Catania (1973) the Psychologies of Structure, Function and Development

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The Psychologies ofStructure,

Function,and Development

A . CHARLES CATANIA New York University

1

The nineteenth century closed with the promise of

an

integrated science

of

psychology

(Titchener,

1898).

In the twentieth century,

that

promise has

yet to be

fulfilled. Students

of

psychology still

are

asked to choose theoretical sides.

They

see

functional

accounts of operant behavior pitted

against

ethological accounts

of

behavioral struc-

ture,

analyses

of

reinforcem ent contingencies p itted

against theories

of cognitive

processing,

and de-

scriptions

of

language

as

verbal behavior pitted

against psycholinguistic formulations of language

competence. Behaviorism continu es to clash with

phenomenology,

and empiricism with nativism.

Psychologists are not yet even agreed on whether

theirs is a science of behavior or a science of

menta l life.

The

development

o f

these controversies

ha s

been

described in terms of paradigm clash (e.g., Katahn

& Koplin, 1968; N eisser, 19 72 ; Segal &Lachman,

1972) ,

as if

psychology were

in the

midst

of the

kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn

( 1 9 6 2 ) .

The

student, whether

hi s

mentor

be

cog-

nitive

psychologist or behaviorist, is led to believe

that

one or the

other paradigm

will

emerge victori-

ous from th e

confrontat ion

of incompatible intel-

lectual positions. But this characterization may be

misleading, because it is not clear that the contro-

versies have grown

out of

incompatible treatments

of comm on problems. The present account argues

that

th e

important d imensions

of

psychology

are

different from those ordina rily consideredwhen

th e

history

of

psychology

is

interpreted

in

terms

of

para digm clashes, and that these dim ensions have

Prepara t ion

o f

this article

w as

s u p p o r t ed

in

p a r t

b y

Nat ional Institutes of Heal th Grant MH-18506 to New

York Univers i ty .

Reques t s

fo r

repr in t s should

be

sent

to A .

Char les

Catania , who i s now at D epar tment of Psychology, Uni -

vers ity of Ma ryland Bal t imore C oun ty , 5401 Wi lkens

Av en u e , Baltimore, Maryland 21228.

been emerging through evolution over

the

past cen-

tury rather than through revolution in the past

decade.

Titchener s

Psychologies

Let us

re tu rn

to

Titchener's position

at the

tu rn

of

th e

century (Titchener, 1898, 1899a, 1899b):

Psychology was a single science that, like biology,

contained

lines

of

division. Biology included

a

science of structure called morphologyor anatomy,

a science of

function

called physiology, and a sci-

ence of

growth

or

development called embryology

or morphogenesis. By analogy, Titchener saw psy-

chology divided into structural,

functional ,

and de-

velopmental components. (He also noted a similar

division at the

level

of the

analysis

of

species, wh ich

included the

sciences

of

taxonomy, bionomics

or

ecology, and paleontology or evolutionism, and

even

suggested the possibility

that this type

of

classification could

be

extended

to the

study

of

cultures.) Titchener

(1899a)

described

the

divi-

sions

of

psychology

in the following w a y :

we see at once t h a t th e psychology of our defini t ion is

(1 ) a structural psychology, an a n a t o m y or morphology

of mi n d . Mind is a mass of tangled processes. Our prob-

le m

is to

dissect this complex,

and to

discover,

if we

can ,

it s

plan

of

a r r an g emen t .

But we may

also regard mind

. . .

as a

system

of func t ions . The

mi n d

does

things

for us,

or

enables us to do things. W e shal l then have

( 2 )

a

functional psychology. And we

may, fur ther , discuss

th e

m a k e u p

and working of the chi ld 's mind, and the way in

which

it

passes over into

th e

adul t mind .

W e

shall then

have a menta l emb ryology . Our psychology has become

(3 )

th e

s tudy

of

psychogenesis [pp.

21- 22] .

The present arg um ent , simply, is that Titchener's

classification

of

psychological problems,

appropriate

in

his time, remains appropriate today . The criti-

cal

point

is that

Titchener recognized

the

three

psychologies

as

complementary,

not

incompatible.

Titchener (1899a) went

on to

say:

No one of

434 MAY 1973 A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T


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these three psychologies is

'better' psychology

psychology in a more real sense of the wordthan

any

other

[p . 22]. Psychologists,

however, per-

haps including Titchener, seem not to have

taken

sufficient note

of the

statement.

The

present

ac-

count

will

take it as a point of depa rture. In

elaborating on it, we will first concentrate on the

distinction

between structural and functional psy-

chologies, because this distinction seems to lie at

the root of the conflict

between

cognitive and be-

havioral psychologies. W e will later have occasion

to consider the place of psychogenesis.

Structure and

Function

In biology, th e distinction between structure and

function

was so

well

established

that

it supported a

division of the field into such separate departments

as anatomy and physiology. The line between

anatomical research

and

physiological research

was

sometimes difficult to draw, and it remains so to-

day. But it is at least clearly recognized

that

studies

of biological structure and studies of bio-

logical

function

are concerned with different em -

pirical questions. To say what an organ

does,

it

m ay

help

to

know

how it is

constructed;

yet its

function

is not studied in the same way as its

structure.

