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New Directions in social sciences. This is the fourth in a series of programs prepared by the listener sponsored station KPFA in Berkeley California for distribution to the National Association of educational broadcasters. These talks delivered before the annual convention of the American Psychological Association and San Francisco point to new developments in man's exploration of himself and the world he lives in an area of Harlowe from the psychology department of the University of Wisconsin spoke to the conference on current and future advances in comparative psychology. Harold S. Harlow. Ladies and in this day and age of publication output at its present rate it is an unusual man who can keep abreast of current advances in any field and the individual who in his leisure time can keep abreast the advances to be made in the future must be a genius and a seer. I for one however can predict with absolute accuracy some of the future advances that are going to be made. Physiological parity in psychology during the next 12 to 14
months period which happens to coincide the publication like in the Journal of comparative and busy life. Beyond that period of time the crystal ball becomes very much cloudier even though I have confidential information from some of my friends that they are going to submit almost unbelievably important papers in the relatively near future. The most important current and future advance is going to be made in these areas is comparatively adequate financial support. And I say this with all sincerity. If one asked the one million $64000 question where are comparative and physiological psychology going. The answer lies not in the $64000 but in the one million. When I review the records of my friends some of whom are giants in the field and some of whom are not. I am always struck by one thing the Giants in almost
all cases grew to their enormous size because their roots were embedded in rich financial fertilizer. And I know a little joke that illustrates this point very well only I don't dare tell it. There can be no question but there has been a remarkable return of interest to the area of physiological psychology during the last decade. The name is no accident that this correlates almost perfectly with the temporal chorus of financial support from the Office of Naval Research the Army surgeon general the Veterans Administration the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The general excellence of the resulting researches and the developing breadth of interest area test the fact there was no serious qualitative or quantitative shortage of trained personnel when this resurgence started the primary thing previously lacking was money. I predict therefore that the discovery of money will be the most important advance.
My. Made in comp. in physiological psychology during the second and third quarters of the 20th century. An important current advance in both comparative psychology and physiological psychology during the last 10 years has been the development of a very considerable number of laboratories the board at least in part the use of primate as experimental subjects. This is advanced and I am certain that it was an important advance illustrates gains made possible by the emergence of adequate financial support. Now serious scientists can select subjects to meet the needs of the problem rather than being forced to select problems to meet the financial needs imposed by subjects primate research is making its impact on this AP A program will continue to do so in the future and will be of such importance as to justify the expense involved. Therefore I predict that the research administrators exercising a wisdom several JND is better than many research scientists will continue adequate support for non logical research.
Finally everything that I have said concerning monkeys and apes holds and will hold for the full size non simian forums including cats dogs raccoons porpoises and even polar bears if for some legitimate reason they are the animal best adapted to the problem. Any reasonably adequate support for established investigators located at major although reasonable adequate support for established investigators located the major research centers now exists. The recent post doctoral candidate and the material scholar located at some smaller institutions often finds it difficult to obtain such relatively modest support as is required to initiate a small laboratory conducts some ingenious experiment or test some hypothesis. The number of highly trained and competent men compared in physiological psychology will increase are not all of them will be located at major institutions. It is obvious that unless adequate so called small grant programs are established we will fail to take advantage of this research. Man our small grant support
exists presently in the social science area but not in the biological sciences area psychology. I therefore predict that in the next decade this unfortunate situation will end and the comparative insight physiological psychologist will be in a position to benefit from some formalized small grants program. And I make this prediction on sheer intuition a little bit of inside information. If we if we now orient ourselves to problem areas we find other evidences of genuine progress. One of the most important current advances in comparative psychology and I hope it continues in the future lies in the fact that we have almost ceased to talk about continuity vs. discontinuity learning a nother hopeful sign is the apparent waning of the latent learning controversy. Now the both sides have conclusively demonstrated that they are and always were absolutely right. Furthermore I believe the straight runway operators will have run its course
