enduring commitment, and Hogan (1996) as trustworthiness and dependability. Holmes (2002) and Nettle (2006) are arguably most successful in capturing the positive aspects of both poles of the conscientiousness continuum by describing it as the promotion of immediate vs. distant goal striving. This conceptualization nicely maps onto lifespan-theoretical insights regarding individual differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit  (Brandtstädter,Wentura, & Rothermund, 1999). In the current paper, we adopt the view of these various authors that conscientiousness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit.

To me the goal pursuit tenacity bodes well for adaptive problem of finding Food or exploring.

Extraversion seems to have multiple interpretations, all to my eyes equally valid.:

In Table 1, three clusters of conceptualizations of extraversion emerge. First, van Lieshout (2000) conceptualizes this factor as re?ecting a person’s activation vs. inhibition of impulses, which is somewhat similar to MacDonald’s (1995, 1998) notion of extraversion as re?ecting individual differences in behavioral approach. Both views are consistent with Lucas, Diener, Grob, Suh, and Shao (2000), who hypothesized that extraversion is positively associated with the sensitivity of individuals’ reward system. Because these authors view positive affect as a proxy of the activity of the general reward system, this hypothesis can also account for the high correlations between extraversion and individual differences in positive affect (Watson & Clark, 1997), even when controlling for social activity (Watson, Clark, McIntyre, & Hamaker, 1992).
A second cluster of explanations of the extraversion factor is the notion that this trait is involved in people’s hierarchical proclivity (Buss, 1991), leadership potential (Hogan, 1996), or disposition to wield power (McAdams, 1992). In addition, the disposition for dominance vs. submission in accessing resources is one of the two social dimensions that can be mapped onto extraversion in Holmes’ (2002) model. However, a problem with this account is that differences in dominance seem to be confounded by differences in competitive resources such as physical prowess, mental ability, material wealth, and social alliances, which depend not only on extraversion but also on other personality factors, such as general problem-solving ability and persistence in reaching goals.
Third, extraversion has been linked to the motivational predisposition to experience social interactions as rewarding (Ashton & Lee, 2001; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Insofar as this predisposition motivates people to seek out the company of others, this view is consistent with Holmes’ (2002) second possible conceptualization of extraversion as tapping into people’s level of assertiveness vs. passivity in initiating social contacts. In an empirical study, Ashton, Lee, and Paunonen (2002) presented evidence for this position, showing that a ‘‘tendency to engage and enjoy social attention” (p. 246) correlates very highly (.74) with traditional extraversion measures. Ashton et al. (2002) reasoned that extraversion can be adaptive because it is correlated with people’s ‘‘social attention-holding power” (Gilbert, 1989), allowing for the exertion of group in?uence and the attraction of possible mates (Campbell, Simpson, Stewart, & Manning, 2003; Nettle, 2005, 2006). In the current paper, we take this latter explanation as a plausible conceptualization of extraversion, though other explanations (e.g., as differences in general reward sensitivity) might also be consistent with the empirical evidence.

I am most sympathetic to second and third interpretations as they directly relate to the problem of Making Friends and Alliances.

Agreeableness is interpreted in two ways:

In Table 1, two clusters of conceptual interpretations for agreeableness can be discerned (the conceptualization by Ashton & Lee, 2001, is directed at a rotational variant of this factor and will not be considered here). First of all, several theorists regard agreeableness as fostering intimate relationships, conceptualizing it as enjoyment of other people’s company (Hogan, 1996), facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment (MacDonald, 1995), or dispositional love (McAdams, 1992). This conceptualization is consistent with the hypothesized social nature of personality traits. However, Hogan’s (1996) notion of enjoyment of other people’s company is dif?cult to differentiate from sociability, a key feature of extraversion. In addition, MacDonald’s (1995) emphasis on the facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment is not consistent with ?ndings by Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, and Hair (1996) that the effects of agreeableness on reactions to interpersonal con?ict with non-kin individuals do not consistently differ from reactions to con?icts with kin.
A second cluster of conceptualizations of agreeableness focuses on this factor’s role in human cooperative behavior, with Buss (1991) relating it to people’s willingness to cooperate, Holmes (2002) to acting cooperative vs. competitive, Nettle (2006) to empathy and trust vs. self-interest, and van Lieshout (2000) to the coordination vs. opposition of joint interests. This conceptualization is consistent with game-theoretical research on reputations of cooperation vs. competition in resource dilemma’s (Rasmusen, 2006) and with research by van Lange and colleagues (van Lange, 1999; van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997) regarding the existence of individual differences in social value orientation. Finally, Koole, Jager, van den Berg, Vlek, and Hofstee (2001) showed that agreeableness is related to altruistic behavior when playing a variant of the public goods game. Consistent with this evidence, we propose that agreeableness can be plausibly conceptualized as individual differences in this tendency to display altruistic behavior.

To me the first interpretation of empathy and prenatal investment and intimate family relations is consistent with the adaptive problems of having and caring for Kids. The second interpretation of altruistic behavior and cooperativenes is equally acceptable as presumably this builds on primitive kin-non-kin concerns and parental investment propensities.

The last factor Openness to Experience I have elsewhere reinterpreted as conformity/rebelliousness. The authors find following interpretations:

As can be seen in Table 1, several clusters of conceptualizations exist for the openness to experience factor. All conceptualizations converge in their conceptualization of this trait as involving a high level of cognitive activity, as indicated by having a broad, deep, and permeable consciousness (McCrae & Costa, 1997), a high propensity for innovation and solving problems (Buss, 1991; Hogan, 1996), engagement in the intellectual and creative domain (McAdams & Pals, 2006; Nettle, 2006; van Lieshout, 2000), processing incomplete information (Holmes, 2002), and intrinsically motivated curiosity facilitating the development of cognitive competence (MacDonald, 1995). In trying to make sense of this factor, however, openness should be distinguished from psychometric intelligence, which is correlated with openness but not identical to it (McCrae & Costa, 1987; also see Penke et al., 2007a).
A parallel distinction was made by Ackerman (1996), who noted the difference between maximum and typical levels of intelligence: whereas the former is identical to operationalizations of psychometric intelligence, the latter has been shown to correlate very highly with openness to experience (Goff & Ackerman, 1992). This conceptualization is almost identical to Cacioppo and colleagues’ (1996) construct of need for cognition, which they de?ned as ‘‘a stable individual difference in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity” (p. 198). Empirically, this view is supported by Berzonsky and Sullivan (1992), who found a correlation of .78 between need for cognition and the NEO-PI-R openness to ideas scale (though the correlation with other openness facets was lower). Accordingly, we propose that openness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the reward value of engaging in cognitive activity.

The need for cognition may be driven by the evolutionary task of identifying kin from non-kin.
To me this looks promising and in the expected direction. I’ll be watching research from this group more keenly henceforth and keep you guys posted.

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DENISSEN, J., & PENKE, L. (2008). Motivational individual reaction norms underlying the Five-Factor model of personality: First steps towards a theory-based conceptual framework Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (5), 1285-1302 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.002

Personality and Behavioural Ecology

ResearchBlogging.org

Behaving at the library [07/05/07 033]
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I am an avid personality researcher and most recently have posted a series on personality and emotion. I have also talked a bit about life-history theories and thus am aware of  the broad filed of behavioral ecology. A recent paper by Nettle and Penke brings the two fields of human personality psychology research (HPP) and behavioral ecology (BE) together.

They argue that there is much that the HPP researchers can learn from BE researchers especially where it comes to measuring behaviors and situations.

