Science and Human Behavior, Chapter 8: The Controlling Environment, Quote 3

“Abstraction, too, is not a form of action on the part of the organism. It is simply a narrowing of the control exercised by the properties of stimuli. The controlling property cannot be demonstrated upon a single occasion. In other words, a single instance of an abstract response will not tell us very much about its “referent.” The controlling relation can be discovered only through a survey of a large number of instances.” (p. 135)

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