Ir~rrnwtrortul Jourwl of Psychoph_y.uolog?: 4 (1987) 293-297

Elsevier 293

PSP 00143

ON SOME RESEARCH-COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MYTH AND SYMBOL OF BIOFEEDBACK

JOHN J. FUREDY

(Accepted 25 September 1986)

X;-r words: Biofeedback: Instrumental conditioning: Non-contingent control: Feedback vs feedforward; Definitional isauc

This paper suggests that some of the responsibility for the misrepresentations of biofeedback noted by Kimmel (Int. J.

Psychophysiol.. 19X6, 3: 211-21X) rests with the research community’s treatment of the topic. With regard to the “myth” of

biofeedback, it is argued that, after Miller’s (Science, 1969, 163: 434-445) influential paper, most researchers’ treatment of the

proper-control-for-biofeedback problem was one that selectively lowered normal methodological standards. and therefore produced

results that were improperly interpreted as evidence for biofeedback (or instrumental conditioning). The shift from instrumental

conditioning to biofeedback terminology, which was based primarily on political ideology rather than on logic, may have been made

easier by a reluctance on the part of the scientific community to engage in reflective analyses of concepts and definitional problems.

INTRODUCTION

Kimmel’s recent discussion of the myth and symbol of biofeedback is both timely and, as he suggests, appropriate for scientists “who have played important historical roles” (Kimmel, 1986, p. 298). The basic points he makes, the broad distinctions he draws, and the condemnations he issues are sound and necessary in understanding an attractive, yet difficult concept. The biofeed- back concept, as I have argued elsewhere (Furedy, 1984b; 1985), has been all too frequently applied in a superstitious or ‘snake-oil’, rather than scien- tific fashion to behavioral problems.

However, there are some more subtle factors that have contributed to the myth and symbol of biofeedback. In this addendum to Kimmel’s re- marks, I suggest that the treatment of the bio- feedback phenomenon by the research community

Correspondence: J.J. Furedy, Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Toronto, Toronto. Ont., Canada, M5S 1Al.

contributed to the resultant conceptual confusion. Specifically, I shall argue: that most researchers’ treatment of the proper-control problem contrib- uted to the myth of biofeedback; and (more speculatively) that there was a shift from operant- conditioning to biofeedback terminology among researchers that was not driven by purely scientific or logical considerations, and that therefore con- tributed to the (political) symbolism that grew around the biofeedback concept.

MYTH

I agree that it is grossly distortive to claim that biofeedback “was the product of anti-establish- ment thinking, anti-scientific methodology, anti- conventionality” (Kimmel, 1986, p. 214). How- ever, myths generally have a grain of truth that accounts for at least part of the belief in the myth itself. In the case of biofeedback or instrumental autonomic conditioning, that grain of truth is the

0167-X760/X7/$03.50 (2 1987 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (Biomedical Division)

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fact that once the biofeedback phenomenon had gained popularity among researchers (and that occurred with Miller’s (1969) influential Science publication), the scientific community relaxed its methodological standards with respect to the ap- propriate control conditions for accepting a result as indicating the effects of biofeedback.

The community, including Miller (1969). agreed that biofeedback was a form of instrumental con- ditioning. The issue of whether a given phenome- non constituted instrumental conditioning was familiar to anyone conversant with the animal- learning literature of the late fifties. At that time. learning theorists wished to determine whether non-biological reinforcers such as weak lights were really reinforcing for, or produced instrumental conditioning in. rats (e.g. Berlyne, 1960). The first proponents of this view thought it sufficient sim- ply to show that the rate of lever pressing (‘instru- mental conditioning’) in rats would increase if such a light followed each lever press. However, the critics soon pointed out that such an increase was not sufficient for concluding that instrumen- tal conditioning had, in fuct, occurred, because there was no control for the possibility that cer- tain properties of the light qucr stimulus were responsible. For example. the light may have en- ergized the animals, raised their overall responsi- veness, and hence raised their lever-pressing rate. On the other hand, if it is assumed that overall responsiveness competes with (and therefore re- duces) the lever-pressing rate, the light may have calmed the animals, lowered their overall re- sponsiveness, and in this way increased their lever pressing. Accordingly, without some control for the rlorz-contingent effects of the light, no re- searcher accepted the simple result of light in- creasing lever-pressing as evidence for instrumen- tal conditioning-only the unsophisticated would accept the ‘myth’ on such an insubstantial eviden- tial basis.