In this review they focus on 5 broad areas and approaches within the HPP and I was reminded of my ABCD model of psychology whereby A stands for Affective or evolutionarily guided explanations/ phenomenon; B stands for behavioral ot situational guided phenomenon; C  stands for Cognitive or information-processing phenomenon, while D stands for dynamics or motivational salient phenomenon.

The five areas they focus on is

1) Descriptive five factor or other trait based models : these focus on describing the enduring personality characteristics that are common across situations and are best though of as behavior reaction norms when one takes into account the BE literature too.  This is clearly related to the B in ABCD with the focus being on describing common behaviors that can be subsumed under traits.

2) Proximate mechanisms: here research is focused on identifying the underlying motivational/cognitive underpinnings of behavior and  is the ‘personality process’ paradigm within HPP. They point to recent research that has tried to relate the five factor model to underlying differences in cognition/motivation for ex Agreeableness as a result of differences in availability of theory-of mind ability.  thisis clearly C or D as per ABCD model.

3) Genetic and environmental etiology: Behavior genetic research trying to nail down genetic and environmental effects and failing to take into account Gene X environment interactions.  This clearly is developmentally oriented dynamics and falls under D of ABCD.

4) Fitness consequences: anew generation of personality psychologists have started focusing on evolutionary explanations and the ultimate explanations of why such and such traits exist. this research is in A part of ABCD  focusing on evolutionarily guided explanations/phenomenon.

5) Comparative personality research: Looking for continuity in personality traits and underlying mechanisms like genes, across species.

Nettle and Penke argue that there is much that BE can inform HPP with regards to definitions of traits, the factor analytic method based on ratings and the importance of traits for long term life outcomes. This is  a good paper worth reading for psychologists studying personality.

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Nettle, D., & Penke, L. (2010). Personality: bridging the literatures from human psychology and behavioural ecology Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365 (1560), 4043-4050 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0061

emotion and personality: take 5

Scared child
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I started the emotion and personality series with a focus on the eight stage model and how that informs us about both personality and emotions. I ended up changing tracks and pursuing Millon’s evolutionary stages and polarities and extending it to the ABCD of four broad psychological domains. Avid readers will notice that both my eight stage model and the Millon’s stages/polarities are based on evolutionary considerations and thus there should be neat synthesis involving the two. this post is an attempt to do so under the framework of the four basic domains of psychology : the ABCD model of psychology.

To recap: all psychology basically can be broken into study of :

  1. Affects or emotions
  2. Behaviors or  social factors
  3. Dynamics or drives and motivations and
  4. Cognition or learning, memory etc.

There have been paradigms in psychology like affective psychology, behaviorism, psychodynamcis and cognitive psychology that have focused on one domain more than the other. One can even extrapolate the diffrent approaches and discplines that are releavnt to each domain as below:

  1. Affect/emotions: Evolutionary explanations as most emotions are evolved mechanisms. Biological context is relevant. Genes drive this.
  2. Behaviors/social functioning: Social/situational explanations dependent on interactions with other people/cultural effects. Cultural context is more relevant. Environment drives this.
  3. Dynamics/ drives/motivations: Developmental explanations of how life course and needs/drives interact. Ecological context is instrumental. Environment chooses genes here and only certain phenotypes expressed.
  4. Cognition: economic/information-processing explanations that explain decisions, perceptions etc. Constructed and created context is important here. Niches are build and genes choose environment.

The Affect and Dynamics can be clubbed together as Evo-devo explanations and refer to subjective phenomenon;  while the Behavior and Cognition can be clubbed together as Socio-Economic explanations and refer to objective observable phenomenons. But anyway this is digressing a bit from the main topic.

Getting back to topic at hand, the four domains correspond to the four evolutionary stages of millon and each stage has two polarities and thus map to eight stage model as follows:

  1. Affect maps to problem of Existence and the polarity of pain and  pleasure mapped respectively to say the  ‘FEAR’ and ‘SEEKING’ system of Pankseep. These (the panksepp emotions systems)  I have previously shown how they are mapped to the eights stage model.
  2. Behavior maps to the problem of Adaptation and the polarity of Active and Passive mapped respectively to the ‘RAGE’ and ‘PANIC’ systems of panksepp.
  3. Dynamics/Drive maps to the problem of Replication and the Polarities of Self and Other mapped respectively to ‘LUST’ and ‘CARE’ of Panksepp.
  4. Cognition maps to the problem of abstraction and the polarities of Broad/creative versus narrow/rigid and maps respectively to ‘PLAY’ and ‘SELF’ systems of Panksepp.

Seen form this angle, the eight stages are just the eight polarities manifesting one after the other in the developmental course.

Extending Millon’s evolutionary considerations,it behooves to remember that another way to look at his problems is to view the change sin phylogeny, ontogeny , function (ultimate) and causation (proximate) of any trait.

Phylogeny is dependent on historical environment and leads to the trait having its ultimate thematic value. This I argue is the problem of existence (of trait/individual) and manifests as the domain of Affect.

But a trait with a fixed value would be of no use. Around the ultimate thematic value there will be ultimate variation that charts the possible functional map of what that feature is supposed to do. The abstracted ancestral environment (EEA) is teh context in which function evolves. This is the problem of abstraction and manifests as domain of cognition,.

Apart form the ultimate thematic value, one needs to tune that value to the immediate ecological and developmental context.  Ontogeny is dependent on such an ecological context and is a proximate thematic mechanism that leads to a particular stable thematic value of a trait. This is also the problem of Replication (r-K)  and manifest as Dynamics.

However, even a fixed proximate thematic value of trait will be useless as situations keep changing. Causation is responding to immediate environment in appropriate and adaptive manner. This is the problem of adaptation and manifests as domain of behavior.

I can relate the above to Aristotle’s four causes, but will leave that for another day; time now to wrap up the personality part. Emotions we have seen can be easily subsumed under the ABCD domains of psychology. As Pankspess model has been related to cloninger personality traits, I’ll leave the case rested that personality can also be adequately explained using the ABCD construct.

Before signing off, I’ll hastily note that to me, these ABCD domains map to underlying neurotransmitter systems:

Affect (pain/pleasure/’FEAR’/’SEEKING”) is associated with Noradrenaline system (NE). the role of ?NE in FEAR is clear, but for SEEKING DA also seems to play a role.

Behavior(active/passive/’RAGE’/’PANIC’)  is associated with Serotonin system (SE). The relationship of Serotonin with aggression and separation distress as well as behavioral manifestations like eating/sleeping cycle are well known. Known abnormalities in SE also cause OCD/Panic attack etc. Known abnormalities lead to fatigue, lethargy etc.

Dynamics (self/other/LUST/CARE)  is associated with Dopamine (DA). Known abnormalities in DA cause motivational obscurity like paranoia/psychosis.

Cognition (creative/rigid/’PLAY'”/SELF) is asscoited with Acetylcholine (ACh) and known abnormalities in ACh here lead to Alzheimer etc.

That shall be all for now.

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Personality and emotion: take 4

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Illustration of spacetime curvature.
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I’ve written about the relation between personality and emotion from my perspective, but was gladdened when I found Scherer has written on the matter in a very eloquent and apt manner. To quote from him and Revelle:

Personality is the coherent patterning of affect, behavior, cognition, and desires (goals) over time and space. Just as a full blown emotion represents an integration of feeling, action, appraisal and wants at a particular time and location so does personality represent integration over time and space of these components (Ortony et al., 2005). A helpful analogy is to consider that personality is to emotion as climate is to weather. That is, what one expects is personality, what one observes at any particular moment is emotion.