by 1970. Many decades before the greatest discrimination apparatus has ceased to be useful it is an interesting fact that it was a sensory psychologist who after dropping his colleagues into the starting box of the great runway judiciously withdrew and left his contemporaries to continue to respond in terms of Newton's first law of motion on the physiological side we are no longer haunted by the tonight as occasioned by the great racial audio genic seizure studies of several years ago and I predict that within the next 10 years the same respectable treatment will be accorded electroconvulsive shock even though some definitive work may still be mainly done in this area. On a more risky side I predict that the cerebral cortex cutters including those in Wisconsin will make no really significant further advances until they improve the behavioral testing techniques and carry out better controls over the experience all factors
affecting cortical behavior correlations. It is a perfectly safe prediction that a major breakthrough will be made in the determination of the effects of controlled early experience both normal and deviant upon the subsequent behavior of the organism. All the people have been observing children for a very considerable period of time. There are a few psychological areas of greater intellectual bloom than that relating to the effects of early experience. There is no such thing as a quick and dirty longitudinal study at least not quick. Many experienced studies many early experience studies are expensive and many of the best studies are going to be very expensive. If I may momentarily digress from my introductory theme. We have to thank for the fact that the trails have been booked in the guidepost placed the devoted scientists working at the Yerkes laboratories psychobiology McGill University at the Hamilton research station at the Bar Harbor laboratories.
Already we know that there may be developmental periods critical for specific learnings that stimulus which is opposed to stimulus for environments enhanced learning in some unspecified way and that children or adults raised with a chimpanzee will like the chimpanzees be subsequently influenced behaviorally. Many individual scientists have conducted very significant studies in this area and I cite merely as examples. The classical study by hunt on the effects of early experience on parting and the studies by St. Loughton beach using sex behavior as the dependent and dependable variable. Furthermore I predict that several months from now a very interesting paper will be published by one insurer on the effects of systematic gentling of rats on their subsequent emotional and learned behaviors. Early experience will I believe be studied in many different species during the next 20 years and I hope this prediction is true because I am
certain that there are many different animal species each of which is particularly adapted for special kinds of early experience studies. I predict that within the next five years major studies will be carried out of Orange Park on the chimpanzee and Wisconsin on the monkey in which infants will be separated from the mothers at birth and their motivational perceptual intellectual development will be traced to maturity under conditions of deprived normal and indulgent environments. And I base this possibly on the fact that the nation Institutes of Mental Health has already made five year grants for these projects and in fact the studies are already underway. I also predict that no psychological theorist has the courage to predict what the results will be even though his theories have already made implicit in adequate and possibly incorrect assumptions. During the next 25 years one of the most interesting developments in comparative psychology will be the development of a truly comparative psychology providing a wealth
of data comparing behavior at different age levels within species and comparing behavior among different species genera families and organs. The european just will continue their interesting work doing such things as classifying fish and fowl in terms of behavioral rather than anatomical or physiological characteristics. Their interest may be broadened to include learning in avian and aquatic forms but their primary efforts will continue to be oriented towards the analysis of our learned behaviors. I predict however that their behavior studies will be complemented by an increasing number of anatomical and physiological investigations of an interdisciplinary nature. In 1950 beach bewailed the fact that a rodent Pied Piper was leading comparative psychology into scientific limbo I predicted Dr. Beach will take his own article so seriously that by
1960 he will have published papers on the sex behavior of the dog the calf and the monkey. Furthermore I predict that Dr. Beach will still be alive in 1970 and that by then the safety security and the sanctity of every American bedroom will be in jeopardy. No doubt no doubt stimulated by Beecham the Athol just many American psychologists are turning their attention to the behavior of a widening variety of animal farms with the result there is practically no bird reptile or mammal that is safe from being caught caged and tested. This re chair's gone so far that even at the University of Texas comparing psychology has recognized the branch of science as long as the study is limited to insect farms. The present this is true.