While the analogous distinction is made in psy-

chology, it is sometimes

difficult,

as in biology, to

draw

the line. Neve rtheless, there exist some

bodies of research predominantly concerned with

analyzing stimulus structure

or

response structure,

an d other bodies of

research predominantly con-

cerned with analyzing behavioral

function.

A n

analysis

of the

distinctive

features of a

stimulus,

for example, is concerned with a different problem

than

the analysis of the

conditions

that

motivate

the organism's continu ed attention

to

those distinc-

tive features.

The

relation between these

different

kinds

of

psychological

problems has

typically been obscured

by

different

languages

of

psychology.

These

d i f -

ferences have developed as consequences of histori-

ca l

accident,

the

influence

of

everyday discourse

on

technical

vocabulary,

and the various research

strategies that

are

appropriate

to

specific experi-

me ntal issues. Str uct ura l research tends

to be de-

scribed

in the

cognitive

or

mentalist vocabulary,

and functional research in the behaviorist vocabu-

lary.

But the

correlation between these research

concerns

and

these vocabularies

is not a

necessary

one. A cognitive psychologist can be concerned

with

functional problems (e.g.,

in

distinguishing

betweenparallel an dserialprocesses, cf . Sternberg,

1 9 7 0 ) jus t as a behav ioral psychologist can be

concerned with structural ones (e.g.,

in

analyzing

the stimulus dimensions to which an organism re -

spondsin a

color-matching task,

cf .

Wright

&

Gum-

ming, 1971) . In fact, a major argument of the

present account is that psychological controversy

ha s often originated because the dichotomy between

structure and function ha s been confused with

that

between mentalism and behaviorism. (An instruc-

tive comparison is with the history of anatomy and

physiology in

biology,

in

which

the

respective con-

cerns with structure and with function were not

so

highly correlated withvitalistic and mechanistic

positions.)

The point demands a concrete example, and one

ha s

been chosen

that

may at f irst

seem frivolous:

consider what a psychologist might do if he were

interested

in

ana lyzing baseball pitching.

He

might

begin

by concerning himself with the coordination

of the pitch. Throu gh slow-motion photography

or electromyographic recording, he could examine

the sequential pa tterning of muscle movem ents, and

he

could analyze

th e

relation between

the

early

and

the late parts of the

performance.

He might

be

able to

specify

the interaction

between

the

ball's

speed and trajectory as it leaves the pitcher's hand

and the

magnitude

and

form

of the

pitcher's fol-

low-through. He might even ven ture a mathe-

matical formulation in which fast

balls

and curves

were distinguished

by parameters of his equations,

and his analysis could conceivably provide clues

about what to emphasize in

giving

instruction to

a novice pitcher. If he were reasonably successful,

to the

point,

fo r

example,

that he

could

predict the

properties of a given pitch

from

the early com-

ponents of muscle activity, he might be tempted to

claimthat

an

exhaustive account

of the

critical fea-

tures

of

pitching

was

realizable

at

least

in principle

i f

not

attainable

in

practice.

Yet no

matter

ho w

exhaustive

hi s analysis of the s truc tureof the pitch,

this psychologist would not be in a position to

deal with the circumstances

that

determine when

and at what the pitcher throws the

ball.

Such an

account wou ld requ ire, instead,

an

analysis

of the

functional properties of the pitch: its relation to

antecedent stimulus conditions and subsequent

stimulus

consequences.

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T MAY 1973

43 S


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The

example

m ay

seem tr ivial .

Yet it is

precisely

paralleled

by

contemporary developments

in the

psychology

of

language

and

il lustrates

the different

strategies tha t have

led to

conflict

between cogni-

tive and

behavioral form ulation s. Studies

of

both

gramm ar and phonology (e.g. , Chom sky & M iller ,

1 9 6 3 ; Liberman, 1970)have dealt specifically with

the stru ctu re of language and speech. Tran sfor-

mational analyses have been concerned with the

complex coordinations necessary

to

generate gram-

matical sentences orcomprehensible phonetic utter-

ances. Recognizing

that the way a

sentence

or

utterance

ends

interacts

with

characteristics of the

earl ier

parts of the

sentence

or

ut terance

is not so

very different from recognizing that

the

follow-

through interacts with

th e

w i n d u p

and the

delivery

even though it occurs after th e ball has left th e

pitcher's han d. Such analyses can beelaborated at

various levels of complexity; fo r example, the hier-

archical organization of units such as phonemes,

words,

and

grammatical

forms is

explicit ly fea-

tured in accounts of grammat ical s t ructure .

Structural analyses of grammar and speech, how-

ever, cannot tell

us

when

a

person will decide

to

speak, or what he

will

talk about. It is precisely

these latter questions that are the concern of a

functional

analysis

of

langua ge. This

is

i l lust ra ted

even by some of those materialsthat are taken as

critical examples of the primacy of a structural ac-

count. The written sentence

Dropping

bombs can

be dangerous has one of two structures, depending

on

whether

th e

speaker

is

concerned with

th e

people in the air or those on the ground . There is

no debate about whether these five words in this

particular order can consti tute two

different

sen-

tences.