It is important to note that personality/emotion definition has been expanded to include cognition as well as affect; behavior as well as motivation (desires). Traditionally emotions are seen as affective (feeling) in nature but we know that emotional states have different cognitive underpinnings and can affect cognition in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Similarly though emotions may be more closely related to motivational issues (desires etc) they are also manifested in overt behavioral tendencies. some are energizing while others are calming/soothing.

In one of the last emotion/personality post , I referred to the dimensional emotional model of PAD (Pleasure-Arousal-dominance) as proposed by Meherbain. It is apt to note here that pleasure (pleasantness/unpleasantness) dimension is very much related to affect i.e. subjective feeling or how the emotion is subjectively felt. Also Arousal (Ready/Relaxed) is construct very much related to behavior or action tendencies. Some emotions lead to more vigorous, ready and active engagement with the environment as compared to others wherein one may be relaxed. Similarly Dominance (control/lack of control) is a motivational emotional dimension reflecting whether one wants to control and be in control or be dominated/ lose control in a particular situation.

That leaves us with cognition/appraisals dimension of emotions, but before we get onto that let us revisit the four evolutionary stages of Millon and how opposites on each stage lead to personality variations and disorders. The parallel with emotions will be self-evident.

The first stage is that of Existence and the polarity is of pain/pleasure: again an affective dimension/stage. Stability or life-preservation is coded by predominant disposition towards avoiding feelings of pain- a pain sensitive phenotype; Enhancing or life-enhancement is coded by predominant disposition towards felling pleasure a pleasure sensitive phenotype.

The second stage is that of Adaptation and the polarity is of active-passive: again a behaviorally defined dimension/stage. Modifying the environment to suit ones need is an active strategy, while passively accommodating to environmental niches is the passive strategy. both are defined behaviorally and the actual actions/behavioral tendencies define the personality type.

The third stage of Millon is that of Replication and the polarities are that of Self and Other: this is particularly a motivational dimension…whether one is motivated by selfishness and focus on oneself or by concern for others and selflessness too. There is polarity and tension between self-actualization tendencies and wants and other-nurturing motivational disposition. If focus is on self one would tend to dominate others, if focus is on others one would be willing to become vulnerable and submissive.

The fourth stage of Millon, that he does not relate to personality, but which I find integral to my theory is that of Abstraction and the polarity of information gathering versus information selection/transformation. I call the polarity Broad Versus Narrow and it is reflected in whether one is creative or is rigid and inflexible in thinking, , but the important point to note is that a cognitive dimension has been added to personality at the fourth stage.

Which brings us back to the (missing) cognitive dimension of emotions. I would have gladly taken the credit of discovering/proposing such a cognitive dimension, but it seems I was beaten to the game by Fontaine et al who made the bold statement :“The World of Emotions Is Not Two-Dimensional”.

As per Fonatine/ scherer et al’s analysis, using 144 features (like (a) appraisals of events, (b) psychophysiological changes, (c) motor expressions, (d) action tendencies, (e) subjective experiences, and (f) emotion regulation.) characterizing the 24 prototypical emotion terms, they found that emotions must be specified by at least four dimensions:these dimensions were evaluation-pleasantness, potency-control, activation-arousal, and unpredictability.

Note that the first three dimensions are similar to PAD while the fourth dimension is cognitive(appraisal) in nature- predictability vs unpredictability or certainty vs uncertainty in the appraisal of the situation. this ca be reasonably related to Broad Vs Narrow last stage of Abstraction i.e. whether one is cognitively open to new situations or appraisals or closed to them.

So the relationship between emotions and personality is more or less clear to my naive mind as of now. Of course I’m leaving some parts for the next post that will extend this and correlate with the eight stage process.

For now I’ll like to end with the excellent Scherer et al article quote:

In that personality represents the integration over time of feelings, actions, thoughts and desires, theoretical developments in personality benefit from a greater understanding of emotional processes. At the same time, research in emotion can take advantage of individual differences in sensitivities to situational cues and predispositions to emotional states. The questions of why some people become angry, while others become frightened or depressed in response to threats, and why some become elated while others seem unaffected when given rewards will be better understood by jointly studying the problem of long term coherence (personality) with short term fluctuations in affect, behavior, cognition and desire (emotion).

Fontaine, J., Scherer, K., Roesch, E., & Ellsworth, P. (2007). The World of Emotions is not Two-Dimensional Psychological Science, 18 (12), 1050-1057 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.02024.x

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Emotions and personailty : take 3

Human race suffers from "narcissistic Per...
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I have written two previous posts regarding the relationship between emotions and personality. This is the third part focusing on the relationship between emotions and personality. Regular readers will note my evolutionary leanings and this post too is inspired in part from evolutionary ideas.

First let us review the ideas of Millon as regards to the evolutionary factors that shape personality and personality disorders.

Four domains or spheres in which evolutionary principles are demonstrated have been labeled by Millon as Existence, Adaptation, Replication, and Abstraction. The first relates the serendipitous transformation of random or less organized states into those possessing distinct structures of greater organization; the second refers to homeostatic processes employed to sustain survival in open ecosystems; the third pertains to reproductive styles that maximize the diversification and selection of ecologically effective attributes; and the fourth concerns the emergence of competencies that foster anticipatory planning and reasoned decision-making. Polarities from the first three phases have been used by Millon to construct a theoretically-derived classification system of personality disorders.

Let us simplify the above a bit:
Existence is simply the survival of an individual organism and all the factors that come to play there. For evolution to work, there has to be stable organisms. Ultimately genes are selected, but proximally individuals , which are the vehicles of genes, are selected. The first important function that an organism faces is to maintain and enhance the integrity of its body.
Adaptation is the next problem the creature faces once it has a stable constitution- how its define its relationship with the environment. One can take a passive approach and be dependent on a particular given environment niche; or one can take an active role and mold the environment as per ones needs. In any case an adaptation to ones environment (give/ chosen.actively constructed) is essential for ensuring that one lives a long life, especially a life long enough to reach the reproductive stage. Plants and animals are two prototypical examples of two diametrically opposed adaptation strategy- passive vs active.
Replication is the next task the organism faces. Its not enough just to live- one needs to pass on ones copies – in either original or modified forms- for posterity. The capacity for replication is an important aspect of the evolutionary theory and how evolution works over an extended time. thus the organism needs to reproduce- either clones or children of oneself that can live post the death of the organism and thus enable his genes to live on. One can choose to be self propagating or other -nurturing while ensuring reproductive success. Males and female genders are prototypical examples here.
Abstraction is the next challenge- this time in use of symbolic representation, their manipulations, transmissions etc to achieve lasting effects on potentially unborn and unrelated kins via generativity and memetic transmissions. This is how I see it , not as Millon see its, but this domain is not relevant for either personality or emotions for now.

Lets us see how Millon delineates the polarities inherent in these domain as a human goes about his business of life.

Existence: The Pleasure-Pain Polarity.
The first phase, existence, concerns the maintenance of integrative phenomena, whether nuclear particle, virus, or human being, against the background of entropic decompensation. Evolutionary mechanisms derived from this stage regard life-enhancement and life-preservation. The former are concerned with orienting individuals toward enhancing survival and improvement in the quality of life; the latter with orienting individuals away from actions or environments that decrease the quality of life, or jeopardize existence itself. These may be called existential aims. At the human level of functioning such aims form, phenomenologically or metaphorically , a pleasure-pain polarity.

Adaptation: The Active-Passive Polarity
To exist is but an initial survival phase. Once an integrative structure exists, it must maintain its existence through exchanges of energy and information with its environment. The second evolutionary stage relates to what is termed Modes of Adaptation; it is also framed as a two-part polarity, a passive orientation, that is a tendency to accommodate to one’s ecological niche, versus an active orientation, that is a tendency to modify or intervene in one’s surrounds. These modes of adaptation differ from the first phase of evolution, in that they relate to how that which exists is able to endure or continue to survive in its environment.

