A Transactional Analysis

of Biobehavioral Systems
JOSEPHGERMANA
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Abstract--The system of behavior [B] consists of those transactional interrelationships

between organism [O] and environment [El that govern their commerce. The biological
significance of such [O]-[E] interrelationships, their truing through learning, as well as
those systems involved in the subordinate and superordinate regulation of behavior, are
clear when life, itself, is seen as an emergent property of the [O]-[E] complex. In addition,
a systems view of these hierarchically organized complexities suggests that they adaptively
self-stabilize and self-organize, over time, as they participate in [L], the organism-environ-
ment complex. Such a transactional analysis of biobehavioral systems resonates well with
the most basic axioms of Pavlov's paradigm.

AT A HIGHERor more comprehensive level of biological integration, organism [O] and

environment [El appear as participants in a fundamental unity, the organism-environment
complex [L]. This superordinate complex or system [L] is based on and emerges from the
interactions of [O] and [El and their reciprocal determination, so that the relationship
between [O] and [El becomes inextricable when taken in reference to [L]. Indeed, the
interactions between [O] and [El are found to be "all-pervasive and endless," with "mass
and energy perpetually pass[ing] back and forth across the boundary" (Jessop, 1970, p.
115, emphasis added).
Since biology is the science of life, the "biological significance" of something (system
or system process) is given as its role in the establishment, maintenance and/or develop-
ment of life. If "biological significance" accrues through participation in life, and life is
seen as an emergent property of [L], rather than the eccentric possession of [O], then the
"biological significance" of something is ultimately given as its relationship to [L]. Thus,
the ongoing (behavioral) interactions between [O] and [El are as basic, necessary and
essential to [L]--have as much "biological significance"--as the ongoing (physiological)
activities of [O].
Furthermore, when the scheme of biological organization is expanded to [L], with a
recentering of biological analysis away from "within-[O]" to "between [O] and [El," and
the study is led to their reciprocal determination: [[O]<---~[E]], the most central focus of the
study forms around the transactions between [O] and [El. Transactional behavior [B]
represents whole [L] interrelationships, and affects both [O] and [El and the state of [L] at
the next moment in time: [[O]4--~[B]4--~[E]] = [L].
Finally, as the present work will attempt to show, this recentering of biological analysis
to [B] may be used to define the aspects and levels of both [O] and [El that are more

Address for correspondence: Joseph Germana, Dept. of Psychology,Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg,
VA 24061-0436.
Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, July-September, 1996, Vol. 31, No. 3,210-218.

210
 TRANSACTIONAI.]BIOBEHAVIORALANALYSIS 211

FORMULA 1

C
[[O]" [~]<---->[B]<----Y[E]]t1-3= [Lit 1-3
P

notation:
[ ] = a complex, organized complexity, a system;
<--->= reciprocal determination;
to be taken as;
$= reciprocal determination between hierarchically organized pairs;
[A-Z] = systems of the natural hierarchy:
[L] = organism-environment complex;
[O] = organism;
[E] = physical and social environment;
[C] = cognitive system;
[P] = physiological system;
[B] = behavioral system;
(t) = time;
(1-3) = General systems characteristics:
(1) = organized complexity/hierarchical organization;
(2) = maintenance/homeostatic regulation;
(3) = reorganization/progressive development.

directly relevant to a particular study of biological significance. After all, both [O] and [E]
represent vastly expansive, "hierarchically organized, organized complexities." A behav-
iorally centered approach may be used to define [O] and [E] in ways that restrict their
domains to those aspects and levels most directly concerned with [[O]<--->[E]].
The following formula represents a scheme of biological order from a behavioral sys-
tems view based on a most general analysis of major terms. In a sense, it represents only
the first set of distinctions. Its purpose is to provide a simplified context for the fuller
appreciation of special concepts from physiological, behavioral and cognitive sciences. A
much more specific and thorough analysis has been provided most recently by J.L. Miller
and J.G. Miller (1993a; 1993b), as extensions of J.G. Miller's earlier work (1965; 1978).
Verbally expressed, the formula states: the organism is a hierarchically organized, psy-
chophysiological complex, which has commerce with its physical and social environments
through the interfacing or transactional system of behavior. The organism-environment
complex emerges from ongoing interactions within the organism and between the organism
and its environment. Since each term of the formula is to be taken as representing a
system, basic system characteristics (adapted from Laszlo, 1972a; 1972b) apply, along
with the time variable.
The three major terms that appear in the general analysis of [L]: [O], [E], and [B], may
themselves be further analyzed into sets of features, hierarchically organized.
The organism proceeds from molecular and cellular to physiological and cognitive
212 GERMANA

