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Study of Behavior: Science Or Pseudoscience

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Study of Behavior: Science Or Pseudoscience Historical Review Acta Neurobiol Exp 2013, 73: 439–450 Study of behavior: Science or pseudoscience Jerzy Konorski With comments by Bogdan Dreher, Charles Gross and Giacomo Rizzolatti The manuscript printed below has been written by Prof Jerzy Konorski around 1970, a few years before his death in 1973. The manuscript has not been published before. It was recently discovered in Konorski’s papers deposed in the Library of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. In his critical review Konorski debates advantages and shortcomings of the physiological approach of Pavlov and purely behavioristic approaches advocated by Hull and Skinner. He supports close cooperation o behaviorists with neurophysiologists and neuroanatomists, with focus on the investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying behavior. Konorski’s ideas concerning the integration of the study of behavior and neurophysiology anticipated contemporary path of neuroscience. Indeed, his approach, which at that time appeared somewhat controversial, is universally accepted by contemporary neuroscientists. By contrast, physiological theories of higher mental functions formulated by Pavlov as well as deliberately anti-physiological approaches of Skinner and Hull have all but disappeared from serious scientific discourse. However, the same problems such as strongly promoted self-importance of some branches of neuroscience, the lack of inter-communication between different branches and resulting lack of integrating ideas appear to emerge anew in each new generation of scientists. (Editors of Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis). Key words: neural mechanisms, behavioral theories, psychological theories, separatism of science branches INTRODUCTION PAVLOV’S LEGACY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT Before starting to write this paper I wanted to be certain of the precise meaning of the word “legacy’’. In Very early in my life, in the third decade of this the Concise Oxford Dictionary I found that it is “a century, for some reasons which need not be explained material or immaterial thing handed down by prede- here, I become interested in what at first glance cessors”. Thus, I understand that I am here in a role of appears to be a simple question: “how does the brain predecessor, expected to hand over my thoughts about work?” This was why I began to study first psychology the field of science I have been concerned with and then medicine, being particularly interested in throughout my life to the present generation of scien- neurophysiology, neurology and psychiatry. tific workers. Analyzing now those thoughts I realize Unfortunately, on the basis of my studies I could not that they are shaped by my past. This means that find either an answer to this questions – which obvi- although my views concerning particular problems of ously could not be given – or even a hint as to how it brain functions and brain – behavior relations have should be approached. drastically changed with the development of my own The turning point in my life occurred when in 1927 research and that conducted by other authors, my gen- I found (together with my friend and colleague Stefan eral idea have remained amazingly similar to, although Miller) the French translation of Pavlov’s fundamental not identical with, those I held 45 years ago at the work on conditional reflexes (Pavlov 1927). We began beginning of my scientific career. Accordingly, my to study this book, as well as other papers from the scientific “legacy” requires explanation of the origin Pav1ovian laboratories, and we realized that this was and development or my scientific Weltanschauung [a precisely what we were looking for. Soon we suc- Worldview]. This calls for some autobiographical facts ceeded in organizing out own small laboratory on which have been dealt with in detail elsewhere (Konorski conditioned reflexes, and in a few years we obtained 1973). some data which aroused Pavlov’s interest and appre- © 2013 by Polish Neuroscience Society - PTBUN, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology 440 J. Konorski The first page of Jerzy Konorski manuscript Study of behavior: Science or pseudoscience 441 ciation. As a consequence he invited as to come to reflexes, based on a different paradigm than the Leningrad to discuss with him our problems. I stayed Pavlovian reflexes, and a thorough description of in this city for two years working in Pavlov’s labora- their properties and categories (Miller and Konorski tory, and in this way the path of my scientific career 1928 (Engl. translation 1969), Konorski and Miller was “settled”. 