Replication: The Self-Other Polarity.
Although organisms may be well-adapted to their environments, the existence of all life-forms is time-limited. To circumvent this limitation, organisms have developed Replication Strategies, that is, ways in which to leave progeny. These strategies reflect what biologists have referred to as r- or self-propagating strategy, at one polar extreme, and K- or other-nurturing strategy, at the other extreme. Psychologically, the former strategy is disposed toward actions which maximize self-reproduction;; here, organisms are egotistic, insensitive, inconsiderate, and socially uncaring; while the latter strategy is disposed toward protecting and sustaining kin or progeny; this leads to actions which are socially affiliative, intimate, caring, and solicitous.

As per Millon an unbalanced leaning towards one or more polarities or a reversal of polarities leads to unhealthy personality styles and personality disorders. How-ever, I’ll lave the discussion of personality disorders for another day.

For now, I’ll like to focus on emotions instead and a popular dimensional theory of emotion developed by Mehrabian amongst others. this the PAD theory that posits that there are three underlying dimensions that characterize all emotions- a Pleasure dimension, an Arousal dimension and a dominance dimension.

As emotions have evolved to solve the same kind of evolutionary problems as personality – though emotions solve the problem in a ‘state’ manner in the ‘here and now’ – it would be self-evident that emotions should also be related to the three domains as outlined above by Millon.

The correspondence can be easily seen. The Pleasure dimension of emotions documents whether the affective valence- whether the affect is subjectively felt as positive and pleasurable or negative and distressing. One can easily see how this is related to the pleasure-pain polarity of Millon.
The Arousal dimension of emotions describes whether the emotion involves feelings of being energetic and ready to act ; or are associated with feelings of relaxation and lessened arousal and passivity. This can be easily seen to correspond to the active-passive polarity of Millon.
The Dominance dimension of emotions describes whether one feels in control and in power over the situation or one feels overwhelmed and subjugated by it. It is related to the powerfulness or dominance felt by the person experiencing the emotion. One can reasonably associate this with the replication self-propagating and other-nurturing polarity. Some states and traits make us more self -focused while others make us more caring towards others.

Now the above PAD model has been found to be valid using factor analytical solutions. In an analysis of positive emotions by M Argyle et al, they found that the structure of positive emotions was best explained by a four dimensional structure.

The grouping data obtained in part 1 were submitted to multidimensional scaling (MDS) and returned a four-dimensional solution. Canonical correlations between the four MDS dimensions and the 13 emotion scales revealed that dimension 1 is best explained by ‘absorption’, dimension 2 by ‘potency’, dimension 3 by ‘altruistic’ and dimension 4 by ‘spiritual’. These correlations were then married to an interpretation of the situations falling high and low on each of the four dimensions, with the following results. Dimension 1 distinguishes internal or private situations from social situations, dimension 2, achievement from leisure situations, dimension 3, social demands from self-indulgence, and dimension 4, serious from trivial situations.

One can easily see that dimension 2 is related to arousal and active-emissivity polarity while dimension 3 is related to the self-propagating/ other-nurturing polarity. Dimension 1 may just be the dimension for valence while dimension 4 may be related to abstraction. In my subsequent posts , I’ll touch upon why I think abstraction domain may also be relevant to emotions and personality.

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Emotions and personality

Eight ball...
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In response to my last post on the eight factor model fitting Jaak Pankspep’s basic emotions model,@vasusrini asked in a tweet my opinions on relationships between the emotions and relationship of emotions to personality.

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@sandygautam I love the 8-emotion classification. I am wondering if there are relationship models, a)bet. emotions b) with Personality typesless than a minute ago via webVasu
vasusrini


This post is the response to the second query. Even prior to this I had had a conversation with @brembs on friendfeed regarding whether flies have emotions and in the case of a inconclusive answer the second follow-up question as to whether they have a personality.

Discerning readers will immediately note that I foresee a plausible and meaningful connection between emotions and personality. Basically in a nutshell, I believe all state variables have a affective component and can be labeled as emotions; while all trait components have a enduring and temperamental component and can be labeled as the personality. Given this fact and given my emphasis on the evolutionarily driven eight basic adaptive problems as determining both the states and traits of an organism as it goes about the business of life, the short answer is that I definitely see a relationship and correspondence between 8 basic emotions and 8 factors/traits of personality.

The long answer is that the best correspondence I have found, with respect to eight factor models, to date for emotions is Jaak Panksepps eight basic emotions and the best correspondence I have found for personality is Robert Cloningers seven factored temperament and character traits of personality. Of course I have also elaborated the five factor model of personality to an eight factor model and will like to draw attention to that as well.

Before I proceed I would like to claim that Cloninger has missed one temperament trait and has confounded anger and seeking systems and traits under one rubric of novelty seeking. thus , I propose and predict that factor studies and more robust empirical work should in the end split Novelty seeking factor of Cloninger in two- thus leading to 5 temperament traits and 3 character traits.

Now lets do a rundown of the eights stages and adaptive problems and ‘state’ emotions useful for that situation and enduring personality ‘traits’ where individuals can differ in their habitual responses tendencies to the same give problem of adaptation .

  1. Physical/survival stage. task: Avoiding predators/Foe. emotions useful: FEAR/Anxiety; personality trait : neuroticism (big 8) / Harm Avoidance )(cloninger).
  2. Impulsive/willfulness stage. task: finding food/exploration.  emotions useful: SEEKING; personality trait: conscentiousness (big 8)/ Novelty Seeking -I (relating to impulsiveness) (cloninger)
  3. interpersonal/dominance-hierarchy stage. task: forming friends/alliances. emotions useful: aggression/RAGE. personality trait: extraversion (big 8) / Novelty Seeking II (relating to anger) (cloninger)
  4. social/emotional stage: task:   providing help to kids/children. emotion useful :PANIC/ separation distress (to bond mother-child). personality trait :  agreeableness (big 5) / Reward-dependence (cloninger)
  5. cognitive /self-formation stage: task: helping kins or like minded folks. emotion useful: LUST/sexuality (of adolescence just like self-formation in adolescence). Personality trait: Conformity/rebellion(big 8)/ Persistence (perfectionists) (cloninger)
  6. Intimacy stage: task: reading others minds/ selecting a mate. emotions useful: CARE/love. personality trait: Trust/suspiciousness (big 8) /Cooperativeness (cloninger)
  7. Generativity stage. task: communicating with others/seducing a mate. emotions useful: PLAY/joy. personality trait: Activity (big 8)/ Self-Directedness (cloninger)
  8. integrity stage: task: Securing mate/ coming to terms with death. emotions useful: SELF. Personality trait : masculine-feminine (big 8)/ Self-Transcendence (cloninger)

In all of the above , the emotions capitalized are with respect to Jaak Panksepp’s model. So that is the long answer. what do you think of this? Do read the earlier mouse trap pots too for context and let me know whether the 8 factor model excites you as much as it does me or @vasusrini?

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The factor structure of virtues and perosnality: a continuing mess

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Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.
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Continuing my theme of focusing on human character strengths and virtues and relating them to personality,  I have been doing more reading of the literature and want to discuss three papers today.

First up is Shyrack et al’s recent paper that again explores the factor structure of VIA-IS and finds support for a 3 or 4 factor solution. They discuss the various conflicting/mutually supporting factor analytical results and the resulting 4 or 5 underlying components or factors. the VIA-youth scale consistently gives 4 factors while the VIA-Is (adult form) gives 5 factors.