But the

structural account cannot help

us

to choose between

the two

structures.

The

choice

must be based on

functional

considerations: the

conditions under which

th e

sentence

is

generated.

But sa y

instead that

th e

words

are

spoken.

N ow

the twosentences can be distinguished by different

pat terns of stress. Once both phonological and

grammatical

analyses

are available, an account can

be given of the relation between the two types of

structure. The problem is not surmou nted, how-

ever

;

even

at

this point,

th e

structural account can-

not

tell

us

about

th e

circumstances under which

a

sentence with one or the other structure will be

ut tered .

T h a t issue

is

again

functional .

It is surprising that such relations are so often

overlooked.

Y et

failures

to

note them

ca n

easily

be

documented.

The

controversy over

th e

psycho-

linguistic account

of

gramm atical struc ture versus

the

functional

analysis of verbal behavior has been

both persistent and prominent in psychology. The

chronology includes, among others, Skinner

( 1 9 5 7 ) ,

Chomsky ( 1 9 5 9 ) , Lenneberg

( 1 9 6 7 ) ,

Dixon and

Hor ton (1968 ) ,

MacCorquodale

( 1 9 7 0 ) , a n d

Premack ( 1 9 7 0 ) . The two sides of the controversy

were at most t imes simply co ncerned with two di f-

ferent

k i nds

of

problems: problems

of

st ructure

and

problems

of

function (or , equivalently, problems

of

competence and problems of performance, cf . Mc-

Neill,

1970,

p.

146) .

But the

accounts were

couched

in

languages

and

contexts that were suffi-

ciently

different

that th e different problems

each

was addressing typically went unrecognized (c f.

Catania , 1972) .

A

Behavior

Paradigm

Although

we are

arguing that

th e

development

of

contemporary psychology

is not

properly inter-

preted

in

terms

of

paradigm clashes, paradigms

can

be

useful.

We may

recall

that a

paradigm

is a

model that exhibits essential relations among th e

phenomena that it

represents.

W e should not be

surprised if neither a cognitive nor a behavioral

psychologist could come

up

with

a

paradigm

on

which

his respective colleagues could universally

agree. Nevertheless,w e

shall introduce

a

paradigm

here to il lustrate some of the properties of struc-

tural

and

functional accounts.

T he paradigm takes th e form S ' ^ R i S

0

) , where

S represents a s t imulus and R represents a re-

sponse.

The

superscripts,

in

S

D

and

S,distinguish

between two kinds of st imuli: a disc riminative st im-

ulus, S

D

, which is a st imulus denned in terms of

th e

events

that

ca n occur in its presence, and a

contingent st imulus,S

r

,which is a stimulus

defined

in

terms

of its

consequential relation

to

responses.

The expression

( R : S )

represents th e relation of

responses to consequences. This relation is called

a

contingency

and can be translated,

the

effect

of

response R on the probabi l i ty of st imulus S

c

.

Thus, the paradigm as a whole represents a con-

tingency that operates

in the

presence

of a

dis-

criminative st imulus.

The

paradigm

is not

exhaus-

t ive ;

it does not inc lud e, for example, responses

that may be

elicited

by the

contingent st imulus.

A

more detailed account of the paradigm has been

presented elsewhere (Catania,

1 9 7 1 ) ;

the point of

436 MAY

1973

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T


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using it here is not to argue the precedence of a

behavioral terminology, b ut rather to illustrate

some

structural

and

funct ional dimensions

of

prob-

lems

in

psychology.

Let us consider the scope of the para digm . The

contingency represents the way in which behavior

can

affect environmental events.

If the

contingent

s t imulus is a food pellet delivered to a hungry rat,

for

example, the

rat's

various responses may make

the

delivery

of a

pellet more likely

or

less likely,

or

might have no effect on pellet delivery. Let us

sa y tha t the lever press makes the pellet delivery

more likely, or, in other words,

that

the lever press

produces a pellet; we call this an instance of posi-

tive reinforcement. But if the lever press makes

the pellet delivery

less

likely, or, in other words,

prevents

thepellet

delivery,

wespeak of the

proce-

dure as omission trainin g. Finally, if the lever

press

has no

effect

on the

likelihood

of a

pellet

de-

livery, we

speak

of

pellet deliveries

as

response

independent.

But each of these contingencies might operate

only in the presence of some discriminative stimu-

l u s , such as a light. Such cases provide various

examples

of

discrimination procedures.

If, in the

presence

of a

light, lever presses produce food pel-

lets,

we

speak

of an

operant discrimination.

If, in

the presence of a light, lever presses prevent the

delivery

of food pellets, we speak of discriminated

omission train ing. A nd if, in the presence of a

l ight,

food

pellets

are

delivered independently

of

leverpresses, we speak of a respondent or Pa vlovian

conditioning procedure: in the presence of a light,

food

pellets

are

delivered, just

as food was

delivered

in

th e

presence

of

various stimuli

to Pavlov's

dogs.

The

contingent stimulus, however,

can be

aver-

sive

instead

of

appetitive.