The form of non-contingent control that was developed in the light-reinforcement studies was the ‘yoked control’. In this arrangement, the ‘mas- ter’ animal’s lever-press performance would con- trol the light occurrence both for itself and another animal ‘yoked’ to it. Then, any superiority in the master animal relative to the yoked control animal

could more reasonably be attributed to the perfor- mance-reinforcement contingency, thereby allow- ing the inference that the phenomenon of instru- mental conditioning had occurred with this non-biological reinforcer. It is of interest to note that Kimmel’s early work on instrumental auto- nomic (GSR) conditioning (e.g. Kimmel and Hill, 1960) was extremely rigorous. and provided such a yoked-control condition at a time when the re- search community was much more sceptical than credulous concerning the possibility that auto- nomic responses could be instrumentally condi- tioned.

On the other hand. both in the period im- mediately following Miller’s (1969) influential paper. and until the present, the most frequent control condition used by researchers has been the no-feedback control. Yet, this is formally equiv- alent to the methodologically inadequate no-light control that was used in the initial light-rein- forcement studies, but quickly abandoned for the yoked-control design. Moreover. with human sub- jects, the no-feedback control is particularly naive, because of the presence of placebo effects that are both considerable, and vary markedly as a func- tion of time and place.

It is true that the so-called ‘bi-directional’ con- trol used in the studies reported by Miller (1969) is superior to the no-feeback control. The bi-direc- tional control may be illustrated by taking heart rate (HR) change as the target response (TR). In that case, the performance of subjects reinforced for HR acceleration would be contrasted with that of subjects reinforced for HR deceleration. How- ever, the acclaim accorded to the bi-directional control appears inappropriate. Formally, the bi-di- rectional control is analogous to testing the light- reinforcement effect by having the control group reinforced for behavior that is incompatible with lever-press behavior (just as HR acceleration is incompatible with HR deceleration). This is be- cause. rather than varying the critical factor (con- tingency), the bi-directional control varies the na- ture of the TR. More specifically, unless the rate of reinforcement is equated between the accelera- tion and deceleration conditions, any obtained difference between the two conditions may not reflect the biofeedback phenomenon, but merely a

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difference between the two that is unrelated to

contingent reinforcement. It is important to recog- nize that the rate of reinforcement has not been equated between conditions in bi-directional con- trol experiments, except for a handful of studies (e.g. Riley and Furedy, 1981; Schober and Lacroix, 1986). It is at least arguable, therefore, that even the bi-directional control biofeedback studies are, to an unknown extent, representative of mythical rather than real biofeedback effects.

The credulous rather than sceptical approach to the control problem by most researchers following the Miller (1969) paper is particularly notable, because many of these researchers came to bio- feedback from a learning-theory background. It is instructive to compare the level of sophistication shown by biofeedback researchers to that shown by those concerned with the earlier problem of whether weak light produced instrumental condi- tioning. Soon after the yoked-control design was employed, an influential paper by Church (1964) strongly criticised this method of assessing the contingency effect. However, this paper is not, as is often supposed, an argument against the non- contingent control: it is only an argument for a proper non-contingent control. In my view, the problems that Church raises can be mitigated either by ensuring that individual differences are minimal, or by equating the reinforcement sched- ules not only between, but also within groups (e.g. Riley and Furedy, 1981). There are also other problems that are specific to biofeedback. Of these, two sets are ethical problems involved with not providing one group with feedback, and method- ological problems involved with the possibility of subjects in the false-feedback condition discover- ing their status, and thereby losing motivation. As detailed elsewhere (Furedy and Riley, 1982; Fur- edy, 1985) these two sets of problems can be solved. respectively, by using within-subject designs and a degraded rather than a false-feed- back condition.

However, arguments over how to provide ade- quate non-contingent control conditions already presuppose that, in the scientific assessment of any phenomenon, it is specific rather than placebo effects that have to be sought. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the specific-effects approach had to

be defended as a minority position, to a predomi- nantly clinical rather than basic-research audience (Furedy, 1985). However, some years before at a conference dominated by workers whose main em- phasis was basic research, I found that the specific-effects, non-contingent control approach advocated by Furedy and Riley (1982) also repre- sented a minority, though not a singular (see e.g. Orne, 1982) view. The extent of the unpopularity of the specific-effects approach was emphasized when the alternative, placebo-oriented, ‘ biofeed- back-package’ idea was defended in print both by the discussant of our paper (Mulholland, 1982; for reply, see Riley and Furedy, 1982), and by the reviewer of the book (Tursky, 1982) in which the paper appeared (Lehrer, 1984a, 1984b; for replies, see Furedy, 1984a, 1984b). The specific-effects- oriented presupposition that was shared by re- searchers concerned with the light-reinforcement effect in rat lever-pressing does not seem predomi- nant in the biofeedback research community of the eighties. And while the particular ways of achieving the non-contingent control are matters of opinion, it is indisputable that the more general approach that fails to adopt a specific-effects- orientation to biofeedback represents a lowering of methodological standards, and thereby tends to propagate ‘guru’ myths I. Accordingly, while the ‘revolutionary’ myths that some ‘gurus’ have pro- moted are grossly false, and are quite properly attacked by Kimmel (1986), it seems to me that the loose treatment of the biofeedback phenome- non is partly due to the failure of the research community, after Miller’s (1969) paper, to apply the same standards of methodological rigour to the biofeedback phenomenon that are applied to other instrumental-conditioning phenomena, and that were applied to Kimmel’s own earlier work (e.g. Kimmel and Hill, 1960).

’ In traditional systems-theory terms (see e.g. Anliker, 1977; Tursky, 19X2), the confusion is between feed hack and feedjbr-

WUY/ effects. The latter are instructional (in humans) effects that produce control that is not “the result of the response- contingent signal (‘feedback’) provided by the experimenter”.

(Riley and Furedy, 1982, p. 137).

SYMBOL

I agree with Kimmel (1986) that to link the biofeedback/conditioning distinction with that between liberty and fascism is to take a position that may have some political and rhetorical valid- ity, but one that is bereft of any logical or eviden- tial merit. And his anecdote of his lecturing expe- rience provides a vivid illustration of the havoc that sophistry can wreak on the logic of using a term like the politically loaded one of ‘biofeed- back’.

Nevertheless, the ‘symbol of liberation’ in mov- ing from ‘instrumental autonomic conditioning’ to ‘biofeedback’ does not seem to have been actively questioned by the writings of the scientific com- munity. Some practioners may wish to dimiss such terminological problems as ‘merely semantic’, but traditionally it is the academic community that is concerned with, and reminds others about, the need for defining one’s terms, and for drawing distinctions on the basis of logical, rather than rhetorical considerations. Indeed, it can be argued that this ‘Socratic’ (Furedy and Furedy, 1982; Kimble, 1984), reflective feature is what dis- tinguishes epistemic from other human en- deavours. The research literature on biofeedback, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. the analysis by Kimmel [1978] of the concept of voluntariness as it relates to biofeedback). contains little by way of such reflective articles that are concerned with analysing the concepts involved, rather than re- porting on the successes and failures of various ‘biofeedback’ preparations. More generally. North American research psychology (which is the basis of the biofeedback movement) has shown a lack of concern with so-called ‘philosophical’ issues. and with arguments over the definitions of scientific terms. For example, after Ax (1964) and Stern (1964) raised the question of how to define psy- chophysiology, the question was never again raised in the journal in which their articles were pub- lished. Yet it cannot be that they had solved the definitional problem, if only because their views were incompatible, so that both could not be right. Rather, it appears that the scientific com- munity did not consider the problem worthy of further attention, and therefore shelved it in favour

of the seemingly more practical task of ‘getting on’ with their empirical research.

This is not to argue for a return to the days when psychologists acted like philosophers, and did nothing else but reflect about their subject. It is only to suggest that if scientists are not pre- pared to spend some of their time reflecting about their subject and discussing conceptual and defini- tional issues, they should not be surprised if others with a more practical bent employ terms like ‘biofeedback’ for their own symbolic, as well as mythical, use.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was prepared with partial support from grants from the National Science and En- gineering Council of Canada, and a Sabbatical Leave Fellowship (1985-6) from the Social Science Research Council of Canada. I am indebted to Hal Scher, Christine Furedy, Diane Riley, Donna Shulhan, and Amanda Walley for comments on an earlier draft.

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