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SPECIES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION BASED ON PRIVATE STATES

Lubinski, David and Thompson, Travis (1993) SPECIES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION BASED ON PRIVATE STATES.

Short Abstract:

The way people come to report to one another about private stimulation (e.g., feeling states) arising within their own bodies is not well understood. Although the Darwinian assumption of phylogenetic continuity between species has been the basis of animal modeling for many human biological and behavioral phenomena, few models exist for human communication based on private stimulation. This target article describes such an animal model drawing upon concepts and methods from the study of discriminative stimulus effects of drugs and recent research on interanimal communication. We discuss how humans acquire the capacity to identify and report private stimulation. Intra- and interspecific differences are also discussed, including constitutional individual differences in neurochemical mechanisms for transducing interoceptive stimuli, enzymatic and other metabolic differences, differences in learning ability, and general differences in discrimination learning histories, along with their relation to psychiatric and developmental disabilities.

Long Abstract:

The way people come to report to one another about private stimulation (e.g., feeling states) arising within their own bodies is not well understood. Although the Darwinian assumption of phylogenetic continuity between species has been the basis of animal modeling for many human biological and behavioral phenomena, few models exist for human communication based on private stimulation. This target article describes such an animal model drawing upon concepts and methods from the study of discriminative stimulus effects of drugs and recent research on interanimal communication. We discuss how humans acquire the capacity to identify and report private stimulation. Intra- and interspecific differences are also discussed, including constitutional individual differences in neurochemical mechanisms for transducing interoceptive stimuli, enzymatic and other metabolic differences, differences in learning ability, and general differences in discrimination learning histories, along with their relation to psychiatric and developmental disabilities.

Keywords:	private events, communication, verbal behavior, animal models, emotions, drug states, animal communication, experimental analysis of behavior, autism, language, symbols
Subjects:	Psychology: Behavioral Analysis Biology: Primatology Psychology: Cognitive Psychology Linguistics: Learnability Neuroscience: Neurochemistry
ID code:	bbs00000524
Deposited by:	David Lubinsky on 02 May 2001