Behavioral Variability in the Service of Constancy

Abstract

From a stimulus-response (S-R) point of view, or even with an intermediate step, involving cognition (S-O-R), the existence of behavioral variablity in organisms, even under tightly controlled experimental conditions, suggests that 1) the relevant inputs to the system have not been fully characterized, 2) even the most minute difference in system inputs can produce vastly variable behavioral output, or 3) that behavior is fundamentally variable. Any of these possibilities leads to the conclusion that precise behavioral prediction, at any given moment, is virtually impossible. One can, however, re-conceptualize the challenge of understanding behavior such that it involves not what the organism will do from moment to moment, but what the characteristics of the system that governs the behavior of the organism are. In this paper, I outline a closed-loop cybernetic approach to understanding behavior, for which behavioral variability is actually a requirement. Findings are presented from a series of experiments across species, and using computer simulations, that support a cybernetic interpretation of behavior. I argue that behavioral variability provides adaptive advantages to organisms – regardless of whether that variability is produced by noise, or is actively generated by nervous systems. Finally, I discuss some ideas from embodied cognition that impose constraints on the variability of behavior.