levels of integration. The environment, in both its physical and social aspects, may also be
considered at higher and higher levels, up to and including "ecosystem" ("biotic commu-
nity and its abiotic environment," Krebs, 1985, p. 11) and "biosphere" ("gigantic network
of ecosystems," Kormondy, 1984, p. 8).
Likewise, behavior may be taken as any observable activity of the organism, ranging
from small-scale movements to molar acts, to "proceedings" and "serials" (Murray, 1951).
As Rachlin (1991) has suggested, behavioral acts are nested, such that: "each higher level
act (e.g., from hammering a nail to building a house) is more abstract, takes longer to
perform, is more difficult to discern, and is less directly related to its feedback than the
one(s) inside it" (p. 181).
A behavioral analysis of [L] should, of course, begin with a definition of its central,
referent term--the domain signified by [B] and, consequently, the domains signified by all
other terms in Formula 1.
[B], or operant behavior is the relatively limited domain of observable activities, attrib-
uted to the organism, but defined in terms of their effects on the environment. [B] is
comprised of more molar acts, more directly related to their feedback consequences.
These operant acts, taken as intermediate members of the whole behavioral response
hierarchy, are those that most fully exemplify what Skinner (1953) has called the "three-
term contingency," according to which a discriminative stimulus (environmental event or
context) sets the occasion for an operant behavioral response, which, in turn, is subject to
consequences delivered by the environment. Such two-way exchanges between [O] and
[E] represent single transactional episodes of [O] having commerce with [E] and the two
participants acting in reciprocal determination:

[O] 1 ) [0] 2 )[0]3 ) [O] n

l\l\l
[E]I ) [Eh ) [E]3 ) [E]n

The [B]-interrelationships guiding these episodes may be depicted as superordinate

generalizations which would, in effect, state: when a certain kind of stimulus occurs in a
certain type of situation [E], and [O] acts so as to affect [E] in a certain kind of way, [El
may act, and affect [O], in a certain kind of way.
The complete set of such interrelationships, "standing between" [O] and [E] and so
integrating them, constitutes the behavioral transactional system [B] which governs their
reciprocal determination.
Notice that one must refer to both [O] and [E] and their acting in reciprocal determina-
tion when one is attempting to describe the [B]-episode, interrelationship or system; and
therein lies their relationship to [L] and their biological significance. "Behavior is that part
of the functioning of an organism which is engaged in acting upon or having commerce
with the outside world" (Skinner, 1938, p. 6).
[O] or psychophysiological organism is the relatively limited domain of internal events,
conditions or states that occur at more molar levels of organismic functioning--those m o r e
proximate to the level of behavior, as defined. In this relative way, [O] is taken as: a
hierarchically organized psychophysiological complex of covert, physiological and cogni-
tive activities, in which greater pattems of (neuro-)physiological activity serve as the
subordinate basis for those generalizations of behavioral acts and relationships which form
a superordinate, cognitive level.
 TRANSACTIONAL/BIOBEHAVIORALANALYSIS 213

Sperry (1969, 1985, 1986) has offered a theory of "emergent interactionism," highly
consistent with the system concepts of "organized complexity" and "hierarchical organiza-
tion," which may be used to delimit [O]. An extended quotation from Sperry (1985) seems
warranted.