However, I have issues with the samples on which the factor analysis is done. the mean age in Shyrack’s current study was 50 years approx, but in most other analysis, the analysis is conducted on university students. The age and developmental stage of the sample is important because as per a developmental stage perspective many of the virtues will not become manifest/ apparent and bloom in full strength until a particular age has been reached. for eg, till age 50 people have perhaps mastered the first 6 stages (including intimacy as per Erikson’s model) but still have not finished to satisfaction the developmental tasks of generativity (seventh stage) and integrity (eights stage). Not faced with any developmental challenges to these situations, the people may have lacked incentives to develop the corresponding virtues; thus I would not be surprised if people identify / relate to only at most 6 virtues. I would suggest that new tests be developed for post middle age and senior citizens than the normal adult scales and their data analyzed to understand the true factor structure of virtue. This is akin to their being different measurement instruments for children, adolescents and adults for character strengths and perhaps rightly they reflect different underlying factors thus validating a developmental stages approach. If analyzed this way I am sure the data for aged people will support a eight factor structure. Much of the data obtained from college students, in my view would only support 4 or 5 factor virtue structure.

Shyrack et al find support for 3 or 4 factor model, but based on a cursory look at their extraction using goldberg technique (see figure) I can extrapolate that a support for eight factor structure , with social strengths splitting in justice and humanity, and temperance splitting in temperance proper (restraint) and emotional strength. I hope someone perofmrs extraction till 8 factors and tries to label them, especially with aged poulation.

That bring me to Munro et al paper that also used undergraduate students as samples and performed factor analysis to come up with 5 factors ; however they also centered their data and after centration (to reduce social desirability effects). Their scree plot supported a 9 factor structure. See the scree plot that clearly shows at least eight factor (eigenvalues > 1) . to me it is not understandable why they left this centered data and instead went on to derive a five factor structure from the non-centered raw data.

That brings me to the last paper. It is by Cawley et al and is based on lexical analysis of virtue adjectives and nouns and also uses a different Virtue scale the Virtue Scale instead of VIA-IS. This approach too yielded a found fold structure (Empathy, Order, Resourceful, Serenity), but I believe there is much scope for more exploration with their data. However the best take home from the very insightful article is that virtue and ethics are separate. Virtue is related to being; while ethics is related to doing. Ethics is more cognitively grounded , especially the one gauged by DIT or Kohlberg’s moral dilemmas and is not related much to virtue which is more grounded in character or personality. And they found support for this in their data. That I believe is an important difference an finding to keep in mind. Also I liked this paragraph that lists the attributes that give rise to moral domain competency. To me they follow naturally , as stage tasks and issues , in reverse order as one undergoes moral development:emotions (1st stage), will (second stage) , motivation (3rd stage), Ethics (4th stage) and Virtue (5th stage).

The independence of this measure of the virtues and the personality measures from the more cognitive DIT measure of moral development may also reflect the independence of the mental (cognitive±intellectual) and moral (emotional±motivational) domains in psychology and philosophy (Averill, 1980). Averill observes that the mental domain evolved from studies of epistemology, while the moral domain (including personality) evolved from studies of virtue ethics, motivation, will, and emotion. Thus, from Averill’s observation, one would expect a measure of virtue to be more strongly related to measures of personality than to measures of cognitive moral development. Additional empirical data on the relationships among virtue, personality, moral cognitive development, and epistemological style can be found in Cawley (1997).

Also, I liked this para, that distinguishes between temperance proper (2nd stage doing with restraint) and Activity (7th stage that is more agentic):

McCrae and John (1992) also acknowledge that there are two components of Conscientiousness (C): an inhibitive view and a proactive view. They note that:
A number of di?erent conceptions of C have been o?ered. Tellegen’s Constraint and Hogan’s Prudence re¯ect an inhibitive view of C as a dimension that holds impulsive behavior in check. Digman and Takemoto-Chock’s Will to Achieve represents a proactive view of C as a dimension that organizes and directs behavior. The term Conscientiousness combines both aspects, because it can mean either governed by conscience or diligent and thorough. Empirically, both kinds of traits seem to covary. (p.197)
Perhaps the virtues factor Order represents the inhibitive, non-impulsive aspect of Conscientiousness as a virtue, and the virtues factor Resourcefulness represents the proactive, diligent aspect of Conscientiousness as a virtue (see also Johnson & Ostendorf, 1993).

Overall, I highly recommend reading the Cawley et al paper (available freely on the web) and encourage more research that utilizes multiple approaches to correlating Virtues with other constructs as outlined in this bit from munro et al:

In addition to developing their classification system, Peterson and Seligman (2004) have also suggested how their classification of character strengths and virtues is related to, but distinct from, already established theories of values. For example, Peterson and Seligman (2004) see their classification of character strengths and virtues as being related toMaslow’s (1973) idea of self-actualised individuals, the Five FactorModel (FFM) of personality (McCrae & John, 1992; Costa & McCrae, 1994), Cawley’s virtue factors (Cawley,Martin, & Johnson, 2000), Buss’ evolutionary ideas about what is attractive in a mate [i.e. what character traits are essential for survival and propagation, (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997; Shackelford, Schmitt, & Buss, 2005)], and Schwartz’s (1992) Universal Values.
Some research into establishing the validity of these claims has begun. Haslam, Bain, and Neal 2004) found that both Schwartz’s (1992) Universal Values and the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality were conceptually linked to the 24 character strengths. However, as these constructs were defined and subsequently measured by only one or two terms that were ranked and grouped together by participants on the basis of conceptual likeness, more thorough research is needed before we can draw any firm conclusions.

Heer is toast to more such research!

Shryack, J., Steger, M., Krueger, R., & Kallie, C. (2010). The structure of virtue: An empirical investigation of the dimensionality of the virtues in action inventory of strengths Personality and Individual Differences, 48 (6), 714-719 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.007
MACDONALD, C., BORE, M., & MUNRO, D. (2008). Values in action scale and the Big 5: An empirical indication of structure Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (4), 787-799 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2007.10.003
CAWLEY, M., MARTIN, J., & JOHNSON, J. (2000). A virtues approach to personality1 Personality and Individual Differences, 28 (5), 997-1013 DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00207-X

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Character strengths and virtues: a 5/8 factor structure?

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Positive psychology is based on the premise that it is equally important to study what is good in life as it is to study what goes wrong. Positive psychology thus focuses on building and capitalizing on existing strengths of people while not focusing too much on their weaknesses, which has been focus of the traditional pathological view of humans.
Martin Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology, and Christopher Peterson, accordingly, have developed a Values In Action (VIA)-character strengths inventory and classification scheme to measure and classify the virtues or character strengths in a taxonomic system. It is a 240 items self-report measure that identifies 24 character strengths and orders them as per their predominance in a person’s life. These 24 character strengths are further classified in 6 broad virtues. I am reproducing teh 6 broad virtues and the 24 character strengths below:

  1. Wisdom and Knowledge– Cognitive strengths that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge
    • Creativity: Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things
    • Curiosity: Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake
    • Open-mindedness: Thinking things through and examining them from all sides
    • Love of learning: Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge
    • Perspective: Being able to provide wise counsel to others
  2. Courage-Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition, external and internal
    • Bravery: Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain
    • Persistence: Finishing what one starts; persisting in a course of action in spite of obstacles
    • Integrity: Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way
    • Vitality: Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing anything halfheartedly
  3. Humanity-Interpersonal strengths that involve tending and befriending others
    • Love: Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which caring is reciprocated
    • Kindness: Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them
    • Social intelligence: Being aware of the motives and feelings of other people and oneself
  4. Justice- Civic strengths that underlie healthy community life
    • Citizenship: Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to a group
    • Fairness: Treating all people the same according to the notions of fairness and justice
    • Leadership: Encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done
  5. Temperance-Strengths that protect against excess
    • Forgiveness and mercy: Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting others’ faults
    • Humility/Modesty: Letting one’s accomplishments speak for themselves
    • Prudence: Being careful about one’s choices; not taking undue risks
    • Self-regulation: Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined
  6. Transcendence-Strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning
    • Appreciation of beauty and excellence: Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or
      skilled performance in various domains of life
    • Gratitude: Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen
    • Hope: Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it
    • Humor: Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people
    • Spirituality: Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe

Seligman and Peterson arrived at these strengths via an esoteric route: they analyzed the major ethical and religious teachings of major eastern (Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Buddhism) and western  (Judaism, Christianity, Athenian virtues and Islamic) religions and going by the authoritative texts of these religions tried to find universal and ubiquitous character strengths or virtues.  They themselves and others performed factor analysis on their 240 item questionnaire, and data obtained from different people who answered the questionnaire, and obtained at different time 5 factor or 4 factor solutions.