The president predicted trend toward studying the behavior of many animal forms illustrated by the fact that the recent advances include categorization by the captive canary analysis of the purpose or purposes purposeful prayer I am diligent. The spectral sensitivity a pseudonym Scripter which is by the way a turtle. An analysis of reactive inhibition in the meal worm. Actually within the primate orders in the marmoset to the chimpanzee there now exists a body of comparative data which affectively and in an orderly way relates the learning capabilities of a half dozen species selected on logical bases. This is a body of comparative data almost unprecedented scope consisting of dozens of different experiments conducted by score of different investigators in at least six different laboratories. In spite of the diversity of laboratories and
staffs the data from all researches form a continuous well integrated pattern with the exception of a few studies conducted by relatively untrained unfamiliar with the literature. I predict however that some psychologists in 1999 will rush into experimentation without bothering to inform themselves properly about the work of the past. One of the finest bodies of comparative data concerns part may have been the evolutionary history of color vision within the primate order and we may expect that the picture will be near completion within the next 10 years. The data suggests that color vision originated in the short wave portion of the visible spectrum and gradually widened its bay and towards a long wave limit. If this evolutionary process continues a snooper scope will eventually become obsolete because the man of the future will be able to read fine print illuminated by infra re re infrared rays. I predict
that human beings 10 million years from now will be able to discriminate wavelengths the nine hundred fifty million micro range and I feel sore certain that this will transpire that I'm willing to let my entire psychological reputation stand or fall on that prediction. And scoring age level comparative data I predict that in the next five years there will exist for the rhesus monkey learning growth data making possible a reliable and quantitative Monkee monthly mental maturity measure. Furthermore similar data will be available for the chimpanzee and 1970 for the dog in 1980 the cat in 1990 in the US in 2010. By this time scientists will have developed a new specie of re-act which will not attain sexual maturity until two years of age. Live for 10 years. Weight two pounds have no canine teeth and invariably give birth to exactly nine
young in the liver three male three female and three named Christine. They members of this new specie will have only one limitation the psychological subjects they will still be rats. The physiological mechanisms underlying emotional and motivational behaviors will be intensively studied during the next 20 years with spectacularly spectacularly successful results. This will be one of the real breakthrough areas of the 1960s so far as the central mechanisms are concerned. Progress will be accomplished by improving the techniques for destroying stimulating and recording potential changes in the subcortical cerebral centers hypothalamus the human substance the septal area and points about. This is a safe prediction because it is rapidly becoming an established fact. The basic techniques were developed by the Swiss neuroanatomy scarce many
years ago and the psychological research is long overdue. During the last two years all has demonstrated that it is possible to reinforce responses in rats by stimulating the septal area and neighboring regions. This technique appears to have wide adaptability and is a very great their ethical interest. A very considerable number of investigators are working on the effects of stimulation and destruction of subcortical centers and imposing body of information concerning the role of these centers on emotional motivated and learned behaviors has appeared and will appear during the next few years. The role of the reticular substance is a general energizing mechanism is being emphasized by McGoohan and Lindsley who have primarily studied midbrain reticular centers and by Jasper who has studied in detail the paleo thalamic centers and the influences they exert upon particle activities. The rather sudden appearance of a very formidable literature containing multiple
brilliant and exciting discoveries might suggest that the real breakthrough has been accomplished or is a payoff. But this I doubt because the complexity of these subcortical centers is enormous. The interrelations are bewilderingly intricate and are behavior measures particularly in the areas of emotion and motivation are far from adequate. Even though we can count on two or three really major advances in this area every five succeeding years it is for the stated reasons that I believe two decades will pass before the full psychological implication of these studies has been ordered and integrated. So far as the principal aspects of homeostatic drives are concerned interest will shift to analyzing the factors associated with drive satiation rather than drive induction valuable researches by stellar Miller and beach have already appeared in this interest area. The localization of the multiple brain centers associated with thirst food and sex X the patient and