There exists within the human cranium a whole world of diverse causal forces; what
is more, there are forces within forces within forces, as in no other cubic half-foot of
universe that we know. At the lowermost levels in this system are those local aggre-
gates of subnuclear particles confined within the neutrons and protons of their respec-
tive atomic nuclei. These individuals, of course, don't have very much to say about
what goes on in the affairs of the brain. Like the atomic nucleus and its associated
electrons, the subnuclear and other atomic elements are "molecule-bound" for the
most part, and get hauled and pushed around by the larger spatial and configurational
forces of the whole molecule.
Similarly, the molecular elements in the brain are themselves pretty well bound up,
moved, and ordered about by the enveloping properties of the cells within which they
are located. Along with their internal atomic and subnuclear parts, the brain mol-
ecules are obliged to submit to a course of activity in time and space that is deter-
mined very largely by the overall dynamic and spatial properties of the whole brain
cell as an entity. Even the brain cells, however, with their long fibers and impulse
conducting elements, do not have very much to say either about when or in what time
pattern, for example, they are going to fire their messages. The firing orders come
from a higher command.
The flow and the timing of impulse traffic through any cell, or nucleus of cells, in
the brain is governed very largely by the overall encompassing properties of the
whole cerebral circuit system, and also by the relationship of this system to other
systems. Even the circuit properties of the cerebral circuit system as a whole, and the
way in which these govern the flow pattern of impulse traffic throughout--that is, the
circuit properties of the whole brain--may undergo radical and widespread changes
with just the flick of a cerebral facilitatory "set." This set is a shifting pattern of
central excitation that will open or prime one group of circuit pathways while at the
same time closing, repressing, or inhibiting endless other circuit potentialities. Such
changes of set are involved in a "shift of attention," "a turn of thought," "a change of
feeling," or "a new insight," and so on. In short, if one climbs upward through the
chain of command within the brain, one finds at the very top those overall organiza-
tional forces and dynamic properties of the large patterns of cerebral excitation that
constitute the mental or psychic phenomena. (pp. 47-48)

Addressed to Sperry's hierarchical scheme, [O] might be delimited, by the present

work, to the range of covert activities described as: "encompassing properties of the whole
cerebral circuit system," "circuit properties of the whole brain," and "large patterns of
cerebral excitation that constitute the mental or psychic phenomena."
On the physiological side would also be included relatively macroscopic aspects of
peripheral functioning, such as those autonomic and somatic measures which seem di-
rectly integrated with behavioral and psychological processes, e.g., heart rate, blood pres-
sure, electrodermal, electromyographic activities, and so on (Germana, 1969).
On the cognitive side, would also be included those higher levels of behavioral generali-
zation, such as "rule-governed behavior," represented in terms of "plans," "constructs,"
"schemata," "scripts," and so on.
214 GERMANA

In summary, [O]: psychophysiological organism consists of those hierarchically orga-

nized, physiological activities---central and peripheral--and their emergent forms of cog-
nitive organization which more directly or immediately surround or participate in
[B]-relationships. Indeed, this "psychophysiological ring" may have the regulation of be-
havior as its central focus, so that, "where motor integration [within the nervous system]
progressed and where motor behavior progressively evolved, mind progressively evolved"
(Sherrington, 1952, p. 213).
[E] or behavioral environment is the relatively limited domain of external features--
specific and contextual, physical and social--that enter into or support behavioral relation-
ships. These features of the external world are those which occupy an intermediate, terres-
trial level commensurate with behavioral experience and interaction. They may be defined
as events (stimuli) in contexts (situations), "things" in "frameworks" (Koffka, 1935), or, as
the "medium, substances, surfaces, objects, places, and other animals," organized into
"layouts" and "niches" (Gibson, 1986). "The behavioral environment is at best the counter-
part of only a fraction of the total active environmental field" (Koffka, 1935, p. 69).
The behavioral environment is constituted of those features of the environment that
support behavioral relationships by supporting sensory differentiations and motor activi-
ties. According to Tolman (1932), "behavior supports" include "the relatively enduring
sensory characters of objects strained through the sense organ capacities of the given
organism" (p. 442), and the characters that derive from "the independent physical character
of the environmental object and from the response organ make-up of the given organism"
(p. 448). In the latter case, the properties are defined, not absolutely, but in terms of the
range and refinements of manipulations that they will support in a given organism.
As Reed (1988) has noted, these relational descriptions of the environment, along with
those of E.B. Holt (1931) and Egon Brunswick (1956), served as important predecessors to
Gibson's "ecological approach" to perception and his concept of "affordances" (1966;
1986).