If the

contingent stimu-

lu s

were electric shock,

fo r

example,

th e

three cases

would include

punishment,

when lever

presses

pro-

duce

shock;

avoidance

or

escape, when lever presses

prevent

or

remove

shock; and

response-independent

shock, when lever presses have

no effect on the

likelihood

of

shock

delivery.

These

contingencies,

too,

ca n

operate

in the

presence

of a

discriminative

stimulus. In

such cases,

we

classify

the

procedures

as

discriminated punishment, discriminated avoid-

ance

or

escape,

an d

respondent defensiv e condition -

i n g , respectively.

Finally,

th e

contingent stimulus

can be effec-

tively neutral.

If a rat's

lever press produces

or

removes a

stimulus such

as a

click

or a

light,

we

can ask about the extent to which the rat learned

about the contingency relation between its lever

press and this stimulus by later pairing the stimu lus

with someappetitive

or

aversive event.

W e

speak

of learning

so

demonstrated

as

latent learning.

But

relations between responses and such simple events

typically occur in certain settings, and so it is

appropriate to speak of discriminative stimuli fo r

these con tingencies also.

In the

presence

of

certain

visual,

tactile, and other stimuli, the rat moves

about and encounters various

parts

of its environ-

men t: its mo vemen ts are responses

that

have cer-

tain consequences, and these relations are also ex-

amples

of

contingenc ies. Thus, procedures

in

sensorimotor

learning can be encompassed by

such a paradig m. There may be, in addition, some

neutral events that

reliably

occur independently

o f

th e

rat's

responses. Suppose, for example,

that

in

the presence of a tone, a light consistently flashes;

i f

we find,

through later procedures

in

which

we

pair th e tone or the light with other events,

that

the rat had learned something about the relation

between these tw o stimuli, we refer to the initial

procedure as an instanceof sensory preconditioning.

Thus,

all of the

basic lea rning procedures

ca n

be

incorporated into

this

paradigm.

The

essential

fea ture

of the

analysis

of

contingencies

is in

fact

th e

description

of the

functional

relations among

stimuli an d

responses. Some stim uli, which

we

call

discriminative,

are

stimuli

denned

in terms of the

events

that ca n occur in their presence. Othe r

stimuli ,

which

we

call contingent,

are

stimuli

de-

fined in

terms

of

their consequential relation

to

responses. Our intere st in behav ior encompasses

both the circumstances under which responses can

occur and the

ways

in

which

they ca n modify th e

likelihood

of

environmental events.

Structural

and

Functional

Research Strategies

Consider how we

proceed

if we are

interested

in

funct ional questions.

We can

study various con-

tingencies, ( R : S

C

) , b y

varying

a

response's

effect

on the

probability

of

some contingent stimulus

or

by

varying

th e

nature

of the

contingent stimulus.

For

example, when

we

study

th e

transition

from

reinforcement

to extinction, we change

from

a con-

t ingency

in which a response produces a

reinforcing

s t imulus

to one in which the response no longer

produces

that reinforcing

stimulus; when we study

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T MAY 1973 437


5/10

th e

effects

ofsatiation,we

change

from a

procedure

in

which

th e

contingent stimulus

is

reinforcing

to

one in

which

th e

contingent stimulus

is no

longer

reinforcing. Or we can

study

th e

stimulus control

acquired by a

discriminative

stimulus, S

D

,by

vary-

ing the

contingencies

on

which

th e

st imulus

is

superimposed

or by

changing

the

relation

of the

s t imulus

to a contingen cy. For examp le, when we

compare the

roles

of

stimuli

in

operant

and re-

spondent conditioning,

we

change

th e

contingency

that

operates in the presence of a discri min ative

s t imulus from one in which a response produces a

contingent stimulus

to one in

which

a

response

ha s

no

e f f e c t

on presentations of a contingent stimulus;

when

weexamine stimulus control in complex rein-

forcement

schedules

or in

types

of

delay condition-

ing, we vary the temporal separation between the

discriminative stimulus and the operation of a con-

tingency.

(W e

could

now

transfer this account

to

th e baseball pitcher of our earlier example. W e

could

a rgue

that a

given batter

at a

particular point

in a

game represents

a

discriminative stimulus,

S

D

,

in th e

presence

of

which

a

particular pitch,

R , will

be

likely

to

have

a

particular consequence,

S. The

tran slatio n is simple enough. To illustrate how

th e

paradigm

bears on

structural

and

functional

questions,

however, we might better

apply

it to

more

traditional psychological materials.)

Each of the functional questions in the preceding

examples concerns relations among various terms

in th e

paradigm.

Let us now

consider structural

analyses, which deal with

th e

distinguishing proper-

ties

of

individual terms when

th e

relation among

terms is held constant. For example, if a particula r

contingency operates in the presence of a particular

discriminative stimulus, we can vary the stimulus

an d

ask

questions about

it s

critical features.

This

is our strategy in psychophysical experim ents with

both

human

and

animal

subjects, but it is also

applied when the stimulus features are more com-

plex. Thus, in a study of how children learn to

read,

we can try to identify

properties

of the

letters

o f

th e

alphabet

that are critical to learning, and

we

might

find,

among

th e

features

tha t w e

examine,

that the child can be taugh t to disting uish between

up-down reversals of letters more easily than be-

tween

left-right reversals (c f. Gibson,

1965) .

