The Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory
Living Control Systems IV
Resources
Description
Key Features
- Presents case studies that show how PCT can be applied in different disciplines
- Illustrates the Test for the Controlled Variable (TCV) and the construction of functional models as fruitful alternatives to mainstream experimental design when studying behavior
- Shows how theory illuminates structure and functions in brain anatomy
- Compares and contrasts PCT with other contemporary, interdisciplinary theories
Readership
Researchers and students in psychology, neuroscience, engineering, sociology, ethology, computer science, evolutionary biology, linguistics, robotics, and artificial intelligence
Table of Contents
Part I
Why do we need perceptual control theory?
1. The world according to PCT
2. Understanding purposeful systems: the application
of control theory in engineering and psychology
3. The crisis in neuroscience
4. When causation does not imply correlation: robust
violations of the faithfulness axiom
Part II
Models of brain and behavior
5. Unraveling the dynamics of dyadic interactions:
perceptual control in animal contests
6. How the brain gets a roaring campfire: Structuring
for Perceptual Results
7. How the brain gets a roaring campfire: input and
output functions
8. The phylogeny, ontogeny, causation and function of
regression periods explained by reorganizations of the
hierarchy of perceptual control systems
Part III
Collective control and communication
9. Social structure and control: perceptual control theory
and the science of sociology
10. Perceptual control in cooperative interaction
11. Language and thought as control of perception
Part IV
Applications
12. Perceptions of control theory in
industrial-organizational psychology: disturbances
and counter-disturbances
13. Method of Levels Therapy
14. Robotics in the real world: the perceptual control
theory approach
15. PCT and beyond: toward a computational framework
for ‘intelligent’ communicative systems
Part V
Synthesis
16. Ten vital elements of perceptual control theory,
tracing the pathway from implicit influence to
scientific advance