Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T07:51:33.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

PCT and MOL: a brief history of Perceptual Control Theory and the Method of Levels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

William T. Powers*
Affiliation:
Lafayette, Colorado, USA
*
*Author for correspondence: W. T. Powers, 11990 E. South Boulder Rd, #144, Lafayette, Colorado, USA. (email: [email protected])

Abstract

I have been asked to describe how Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) and Method of Levels (MOL) came into being, and as I approach the age of 82 that seems a prudent request. Some parts of the following should probably be taken more as a reconstruction than a verifiable record of the past, but I will strive for realism.

Type
Review
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cziko, G (2000). The engineering of purpose: from water clocks to cybernetics, ch 5 (http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/g-cziko/twd/pdf/twd05.pdf). In: The Things We Do. Using the Lessons of Bernard and Darwin to Understand the What, How, and Why of Our Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Powers, WT (1973). Behavior: The Control of Perception. Chicago, USA: Aldine Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Powers, WT, Clark, RK, McFarland, RL (1960). A general feedback theory of human behavior. Part II. Perceptual and Motor Skills 11, 309323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, N (1948). Cybernetics: Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.