The

questions

are

about stimulus structure,

or, as

Pylyshyn ( 1 9 7 2 )

put it, about the struc ture of

th e percept :

The quest ion of the n a t u r e of a

menta l

representat ion

is real ly a quest ion about which aspects of the

pa t t e rn

of

incoming data

a re

perceived, learned,

and

retained

fo r

potent i a l

fu t u r e

use. How ever, . . . these aspects that

are

dist inguished an d retained and that

play

a f u n c t i o n a l

role

in

cognit ion need

not be

simple classes

of

physical

propert ies of the st imulus pat tern. They of ten a re ra ther

abst rac t propert ies

whose relat ion to the physical features

of

th e

s t imulus

may b e qu i t e

obscure . . .

[p .

548].

The account is reminiscent of the distinction be-

tween sensation and perception, and we may recall

the extent to which the field of perception has in-

volved

structural concerns.

On the other hand, we might be interested in

studying differences among

the classes of responses

that can be

learned. Again,

th e

relations among

terms

of the paradigm are held constant, but

this

t ime we vary the response rather than the discrimi-

native stimulus. W ecould examine simple response

properties, such as the force or topography of a

rat 's

lever

press, or we could study the

differenti-

ation of

motor skills

in

hum an subjects. Similar

questions, however, can be addressed to more com-

plex modeso f responding. In the four decades be-

tween

Guilford's

( 1 9 2 7 ) The Role of Form in

Learning and Johnson's (196 8) The

Influence

of

Grammatica l

Uni ts

on

Learning,

our

experimental

sophistication has changed, but the basic

problem

has rema ined the same : at issue is the stru ctur e of

complex responses. A n u m be r of

areas

in the con-

temporary

psychology

of

human verbal learning

(e.g.,

sub jective organization

in

free recall; Tulving,

1 9 6 2 )

can be regarded as concerned with the stru c-

tur al properties of complex responses. (To extend

the account to contingent stimuli, we might even

argue

that

concern

in

motivat ion with

th e

factors

that influence th e effectiveness of

contingent stim-

u l i ,

as in the analysis of incentives, is a structural

problem in the present sense.)

Hierarchical

Organization of

Stimuli

and Responses

Some

might argue

tha t

this kind

of an

account

misses the point, because an

analysis

of stimulus

s t ruc ture

alone or of response structure alone will

necessarily omit the complex interaction between

organism and environment tha t must take place

dur ing

cognitive processing (c f. Neisser, 196 7) .

But

each

stage of

such

an

interaction must involve

th e organism's responses to particular features of

the environm ent. The resolution, therefore, ma y

438 MAY

1973

A M E K I C A N

P S Y C H O L O G I S T


6/10

lie

with

an

account

of the

hierarchical organization

of

stimuli and responses.

Estes ( 1 9 7 1 )

stated the

issue

as follows:

If

one who is

a t tempt ing

to describe and

predict

the

behavior of an adult human learner fails to take account

o f these behavioral organizations, and a t tempts to con-

struct an account in

terms

only of

individual stimulus-

response units,

the

principles

of

operation

of

rewards

an d

punishments may appear to be

qui te

different from

those

revealed

in

simpler

experiments with animals or immature

hum an learners. Actually, it may be that the principles

of

operation of these factors are the same in all cases an d

tha t th e difference lies in the

na tur e

of the behavioral

units whose probabilitiesare being modified as a result of

the experiments with various types of

outcomes

[p .

23].

The tendency to select on e response

strategy rather

than

another

in a given

situation

must itself be modified by

past experience with rewarding or punishing outcomes. A

strategic question

which must

be

fundamenta l

to the

f u r -

ther development

of theory in this

area

is tha t of

whether

the laws and mechanisms of reinforcement are the same

for these higher-order

behavioral

units as for the more

elementary

responses

studied in most laboratory experi-

ments

[p .31].

We

may too

often

think of responses as single

and discrete events,

fail ing

to regard their struc-

tural properties as also included among their de-

fining features . (W e

have similar problems when

we

talk about

stimuli

when we mean to ta lk about

stimulus properties.) Not simply the closure of a

switch

by a lever press, but perhaps also the gram-

maticality

of a

sentence that

is

uttered

or the ap-

propriateness

of a

strategy

that

is

applied

can be

regarded as

denn ing

properties of those response

classes that

ca n

enter into

funct ional

relations.

Take Harlow's (1949) learning

set

exper iment

as an exam ple. A t one level of analysis, the choice

of

one or another s t imulus is the response of

interest .