satiation will be determined and even more important direct and definitive measures will be beta the excitatory in Detroit interactions among these centers. These data will of course have a vast and in some cases depressing influence on learning theories in the field of psychopharmacology will have been firmly established by 1980 and every major pharmaceutical laboratory in America will have a major behavioral test laboratory. Here are the gleaming rows of Skinner boxes will still be found long after they have all but ceased to exist in psychological laboratories. The test Danimal will be for the most part marmosets and squirrel monkeys the marmoset is a monkey because these small primates will have become disease free stable standard psychological test animals indeed for routine psycho biological studies. They will have become the animal our preference. Digressing for a moment. I predict that by 1980 breeding colonies
of marmosets and squirrel monkeys will have been established and these animals will be used by four different laboratories in major long term investigations of psychological arrogance pardons of vast importance. Some time about 1975 the field of psycho chemistry will begin to come into its own as a major area of physiological psychology before this time a number of fascinating choro relative studies will appear. Already Rosensweig crashed and Bennett have reported significant differences in the distribution of colon Estrace in the serval cortex of rats demonstrating visual as opposed to spatial hypotheses in questions standardized unsolvable maze. This could be viewed the long term historical approach as the most significant psycho physiological study of the third quarter of the 20th century. Unfortunately it is not possible to predict from what is essentially a single isolated investigation. It is certain the psycho physiological studies measuring the effects of various Hermione's on
behavior well continue to come as fast the new apartments are isolated in the biochemical assayer measurement becomes routinized. But we search of this type is more pedestrian than the truly psycho chemical investigation accurate measurement of the effects of hormones on behavior depends much more upon the skill of the man developing efficient behavioral tests and pass methods that upon the ingenuity of the research are affecting the correlation. By 1990 comparative and physiological psychologist will have clearly demonstrated that it is not possible to establish a true neurosis or psychosis in subhuman animals and this demonstration row rests on firm experimental and theoretical grounds. The recognition of this fact however will not serve as a deterrent to authors who will continue continue to submit papers on animal neurosis to the Journal of comparative and physiological psychology. And after rejection have them published in psychosomatic medicine.
Psychologist will however at that time be actively engaged in psycho physiological psycho chemical and psycho pharmacological studies on neuroses and psychoses in human subjects and these investigations will already have made a very considerable impact on clinical and abnormal psychology and psychiatry. Indeed by 1990 the human being will have become one of our real animals of choice for experimental subjects and it will have become customary to pay these subjects at the minimal wage rate established at that time by the Republican Party which will have again returned to power. Clinical and physiological psychology will have become closely allied by then for at least two decades of the intervening time largely because psychopharmacology will have become closely tied to psycho dynamics and
will a played a progressively important role in psychological therapy. By 1990 standardized learning tests throughout a wide range of levels apart in difficulty will have attained a near maximal level of efficiency. Testing time will have been reduced by at least 50 percent on the actual testing will be almost completely atomic ties even for a very complex problem solving kinds of tasks. Data Processing by then will have become almost completely automatic. The data from the automatic cast machine will be fed into one end of a series of computers which will print the answers if the results are significant at the 2 percent confidence level and burn the raw data if they aren't on. Because because of this I predict that by
1990 the lifespan of the average or mean editor of The Journal of comparative and physiological psychology will increase by five years. Learn performances will be measured in 1999 in much the same way that they are measured today. The dependent variables will be molar not molecular behaviors. But this will not be true for emotional behavior and for many of the motivational behaviors for subhuman animals emotional and motivational behaviors will be measured for the most part by electronic transmitters embedded in appropriate tissues. And these transmitting systems will send tele metered signals to recording devices outside the room. The most striking contribution be made at the end of the 20th and the first half of the 21st century by comparative physiological psychologist will be and psychological theory. The comparative and physiological data will make it