Seligman and Peterson themselves identify the following five factors from exploratory factor analysis. :

  • strengths of restraint (fairness, humility, mercy, prudence)
  • intellectual strengths (e.g., creativity, curiosity, love of learning,appreciation of beauty)
  • interpersonal strengths (e.g., kindness, love, leadership, teamwork,playfulness)
  • emotional strengths (e.g., bravery, hope, self-regulation, zest)
  • theological strengths (e.g., gratitude, spirituality)

Some other researchers found a four factor structure ( Interpersonal Strengths, Fortitude, Vitality, and Cautiousness) while some others have found related four or even one factor structure.

To my mind the original character strengths seem to follow the five/eight staged developmental/evolutionary model, especially when seen from the big 5/8 personality model ,  as follows:

  1. stage 1: related to emotions: personality trait neuroticism. character strength of Courage/Fortitude. Also known otherwise as emotional strength.
  2. stage 2: related to impulses/will: personality trait conscientiousness: character strength of Temperance. Also known otherwise as  strength of restraint.
  3. stage 3: related to forming alliances and friendships and concerned with dominance/submission. the social domain and group dynamics.  personality trait extraversion. character strength Justice. Leadership, fairness and citizenship are all civic strengths.
  4. stage 4: related to close interpersonal relations. personality trait agreeableness. : the personal and interpersonal domain. character strength humanity. Also known as interpersonal strength.
  5. stage 5: related to self-discovery and cognition; personality trait openness to experience. the cognitive and intellectual domain. character strength wisdom. also known as intellectual strengths .
  6. stage 6, 7 and 8 are qualitatively different and thus might have been clubbed into the transcendence/religiosity factor, but I believe as we evolve and understand better we would be able to classify the transcendence / religiosity factor into 3 separate factors and identify the individually. For a starter distinguishing amongst religiosity (trust vs distrust the sixth stage)  and transcendence (the eighth stage) may be called for.  Also, Todd Kashandan et al found that Vitality may be an apt name for the factor representing transcendence/religiosity and by vitality they meant Zest, hope humor etc all traits that are related to personality dimension of 7th stage viz Activity. thus I propose to split transcendence in 3 factors: one religious strengths ( stage 6 consisting of gratitude, hope); activity strengths (stage 7 consisting of Zest, humor, vitality etc) and transcendence strengths (stage 8 consisting spirituality, appreciation of beauty etc)

I would be on the lookout for the astute experimenter/observer who first fits the eight stage factor model to the character strengths and confirms the eight factor structure of character strengths and virtues and also relates them to underlying personality traits.

Seligman and Peterson have themselves tried to relate the character strengths to personality traits and so have been other recent attempts, but they will remain insufficient till the eight stage theoretical model is taken as a foundation. Seligman and Peterson note, in respect of the five factor structure they discovered using factor analysis:

What we call here strengths of restraint correspond closely to virtues of temperance; intellectual strengths correspond to virtues of wisdom and knowledge; interpersonal strengths collapse the virtues of humanity and justice ; emotional strengths correspond to virtues of courage; and the theological strengths are included among our transcendence virtues.
We also note that the first three factors here correspond to the Big Five factors of conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness; the fourth factor—emotional strengths—may correspond to the opposite of the Big Five factor of neuroticism. The fifth factor—theological strengths—has no Big Five counterpart.

I believe their attempts, and the attempts of other researchers will go futile, till the eight fold developmental/evolutionary model is taken as the theoretical bedrock on which to perform confirmatory factor analysis.

Dahlsgaard, K., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (2005). Shared Virtue: The Convergence of Valued Human Strengths Across Culture and History. Review of General Psychology, 9 (3), 203-213 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.3.203
Brdar, I., & Kashdan, T. (2010). Character strengths and well-being in Croatia: An empirical investigation of structure and correlates Journal of Research in Personality, 44 (1), 151-154 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.12.001

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Major conscious and unconcoscious processes in the brain: part 3: Robot minds

This article continues my series on major conscious and unconscious processes in the brain. In my last two posts I have talked about 8 major unconscious processes in the brain viz sensory, motor, learning , affective, cognitive (deliberative), modelling, communications and attentive systems. Today, I will not talk about brain in particular, but will approach the problem from a slightly different problem domain- that of modelling/implementing an artificial brain/ mind.

I am a computer scientist, so am vaguely aware of the varied approaches used to model/implement the brain. Many of these use computers , though not every approach assumes that the brain is a computer.

Before continuing I would briefly like to digress and link to one of my earlier posts regarding the different  traditions of psychological research in personality and how I think they fit an evolutionary stage model . That may serve as a background to the type of sweeping analysis and genralisation that I am going to do. To be fair it is also important to recall an Indian parable of how when asked to describe an elephant by a few blind man each described what he could lay his hands on and thus provided a partial and incorrect picture of the elephant. Some one who grabbed the tail, described it as snake-like and so forth.

With that in mind let us look at the major approaches to modelling/mplementing the brain/intelligence/mind. Also remember that I am most interested in unconscious brain processes till now and sincerely believe that all the unconscious processes can, and will be successfully implemented in machines.   I do not believe machines will become sentient (at least any time soon), but that question is for another day.

So, with due thanks to @wildcat2030, I came across this book today and could immediately see how the different major approaches to artificial robot brains are heavily influenced (and follow) the evolutionary first five stages and the first five unconscious processes in the brain.
The book in question is ‘Robot Brains: Circuits and Systems for Conscious Machines’ by Pentti O. Haikonen and although he is most interested in conscious machines I will restrict myself to intelligent but unconscious machines/robots.

The first chapter of the book (which has made to my reading list) is available at Wiley site in its entirety and I quote extensively from there:

Presently there are five main approaches to the modelling of cognition that could be used for the development of cognitive machines: the computational approach (artificial intelligence, AI), the artificial neural networks approach, the dynamical systems approach, the quantum approach and the cognitive approach. Neurobiological approaches exist, but these may be better suited for the eventual explanation of the workings of the biological brain.

