EXPERIMENTAL-DESIGN - PROBLEMS IN UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICAL BEHAVIOR-ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM

In this paper, I attempt to describe the implications of dynamical app roaches to science for research in the experimental study of behavior. I discuss the differences between classical and dynamical science, an d focus on how dynamical science might see replication differently fro m classical science. Focusing on replication specifically, I present s ome problems that the classical approach has in dealing with dynamics and multiple causation. I ask about the status and meaning of ''error' ' variance, and whether it may be a potent source of information. I sh ow how a dynamical approach can handle the sort of control by past eve nts that is hard for classical science to understand. These concerns r equire, I believe, an approach to variability that is quite different from the one most researchers currently employ. I suggest that some of these problems can be overcome by a notion of ''behavioral state,'' w hich is a distillation of an organism's history.