1933, 1936). These reflexes were subsequently called What did I learn when I became a “pupil“ of Pavlov? “operant responses” by Skinner (1938) and “instru- Let me recapitulate the main theses of Pavlovian teach- mental responses” by Hilgard and Marquis (1940). In ing, as it was called in that time in Russia. the late thirties, when I became better acquainted Pavlov claimed that experiments on brain func- with the physiology of the central nervous system, I tions, executed in anaesthetized animals are not a became much more critical towards the Pavlovian “true” physiology of this organ for the following rea- theory of cerebral processes, since I had realized sons. The brain is the organ developed for no highest that this theory is completely incongruous with the control and integration of animal behavior on the general principles of neurophysiology. In order to basis of messages arriving to it from receptors. This understand this incongruity one must take into is its real and unique function. Therefore, studying its account that before Pavlov began his research work activity in a situation in which this function is strong- on conditioned reflexes, he spent about twenty years ly reduced and simplified by anesthetic drugs, is on a different subject – the physiology of the diges- unreasonable, and cannot teach us anything about tive tract. In this domain Pavlov won a worldwide how the brain works in normal conditions. The only reputation, crowned by the Nobel prize in 1903. way to approach the normally functioning brain is to When he afterwards drastically changed the line of make experiments on wakeful animals by presenting his investigation, he was not properly acquainted them with various types of natural stimuli and with the achievements of modern neurophysiology, observing their responses. which was founded on Ramon y Cajal’s studies on It should be recalled that the concept of a “ref lex”, the histology of the nervous system (Ramon y Cajal denoting simple inborn responses to particular 1909, 1911) and developed by Sherrington in his stimuli, was already well established in physiology studies on the activity of the spinal cord (Sherrington by the end of the 19th century. Therefore Pavlov also 1906). Indeed, Pavlov did not try to adjust his con- resorted to this concept as the basis of his investiga- cepts of the activity of the cerebral cortex to the tions by introducing the term “conditional” reflex, general principles of functioning of the central ner- in contradistinction to the ”unconditional” reflex as vous system, but attempted to build his theory of dealt with in neurophysiology up to that time. In his cortical processes on the basis of his own ideas writings Pavlov stressed very strongly that all which had emerged from experiments on condi- essential properties of conditional reflexes were tioned reflexes. exactly the same as those of unconditional reflexes, The main difference between the two lines of rea- except that the latter were inborn, while the former soning, that of Ramon y Cajal and Sherrington on the were acquired during the animal’s life as a result of one hand, and that of Pavlov on the other, was shortly his individual experiences. Thus it was thought that this. According to Cajal and Sherrington the central the careful study of conditional reflexes and their nervous system is a huge nerve-net in which the ner- properties should pave the way for an understand- vous processes (impulses) are traveling from one neu- ing of their physiological mechanisms within the ron to the others by nerve fibers (axons), and transmit brain. This idea underlies the origins of a new either excitation or inhibition by synaptic contacts. branch of science that was called by Pavlov “physi- This transmission being strictly unidirectional conveys ology of higher nervous activity”. information, either from reception to the brain or from I became a full adherent and a strong advocate of the brain to effectors, or between various structures of this approach, and was even proud to belong to a the brain. On the other hand, Pavlov claimed that the small group of people who took part in this noble excitatory or inhibitory processes originating in the enterprise. My own main contribution to this enter- given points of the cerebral cortex by the operation of prise shared with my colleague and coworker Stefan corresponding conditioned stimuli radiate all over the Miller, was the discovery of type II conditioned cortex and then concentrate back to their departure 442 J. Konorski points (Pavlov 1927). On the basis of these notions conditioned reflex, generalization, extinction, etc.) and Pavlov attempted to explain all the manifold properties praising Pavlov as the greatest psychologist of our of both positive and negative conditioned reflexes and time, opposed any idea of explaining animal behavior their complex interrelations. in physiological terms. In order to present my issue let The critical evaluation of the Pavlovian theory of me take the view of two of the most influential animal cortical processes advanced by him on the basis of his behaviorists of my time, Skinner and Hull. experimental data, and my proposal of a new theory of conditioning based on the same data but with reference B.F. SKINNER’S VIEWS to the general principles of nervous activity developed by Sherrington, were presented in my monograph In the early nineteen thirties, Skinner decided to “Conditioned Reflexes and Neuron Organization” establish a purely empirical scientific discipline which [Konorski 1948 (next ed.
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