The computational approach (also known as artificial intelligence, AI) towards thinking machines was initially worded by Turing (1950). A machine would be thinking if the results of the computation were indistinguishable from the results of human thinking. Later on Newell and Simon (1976) presented their Physical Symbol System Hypothesis, which maintained that general intelligent action can be achieved by a physical symbol system and that this system has all the necessary and sufficient means for this purpose. A physical symbol system was here the computer that operates with symbols (binary words) and attached rules that stipulate which symbols are to follow others. Newell and Simon believed that the computer would be able to reproduce human-like general intelligence, a feat that still remains to be seen. However, they realized that this hypothesis was only an empirical generalization and not a theorem that could be formally proven. Very little in the way of empirical proof for this hypothesis exists even today and in the 1970s the situation was not better. Therefore Newell and Simon pretended to see other kinds of proof that were in those days readily available. They proposed that the principal body of evidence for the symbol system hypothesis was negative evidence, namely the absence of specific competing hypotheses; how else could intelligent activity be accomplished by man or machine? However, the absence of evidence is by no means any evidence of absence. This kind of ‘proof by ignorance’ is too often available in large quantities, yet it is not a logically valid argument. Nevertheless, this issue has not yet been formally settled in one way or another. Today’s positive evidence is that it is possible to create world-class chess-playing programs and these can be called ‘artificial intelligence’. The negative evidence is that it appears to be next to impossible to create real general intelligence via preprogrammed commands and computations.

The original computational approach can be criticized for the lack of a cognitive foundation. Some recent approaches have tried to remedy this and consider systems that integrate the processes of perception, reaction, deliberation and reasoning (Franklin, 1995, 2003; Sloman, 2000). There is another argument against the computational view of the brain. It is known that the human brain is slow, yet it is possible to learn to play tennis and other activities that require instant responses. Computations take time. Tennis playing and the like would call for the fastest computers in existence. How could the slow brain manage this if it were to execute computations?

The artificial neural networks approach, also known as connectionism, had its beginnings in the early 1940s when McCulloch and Pitts (1943) proposed that the brain cells, neurons, could be modelled by a simple electronic circuit. This circuit would receive a number of signals, multiply their intensities by the so-called synaptic weight values and sum these modified values together. The circuit would give an output signal if the sum value exceeded a given threshold. It was realized that these artificial neurons could learn and execute basic logic operations if their synaptic weight values were adjusted properly. If these artificial neurons were realized as hardware circuits then no programs would be necessary and biologically plausible artificial replicas of the brain might be possible. Also, neural networks operate in parallel, doing many things simultaneously. Thus the overall operational speed could be fast even if the individual neurons were slow. However, problems with artificial neural learning led to complicated statistical learning algorithms, ones that could best be implemented as computer programs. Many of today’s artificial neural networks are statistical pattern recognition and classification circuits. Therefore they are rather removed from their original biologically inspired idea. Cognition is not mere classification and the human brain is hardly a computer that executes complicated synaptic weight-adjusting algorithms.

The human brain has some 10 to the power of 11 neurons and each neuron may have tens of thousands of synaptic inputs and input weights. Many artificial neural networks learn by tweaking the synaptic weight values against each other when thousands of training examples are presented. Where in the brain would reside the computing process that would execute synaptic weight adjusting algorithms? Where would these algorithms have come from? The evolutionary feasibility of these kinds of algorithms can be seriously doubted. Complicated algorithms do not evolve via trial and error either. Moreover, humans are able to learn with a few examples only, instead of having training sessions with thousands or hundreds of thousands of examples. It is obvious that the mainstream neural networks approach is not a very plausible candidate for machine cognition although the human brain is a neural network.

Dynamical systems were proposed as a model for cognition by Ashby (1952) already in the 1950s and have been developed further by contemporary researchers (for example Thelen and Smith, 1994; Gelder, 1998, 1999; Port, 2000; Wallace, 2005). According to this approach the brain is considered as a complex system with dynamical interactions with its environment. Gelder and Port (1995) define a dynamical system as a set of quantitative variables, which change simultaneously and interdependently over quantitative time in accordance with some set of equations. Obviously the brain is indeed a large system of neuron activity variables that change over time. Accordingly the brain can be modelled as a dynamical system if the neuron activity can be quantified and if a suitable set of, say, differential equations can be formulated. The dynamical hypothesis sees the brain as comparable to analog feedback control systems with continuous parameter values. No inner representations are assumed or even accepted. However, the dynamical systems approach seems to have problems in explaining phenomena like ‘inner speech’. A would-be designer of an artificial brain would find it difficult to see what kind of system dynamics would be necessary for a specific linguistically expressed thought. The dynamical systems approach has been criticized, for instance by Eliasmith (1996, 1997), who argues that the low dimensional systems of differential equations, which must rely on collective parameters, do not model cognition easily and the dynamicists have a difficult time keeping arbitrariness from permeating their models. Eliasmith laments that there seems to be no clear ways of justifying parameter settings, choosing equations, interpreting data or creating system boundaries. Furthermore, the collective parameter models make the interpretation of the dynamic system’s behaviour difficult, as it is not easy to see or determine the meaning of any particular parameter in the model. Obviously these issues would translate into engineering problems for a designer of dynamical systems.

The quantum approach maintains that the brain is ultimately governed by quantum processes, which execute nonalgorithmic computations or act as a mediator between the brain and an assumed more-or-less immaterial ‘self’ or even ‘conscious energy field’ (for example Herbert, 1993; Hameroff, 1994; Penrose, 1989; Eccles, 1994). The quantum approach is supposed to solve problems like the apparently nonalgorithmic nature of thought, free will, the coherence of conscious experience, telepathy, telekinesis, the immortality of the soul and others. From an engineering point of view even the most practical propositions of the quantum approach are presently highly impractical in terms of actual implementation. Then there are some proposals that are hardly distinguishable from wishful fabrications of fairy tales. Here the quantum approach is not pursued.

The cognitive approach maintains that conscious machines can be built because one example already exists, namely the human brain. Therefore a cognitive machine should emulate the cognitive processes of the brain and mind, instead of merely trying to reproduce the results of the thinking processes. Accordingly the results of neurosciences and cognitive psychology should be evaluated and implemented in the design if deemed essential. However, this approach does not necessarily involve the simulation or emulation of the biological neuron as such, instead, what is to be produced is the abstracted information processing function of the neuron.

A cognitive machine would be an embodied physical entity that would interact with the environment. Cognitive robots would be obvious applications of machine cognition and there have been some early attempts towards that direction. Holland seeks to provide robots with some kind of consciousness via internal models (Holland and Goodman, 2003; Holland, 2004). Kawamura has been developing a cognitive robot with a sense of self (Kawamura, 2005; Kawamura et al., 2005). There are also others. Grand presents an experimentalist’s approach towards cognitive robots in his book (Grand, 2003).

A cognitive machine would be a complete system with processes like perception, attention, inner speech, imagination, emotions as well as pain and pleasure. Various technical approaches can be envisioned, namely indirect ones with programs, hybrid systems that combine programs and neural networks, and direct ones that are based on dedicated neural cognitive architectures. The operation of these dedicated neural cognitive architectures would combine neural, symbolic and dynamic elements.

However, the neural elements here would not be those of the traditional neural networks; no statistical learning with thousands of examples would be implied, no backpropagation or other weight-adjusting algorithms are used. Instead the networks would be associative in a way that allows the symbolic use of the neural signal arrays (vectors). The ‘symbolic’ here does not refer to the meaning-free symbol manipulation system of AI; instead it refers to the human way of using symbols with meanings. It is assumed that these cognitive machines would eventually be conscious, or at least they would reproduce most of the folk psychology hallmarks of consciousness (Haikonen, 2003a, 2005a). The engineering aspects of the direct cognitive approach are pursued in this book.