But at a

hierarchically more complex

level,

the acquisit ion of learning set is denned in

terms

of the

subst i tu t ion,

fo r

many separate choices

in different problems, of a single, more general re -

sponse

class that can be

described

in the

following

te rms: if the stimulus choice produced

food this

t ime,

contin ue to choose it; if it did n ot, choose

the other s t im ulu s; more economical ly , we m ay

speak

of

win-stay,

lose-shift. It is fruitless to

debate w hether this perform anc e should be spoken

of

in

terms

of a

complex response class

or in

t e rms

of

a

strategy;

in

either case,

the

point

is that the

analysis concerns behavioral struc ture. Questions

about the nature of this structure are orthogonal to

funct ional questions, such

as

that

of

whether rein-

forcementwas a

learning

or a

performance var iab le

in

these procedures. (This does

not

imply

that an

analysis

of

s t ruc tu re

will

necessarily

be

irrelevant

to an

analysis

of funct ion, or vice versa; if st ruc-

ture

and

function

interact in learning, fo r example,

it

is all the more impor t an t to be clear about the

difference between st ructural

and

funct ional

quest ions. )

The fol lowing accoun t (F i sche r , 1972 ) of m a z e

l e a rn ing

p rov ides ano the r i l l u s t r a t ion :

After . . .

familiarizing

yourself with one of the more

complete structural

systemsperhaps Chomsky's g ra m m a r

you might even be able to begin to write tha t structural

analysis of

children's

maze performance. While other psy-

chologists were

explaining th e

performance

by

reducing

it

to some lowest common factor like reinforcement or a t ten-

t ion,

you

would

be searching for key pat terns and for

rules tha t

would relate those

pat terns to

each other.

In

a w a y ,it w ould be like

writing

a grammar fo r maze per-

formance .

You w ould need a set of

grammatical

categories

to

describe

th e phrasest ructure of the children'sbehavior

in the maze and a set of transformation rules for relating

different

types

of phrase

structures.

With

this

kind of

structural description, yo u could account for the particu-

lars

of maze performance to an extent

t ha t

is

probably

impossible

fo r

explanations t h a t

merely reduce

behavior

to

fac tors

like reinforcement and a t tent ion [pp. 330-3311.

According

to this account,

Krechevsky

( 1 9 3 2 )

w as

wr i t ing a pre l imin ary gramm ar of maze learn-

in g

when

h e

carried

out his

experiments

on

hypoth-

eses in rats. A nd this form ula tion is reasona ble,

because Krechevsky's concern, l ike Fischer's, was

with

th e s t ruc tu re of the maze pe r fo rmance . Y et

neither

th e

child

nor the rat will

necessarily move

through

the

maze, even

if the

maze

has

been

thoroughly mastered, on the basis of a maze gram-

mar alone.

W e ma y

recal l Tolman 's (1948 ) ra t ,

said to be lost in thought at the choice point . The

cognit ive map provided a way of describing the

effective

st imulus s t ructure

of the rat's

wor ld .

B ut

a rat with a cognitive map must have occasion to

use it, and procedures that get the rat to perform

and thereby demonst rateits map are funct ional . In

psycholinguistics, we can simi lar ly imagine Chom-

sky's speaker lost in thought, capable of grammati-

cal

speech

but

with noth ing

to

say:

In the

case

of linguistic

concepts, such

as

grammaticali ty,

such

procedures are called

generative

gramm ars. Such

grammars do not describe how people go a bo u t

under-

standing or generating sentences, but they do describe the

abstract relation tha t

holds

between strings of words and

such concepts as

grammatical

sentence [Pylyshyn,1972,

p.

550].

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST MAY 1973 439


7/10

If we wish to understand how the thinker comes to

speak, we mus t be able to provide a

functional

as

well as a structural account of language.

Explanation and

Description

Let us

suppose, however, tha t

we had

provided

both

a

structural

and a

functional

account

of

lan-

guage

or of

maze learning.

To

what extent would

we have explained th e per formance? In his quota-

tion above, Fischer contrasted functional fac tors

like

reinforcement

and

attention with structural

factors like transformation rules as waysof explain-

ing or

account ing

for the

maze performance.

But

we m ay question whether either a s truc tura l or a

functional account, or even both in com bin ation ,

can ever have the power of exp lana tion. The pres-

ent

view

is that both s t ruc tura l and

funct ional

analyses

a re

descriptive rather than explanatory .

Consider

th e

following commentary

by

Black

(1970) on the

psycholinguistic account

of

lan-

guage in terms of deep s t ruc tures and generative

grammars :

Whatever their value, Kepler 's laws do not explain th e

planetary motions, in any useful sense of expla in : they

replace a crude and unsystema tic descript ion ( those orbi ts

out there ,

or

the orb i t s confo rmin g

to

these readings )

by

another descript ion concisely present ing some m a t h e -

matical propert ies of the orbi ts . The

same

applies,

mutatis

mutandis to the rules constituting a specific generative

g r ammar . O ur ini t ial crude

intuitions

as to what should

c o u n t as

grammat ica l

or the

reverse

ar e

replaced

by a set

of precise

an d

explicit rules that (approximately

and

with

ideal izat ion) generate a corresponding classificat ion. This

provides valuable insight into structural connect ions: it

ma y be

said

to

provide intelligible reasons

fo r w h a t w e

previously seemed

to be

doing

b y a

kind

of

inst inct .

B ut

explanat ion hardly seems th e right ta g [pp.

454455].

Fu nctional terms like reinforcem ent, too, have

typically been regarded

as

explanatory.