quite apparent by the end of the psychological classification systems used during the night the hundred the 1950 period were entirely in adequate because they were nothing but words and phrases adopted in part from the vernacular and in part from a neo natal biology. Such words as thinking learning maturation unconditioned response motivation. Emotion and particularly anxiety will have disappeared and will be replaced by a classification system which I have no intention of disclosing. The transition will be so drastic however that graduate students in 2050 will be allowed to count a reading knowledge of early psychological English as constituting proficiency and one foreign language. Aside from this one small change I predict that the requirements for the
Ph D particularly in Clinical Psychology will be no more realistic in 2050 than they were a hundred years before. John I recounted an experiment that he had helped to conduct testing the psychological effects of male hormones on women. John I if we are. At the outset I should like to recognize my collaborators in this project there were too many to list them as junior officers. Dr. Kahn and Dr. JACKSON Now Philip or shell Wayne Truax and Ellen craft of all of our hospital staff contributed considerable time and energy to this study. The principal hypothesis was that there would be an increase in sex drive following the administration of large doses of male sex hormone to women. Occur I correlate this hypothesis as suggested by FOS in 1051 and trail in the early 1950s states that sex drive in women is a function of the energetic harm. One of the therapies used in the palliative treatment of the advanced met a static carcinoma of the breast is the
administration of large dosages of male sex hormone. This fact made the present investigation possible by permitting a comparison of the drug response of breast cancer patients to testosterone and to a placebo. The androgen given that given to the experimental patients in this study was methyl testosterone the dose was 50 milligrams per day for six weeks to a total experimental dose of approximately 20 100 milligrams. The placebo used with the control patients was sodium bicarbonate 10 grams per day for the six week experimental period. The experimental design included a pretest psychological examination prior to the initiation of the energy and or placebo therapy and a post test six weeks later follow up data on experimental patients were also available. The subjects were 36 women with cancer of the breast 18 of these women who are in need of palliative treatment constituted the experimental group. These women were the first 18 women for whom testosterone was prescribed seen in the clinic after the beginning of the study and to live the required six
weeks they were on selected except by reason of their diagnosis proposed proposed treatment and longevity. The remaining 18 women compose the control group each control patient was matched with their experimental partner on the 10 pertinent variables. You see on the first slide the matching was accomplished by a psychologist other than myself. The only one of these I think that needs any possible elaboration is number four and that's him acquires a social identification scar which includes measures of religion education and socioeconomic level. A battery of eight psychological techniques was administered into to our testing sessions at both pretest and post-test. These text techniques are listed on slide to. The experiment was designed to preclude the interference of unknown and measured variables. Since this is no simple task and harm on research with humans some of the procedural refinements will be detailed. First careful matching of each experimental control
pair on the large number of relevant variables eliminated many extraneous influences on the results. Second the influence of suggestion was controlled by having the same physicians administer both the placebo and the testosterone. Each patient regardless of her classification was given the same four suggestions and each of the four suggestions by the physician that she was receiving quote hormone pills close quote that she might become nauseated at first that she might experience a demon usually ankle edema and that she would feel better this feel better was the only behavioral suggestions what might happen. These were the only suggestions that were made to the patient.
Series
New directions in social sciences
Episode
Current and future advances
Producing Organization
pacifica radio
KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-1j97b62g
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Description
Episode Description
This program presents a talk by Harry F. Harlow, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin called "Current and Future Advances in Comparative Psychology."
Series Description
A series of talks delivered before the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco.
Broadcast Date
1958-02-23
Topics
Psychology
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:30:02
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: pacifica radio
Producing Organization: KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
Speaker: Harlow, Harry F. (Harry Frederick), 1905-1981
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 58-10-4 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:44
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Citations
Chicago: “New directions in social sciences; Current and future advances,” 1958-02-23, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-1j97b62g.
MLA: “New directions in social sciences; Current and future advances.” 1958-02-23. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-1j97b62g>.
APA: New directions in social sciences; Current and future advances. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-1j97b62g