Now to me these computational approaches are all unidimensional-

  1. The computational approach is suited for symbol-manipulation and information-represntation and might give good results when used in systems that have mostly ‘sensory’ features like forming a mental represntation of external world, a chess game etc. Here something (stimuli from world) is represented as something else (an internal symbolic represntation).
  2. The Dynamical Systems approach is guided by interactions with the environment and the principles of feedback control systems and also is prone to ‘arbitrariness’ or ‘randomness’. It is perfectly suited to implement the ‘motor system‘ of brain as one of the common features is apparent unpredictability (volition) despite being deterministic (chaos theory) .
  3. The Neural networks or connectionsim is well suited for implementing the ‘learning system’ of the brain and we can very well see that the best neural network based systems are those that can categorize and classify things just like ‘the learning system’ of the brain does.
  4. The quantum approach to brain, I haven’t studied enough to comment on, but the action-tendencies of ‘affective system’ seem all too similar to the superimposed,simultaneous states that exits in a wave function before it is collapsed. Being in an affective state just means having a set of many possible related and relevant actions simultaneously activated and then perhaps one of that decided upon somehow and actualized. I’m sure that if we could ever model emotion in machine sit would have to use quantum principles of wave functions, entanglemnets etc.
  5. The cognitive approach, again I haven’t go a hang of yet, but it seems that the proposal is to build some design into the machine that is based on actual brain and mind implemntations. Embodiment seems important and so does emulating the information processing functions of neurons. I would stick my neck out and predict that whatever this cognitive approach is it should be best able to model the reasoning and evaluative and decision-making functions of the brain. I am reminded of the computational modelling methods, used to functionally decompose a cognitive process, and are used in cognitive science (whether symbolic or subsymbolic modelling) which again aid in decision making / reasoning (see wikipedia entry)

Overall, I would say there is room for further improvement in the way we build more intelligent machines. They could be made such that they have two models of world – one deterministic , another chaotic and use the two models simulatenously (sixth stage of modelling); then they could communicate with other machines and thus learn language (some simulation methods for language abilities do involve agents communicating with each other using arbitrary tokens and later a language developing) (seventh stage) and then they could be implemented such that they have a spotlight of attention (eighth stage) whereby some coherent systems are amplified and others suppressed. Of course all this is easier said than done, we will need at least three more major approaches to modelling and implementing brain/intelligence before we can model every major unconscious process in the brain. To model consciousness and program sentience is an uphill task from there and would definitely require a leap in our understandings/ capabilities.

Do tell me if you find the above reasonable and do believe that these major approaches to artificial brain implementation are guided and constrained by the major unconscious processes in the brain and that we can learn much about brain from the study of these artificial approaches and vice versa.

Major conscious and unconcoscious processes in the brain

Today I plan to touch upon the topic of consciousness (from which many bloggers shy) and more broadly try to delineate what I believe are the important different conscious and unconscious processes in the brain. I will be heavily using my evolutionary stages model for this.

To clarify myself at the very start , I do not believe in a purely reactive nature of organisms; I believe that apart from reacting to stimuli/world; they also act , on their own, and are thus agents. To elaborate, I believe that neuronal groups and circuits may fire on their own and thus lead to behavior/ action. I do not claim that this firing is under voluntary/ volitional control- it may be random- the important point to note is that there is spontaneous motion.

  1. Sensory system: So to start with I propose that the first function/process the brain needs to develop is to sense its surroundings. This is to avoid predators/ harm in general. this sensory function of brain/sense organs may be unconscious and need not become conscious- as long as an animal can sense danger, even though it may not be aware of the danger, it can take appropriate action – a simple ‘action’ being changing its color to merge with background. 
  2. Motor system:The second function/ process that the brain needs to develop is to have a system that enables motion/movement. This is primarily to explore its environment for food /nutrients. Preys are not going to walk in to your mouth; you have to move around and locate them. Again , this movement need not be volitional/conscious – as long as the animal moves randomly and sporadically to explore new environments, it can ‘see’ new things and eat a few. Again this ‘seeing’ may be as simple as sensing the chemical gradient in a new environmental.
  3. Learning system: The third function/process that the brain needs to develop is to have a system that enables learning. It is not enough to sense the environmental here-and-now. One needs to learn the contingencies in the world and remember that both in space and time. I am inclined to believe that this is primarily pavlovaion conditioning and associative learning, though I don’t rule out operant learning. Again this learning need not be conscious- one need not explicitly refer to a memory to utilize it- unconscious learning and memory of events can suffice and can drive interactions. I also believe that need for this function is primarily driven by the fact that one interacts with similar environments/con specifics/ predators/ preys and it helps to remember which environmental conditions/operant actions lead to what outcomes. This learning could be as simple as stimuli A predict stimuli B and/or that action C predicts reward D .
  4. Affective/ Action tendencies system .The fourth function I propose that the brain needs to develop is a system to control its motor system/ behavior by making it more in sync with its internal state. This I propose is done by a group of neurons monitoring the activity of other neurons/visceral organs and thus becoming aware (in a non-conscious sense)of the global state of the organism and of the probability that a particular neuronal group will fire in future and by thus becoming aware of the global state of the organism , by their outputs they may be able to enable one group to fire while inhibiting other groups from firing. To clarify by way of example, some neuronal groups may be responsible for movement. Another neuronal group may be receiving inputs from these as well as say input from gut that says that no movement has happened for a time and that the organism has also not eaten for a time and thus is in a ‘hungry’ state. This may prompt these neurons to fire in such a way that they send excitatory outputs to the movement related neurons and thus biasing them towards firing and thus increasing the probability that a motion will take place and perhaps the organism by indulging in exploratory behavior may be able to satisfy hunger. Of course they will inhibit other neuronal groups from firing and will themselves stop firing when appropriate motion takes place/ a prey is eaten. Again nothing of this has to be conscious- the state of the organism (like hunger) can be discerned unconsciously and the action-tendencies biasing foraging behavior also activated unconsciously- as long as the organism prefers certain behaviors over others depending on its internal state , everything works perfectly. I propose that (unconscious) affective (emotional) state and systems have emerged to fulfill exactly this need of being able to differentially activate different action-tendencies suited to the needs of the organism. I also stick my neck out and claim that the activation of a particular emotion/affective system biases our sensing also. If the organism is hungry, the food tastes (is unconsciously more vivid) better and vice versa. thus affects not only are action-tendencies , but are also, to an extent, sensing-tendencies.
  5. Decisional/evaluative system: the last function (for now- remember I adhere to eight stage theories- and we have just seen five brain processes in increasing hierarchy) that the brain needs to have is a system to decide / evaluate. Learning lets us predict our world as well as the consequences of our actions. Affective systems provide us some control over our behavior and over our environment- but are automatically activated by the state we are in. Something needs to make these come together such that the competition between actions triggered due to the state we are in (affective action-tendencies) and the actions that may be beneficial given the learning associated with the current stimuli/ state of the world are resolved satisfactorily. One has to balance the action and reaction ratio and the subjective versus objective interpretation/ sensation of environment. The decisional/evaluative system , I propose, does this by associating values with different external event outcomes and different internal state outcomes and by resolving the trade off between the two. This again need not be conscious- given a stimuli predicting a predator in vicinity, and the internal state of the organism as hungry, the organism may have attached more value to ‘avoid being eaten’ than to ‘finding prey’ and thus may not move, but camouflage. On the other hand , if the organisms value system is such that it prefers a hero’s death on battlefield , rather than starvation, it may move (in search of food) – again this could exist in the simplest of unicellular organisms.

Of course all of these brain processes could (and in humans indeed do) have their conscious counterparts like Perception, Volition,episodic Memory, Feelings and Deliberation/thought. That is a different story for a new blog post!

And of course one can also conceive the above in pure reductionist form as a chain below:

sense–>recognize & learn–>evaluate options and decide–>emote and activate action tendencies->execute and move.

and then one can also say that movement leads to new sensation and the above is not a chain , but a part of cycle; all that is valid, but I would sincerely request my readers to consider the possibility of spontaneous and self-driven behavior as separate from reactive motor behavior.