Y et

rein-

forcement is simply a name for a certain set of

functional relations.

If a

response

in a

given class

produces a s t imulus ,a nd responses in that class are

strengthened by virtue of its production of that

stimulus,we say

that

we

have observed

an

instance

o f

the

process

of

reinforcement .

We may

wish

to

relate this process

to

other b ehavioral processes,

or to

characterize

the

properties

of

stimuli that

ca n

have this reinforcing effect, but tha t does not

change

th e

na ture

of the

term.

It

rema ins

a

name,

to

be

applied when

it is

appropriate like

any

other

name (Catania , 1973) . Thus, we can talk about

st imulus properties

and

about response properties

at various hierarchical levels of complexity, and we

can outline the kinds of functional relations that

ca n

exist

among them. A t each level, our concern

is descriptive, and the question of what kind s of

functional relations

different

s t imuli or responses

ca n

enter into is an empirical one.

Much emphasis ha s recently been given to the

l imits

of

learning (e.g., Breland

&

Breland, 1961;

Revusky

&

Garcia, 1970; Rozin

&

Kala t , 1 9 7 1 ;

Sel igman, 1970) : limits

on the

kinds

of

responses

that can be learned, on the kinds of stimuli that

can act effectively on an organism, and on the kinds

o f relations tha t can be established between par-

t icular

s t imuli

and

particular responses.

But

analyses

of the

s t ruc ture

of

effective s t imuli ,

or of

the differentstructures of

those

responses that can

be

more

or

less easily learned,

are different from

analyses of how s t imuli and responses function in

behavior .

And if

some

functional

relations turn

out to be less general than was once believed, it

does

not follow

that their names should

be

changed

or

that they no longer have the status of functional

relations.

Distinguishing

the Structure-Function

Dimension from the Behavior-

Cognition Dimension

According to the present view, questions of stimu-

lus

s truc ture

and

response structure

a re

orthogon-

ally related to questions of behavioral funct ion.

This

is not to say

tha t information about s t ruc ture

will never bear

on the

analysis

of

funct ion ,

or

vice

versa. But to the extent that these relations can

be clarified to

show that various research

areas in

psychology comp lement rather than conflict with

each other, controversy

m ay

give

way to

more pro-

duct ive interac t ion.

For

example, applications

of

psychology to education are often divided between

those concerned wi th the cognitive org aniza tion of

th e subjec t mat ter and those concerned with be-

havioral methodology in classroom management.

Yet to

teach

effectively, it is

essential

to

know

bothhow a subjec t mat ter iss truc tured, as s t imulus

in th e teacher 's presentation and as response in

the student 's mastery,

and how the

teacher

and

th e

s tudent

ca n

function

in a

classroom.

W e

mus t

give a t tent ion

to

cognition

in

both s t ruc tura l

and

functional

senses: structurally in the extent to

which cognitive strategies can be regarded as ways

440 MAY 1973 A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T


8/10

of describing the structural properties of complex

stimuli, and

functionally

in the analysis of both

the

circumstances under which strategies

are ap-

plied and the consequences of these strategies . A t

issue is the question of whether cognitive and

behavioral approaches

are

inappropriately inter-

preted, respectively, as structural and

functional

psychologies.

The evolution of psychology over the

past

cen-

tury has included the successive elaboration of

various structural

and

functional psychologies.

Th e

properties

of

these

different

psychologies have

changed in detail over the years. Gestalt psychol-

og y wasclearly structural, just as the analysisof

contingencies in schedules of reinforcement was

clearly

functional . B ut

structural

and functional

psychologies complement each

other;

they need

not

stand in opposition.

Some

of the

differences

have been differences in

language. The clash between the vocab ulary of

mentalism and the vocabulary of behaviorism is

readily evident.

It is not

unfashionable these

days to be a

mental is t ;

only dualism is reprehen-

'sible.

But the deba te between mentalism and be-

haviorism has

been along different dimensions than

those of structure and function. The major be-

haviorist argument has been against

causal,

not

descriptive, mentalism , and to argue that mental

events are not causes of behavior is not to argue

that private events

do not

exist.

In

fact,

th e

pos-

sibility

of an

internally consistent mentalism

is

implicit in the notionthat a behavioral translation

of mental

or

cognitive vocabularies

is

feasible.

The choice of vocabularies will rest with the

effectiveness with which their proponents

apply

them. On the side of the men tal or cognitive

vocabulary, it might be argued that it lies closer

to everyday talk than some behaviorist languages,

but on examination, th e language of

information

storage

and

retrieval,

fo r

example,

is no

less eso-

teric than the language of reinforce men t contingen-

cies.

On the

side

of the

behaviorist vocabulary,

it mightbeargued thatitprovidesgreater precision

and less risk of contamination by everyday pre-

conceptions,

but

behaviorists have

yet to

discount

the possibility of an internally consistent and ef-

fective m entalist vocabulary (c f . Bolles, 19 67 ).

