The Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory

The Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory: Living Control Systems IV

This new edited, 600-page, volume of contemporary work on PCT across the life & social sciences and engineering, will be published in June 2020 by Academic Press, Elsevier. For further details and orders, please see the flyer.

 

A theory ahead of its time?

In 1973, William T. Powers published 'Behavior: The Control of Perception'. The book formalised the theory he had been developing since the 1950s, and now it is unifying the physical, life and social sciences. The book is available at livingcontrolsystems.com.

PCT provides a theory about how human beings and other living systems work – how they control what matters to them. Take a look at the video below to get started...

The demonstration above has recently been the topic of research - over 300 people 'fell' for the illusion, revealing the validity of a PCT account of behavior. You can also try out a whole range of interesting ways to illustrate perceptual control on Gary Cziko's website.

 

PCTWeb.org

This website gives you a glimpse at what a theory called PCT can do to help explain these things, and many, many more...

The idea is simple.

You don’t have to pay for it. It’s for everyone to use.

 

PCT in action

Take a look at how PCT is being used to develop realistic arm control in robots:

 

To see a wonderful array of robots implementing PCT, see Rupert Young's website and view his talk at TAROS 2014:

 

 

 

BABCP Special Interest Group

University of Manchester April 2015

The timetable and abstracts are available here. The powerpoint slides for the event are available here. For further information about the BABCP SIG, go to their website.

 

Past Conferences

The following past Control Systems Group conference papers (2010) are available here:

Fred Good - A Connected School

Bill Powers - The Tank that Filled Itself

McClelland & Worthington - Buying & Selling Simulation

Carey - A Right Turn for Researchers

Finally, please click here to read Kieran Lord's review of the conference.

The proceedings of the 2007 CSG conference at University of Manchester are available here.

 

Visits to PCTWeb...

PCTWeb has been running since 2009 and receives over 2000 visits per month. The current data for today, yesterday and the total visits since February 2012 are: