Now,
I hypothesized this a long time ago. I now have a four page
bibliography which supports my contention. {This particular
bibliography is available on the www.clarewgraves.com
website: Bibliography in Support of Existence of Qualitatively
Different Dynamic Neurological Systems, August, 1969.} The data is in
the literature that this is the truth and that these systems are
there. They are different systems, and not only because of the way my
people operated when they said:
- He learns in one way in system N.
- He learns in another way in system O.
- He learns in another way in system P.
- These studies, and my own work, I believe now show that the
learning process in the brain . . . .
In – the N system the learning is habituation.
In – the O system the learning is Pavlovian conditioning.
In – the P system the learning is Operant or instrumental
conditioning.
In – the Q system the learning is Avoidance conditioning.
In – the R system the learning is Expectancy learning.
In
– the S system the learning is the Operational learning process
. . .
that Bandura writes so much about at the present time, for
example.
In other words, we learn differently in each system. We are
equipped by nature to learn this way when the system is on and
dominant . . . and not that way.
When you think in terms of therapy, if the P system is running
the organism and it is alert to learning only through operant
conditioning, what are we doing fiddling around with Freudian therapy
when we have that kind of a person? If you have the Q system dominant
what are we doing fiddling around with Skinner when we have Freudian
techniques? Skinner is awfully good for low level behavior but don’t
fiddle around with Skinner at the higher levels.
We’ve got to get this information together somehow. If we can
ever get this information teased out we are going to be on our way to
what I would call the constructive and humanistic control of human
behavior. Now, don’t misunderstand me as far as Skinner is
concerned. I’m not out to get Skinner. I just have a very different
kind of ability to work with and bring about change in human behavior
then that which Skinner brings forth in Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
The systems, which I think you’ll find, and they are right
here on this list, show that in the O system for example, that which
it responds to is variation within the same sensory modality. If you
want to activate the O system, you increase light or decrease light,
increase or decrease sound, but you would never use a pattern of
lights or a pattern of sounds or a pattern of sound and light together
because that will activate the P system but won’t turn on the O
system.
Different stimuli turn on different systems. You can place
electrodes in the brain where the centrality of these systems are. If
you put a certain kind of stimulus in there you will get out a certain
kind of activity but if you put another kind of stimulus in there you
will not get that activity.
Now. . . this you
see, is one part of the picture, and we are trying to see what the
brain is like. The brain is a structural system or a functional system
in which a bunch of structures or functions or whatever they are, are
arranged in a system. I am trying to get away from the idea that
somewhere in the brain lies in-toto the N system. This simply is not
so. There is some kind of central point apparently and the neural
system ramifies out through the rest of the brain in somehow
or another. (see Figure 4} And
functionally there is an N system and an O system and a P system and a
Q system and an R system and an S system which handles the data of
this new conception of healthy personality. I had never run into
anything like this before and no one else had run into it either and
now it appeared in my data. I had to open up this brain and say;
”Look . . . there are awful lot of neural networks and an awful lot
of permutations and combinations that take place. Therefore, this is very
possibly an open-ended system.”