A s the

arguments

are

marshaled

onboth sides, the

tide shifts: epistemological difficulties in behavior-

ism are balanced by accounts of its relevance to

phenomenology (Day,

1969),

while

the

expanding

front

of

cognitive research

is

tempered

by its

philosophical limitations (Malcolm, 1971) . These

clashes,

in any

case,

may be

mere epiphenomena;

the distinction between structure and function is

critical to either v iewpo int, and progress will de-

pend more

on

results than

on

discussion.

The Place of

Psychogenesis

Let us now turn back to Titchener's

formulation.

W e

have seen

ho w

various problems

of

psychology

can be interpreted as problems of structure or of

function.

It rem ains to relate these two subdivi-

sions

to

problems

of

development: what Titchener

called psychogenesis. Superficially, it is tempting

to

equate this area with developmental

psychology,

and in one sense such an equation would be cor-

rect. Yet to place the area in its proper perspec-

tive, we must be clear about the kind of develop-

ment

that is to be studied. Certainly, we may be

interested in the development, through maturation,

of the capacity to

respond

to

various complexes

of

stimuli

or to

engage

in new

responses

an d

apply

different strategies.

But

whether

we say we are

concerned with

the

development

of

behavior

or

with that of the mind, our psychogenesis must in -

clude

the

psychology

of

learning.

If

embryology

deals with the development of the organism, and

evolution with the development of a species, then

psychogenesis must deal with the development of

th e organism's behavioral or mental capacit ies; this

is

what

the

psychology

of

learning

is

supposed

to

be about .

The

view resolves some paradoxes.

In the

analy-

sis of behavior, the functional analysis of con-

tingencies,

as in the

study

of

reinforcement sched-

ules

(Ferster & Skinner,

1957) ,

created

conflict.

The operant analysis of steady-state performances

was not

seen

as

relevant

to

some problems

in the

psychology of learning. This was as it should have

been: on the one hand, the analysis was more con-

cerned

with

functional

relations in the

steady-state

maintenance of behavior than with developmental

relations in its acquisition; on the other, it might

have been anticipated that the study of develop-

ment, too, would divide into functional and struc-

tura l

components (e.g., respectively, Bijou &Baer ,

1966;

Piaget &Inhelder,

1969).

According to the present view, it was appropriate

for these various

parts

of psychology to proceed

in

different

ways.

It is

only unfortunate that they


MAY

1973

441


9/10

have

often

been seen

as

incompatible.

Progress in

these areasstructure, function, and development

h as

constituted the evolution in psychology over

th e

past

century.

It has

typically been uncoordi-

nated, and there is much left to be settled. The

detailed character

of

each area changes

from

time

to time. The areas m ay variously merge and

separate again,

but

they

are at

least

as

indepen-

dently viable as are divisions of the biological

sciences. Ho pefully , they

will

not become totally

isolated

from

each other.

Paradigms

and

Clashes

We have argued here

that

psychology is not in the

midst

of a par adig m clash. Tru e parad igm clashes

require points of conta ct. In the clash between

the

astronomies

of

Kepler

and of

Ptolemy,

the

sub-

ject matter stayed

th e

same while

the

point

of

view

changed;

literally, as

well

as figuratively, the center

did not

hold.

Different

schools

of

psychology, how-

ever, have been concerned with different problems.

This is not to say

that

th e

evolution

of

psychologi-

cal concepts has never involved conflict. Rather ,

it

is to say

that

the

clashes have

not

been along

an y simple dimension of psychological problem s.

The m ultip licity of issues m ay generally d istinguish

clashes in the

life

sciences

from

those in the

physi-

cal sciences. A strong case for

this

view has been

made

in Mayr ' s ( 1 9 7 2 )

analysis

of the

Darwinian

revolution:

It is now evident that the Darw inian revo lution does

not conf o rm to the simple model of a scientific revolut ion

a s described, fo r instance, b y T . S .

K u h n .

. . . It is actually

a complex movement t h a t started nearly 25 0 years a g o ;

i t s many major components were proposed a t different

t imes, and became victorious independently of each other.

E ve n t hough

a

revolut ionary c l imax occurred unquest ion-

ably in 1859, the gradual acceptance of evolutionism, with

all of its

ramifications, covered

a

period

of

nearly

250

years . . . [p .

988].

Neither is the revolutionin psychology a revolution

o f a decade.

We have argued

that

Titchener's insight into

th e

organization of psychology is relevant today. Yet

we

m ay

wonder

why

Titchener,

in his structural

account, contributedto an opposition between struc-

turalism and functio nalis m that has persisted for

most

of

this century. Part

of the

answer probably

lies in what it was possible to do in each of these

separate areas

in Titchener 's

time.

A s

Titchener

(1899a, p. 22) noted, structural psychology had

made more progress in his day than either of the

other two psychologies, But it is the progress in

structural , functional,

and

developmental accounts

that constitutes psychology's evolution and revolu-

tion.

It is

reassuring

to

note that Boring (1969)

detected signs that Titchener, near the end of his

career, was gradually moving toward behaviorism;

Boring's grounds

were

simply

that

Titchener 's

theory of meaning was changing into a functional

account . And from that development, too, both

structural is ts and

functionalists

can learn.

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Documents

Catania (1973) the Psychologies of Structure, Function and Development