Substances have biochemical offerings and afford manufacture. Surfaces afford pos-
ture, locomotion, collision, manipulation, and in general behavior. Special forms of
layout afford shelter and concealment. Fires afford warming and burning. Detached
objects--tools, utensils, weapons--afford special types of behavior to primates and
humans. The other animal and the other person provide mutual and reciprocal
affordances at extremely high levels of behavioral complexity. (Gibson, 1986, p. 137)

The aforementioned attempts at relational concepts of the environment seem equivalent

to the present definition of [E], or behavioral environment as the domain of objects, events
and their contexts, delimited by their relationship to the (psychophysiological) organism
and its (operant) behavioral capabilities.
In summary, all concepts of the present approach are fundamentally relational in nature.
The central referent term of the analysis, behavior, is taken as a set of [[O]<---~[E]] transac-
tional relationships. Then, organism and environment are delineated in relation to [B]. The
complete set of relationships among these relationships, or the whole biological interrela-
tionship that emerges, constitutes [L], or organism-environment complex.
Insofar as each of the major terms of Formula 1 may be taken as representing a system
of some kind, a fuller reconstruction of [L], as system, is afforded by the application of
system characteristics.
Systems view (superscripts 1-3): an understanding and appreciation of the general form
 TRANSACTIONAL/BIOBEHAVIORALANALYSIS 215

and function that dynamic organizations have in common (systems qua systems), modified
versions of Laszlo's (1972a, 1972b) set of (four) cardinal traits. The following version of
these system characteristics is given fuller treatment elsewhere (Germana, 1989).
Organized complexity~hierarchical organization refers to both sets of characteristics
differentiated by Laszlo as "ordered wholeness" and "hierarchical organization."
A system is "a set of elements standing in interaction" (von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 38),
such that the "whole is other than the simple sum of its parts" (Laszlo, 1972a, p. 36).
Although a system is based on the complex interactions among its constituent parts, it
emerges with its special organization as this particular case of a different kind of system.
The relative invariance or constancy of the system, manifested in its greater patterns or
whole interrelationships, implies that the parts of the system function in concert or interde-
pendently. The parts are generally constrained by the principles of organization that apply
to the superordinate system which they collectively form.
A particular system appears in a series in which sets of interacting elements are progres-
sively nested or incorporated into more and more inclusive or encompassing, organized
complexities (e.g., general levels of biological integration; Sperry's neurological hierar-
chy). A particular system is the product of interacting elements which are, themselves,
systems--therefore subsystems. At the same time, the particular system in question partici-
pates as an element or subsystem, along with other systems, to form an emergent organized
complexity at a still superordinate level.
A superordinate system acts to govern or guide the interrelationships among its incorpo-
rated systems by generally regulating their activities, controlling "subset events in (their)
flow pattern" (Sperry, 1969, p. 534). The superordinate system in question is "obliged to
submit" (Sperry, 1985, p. 47) to still superordinate levels of integration.
Insofar as a system incorporates its elements into a new or emergent form of organiza-
tion and supervenes over its elements, it may be said to be "greater than the sum of its
parts"--superordinate to its parts. In this way, "hierarchical organization" seems fully
implied by "organized complexity." A system is a "hierarchically organized, organized
complexity."
Homeostatic regulation is the first kind of adaptive response made by a system to
perturbation or abrupt increase in systemic uncertainty. Laszlo termed this basic form of
adaptation in systems "System cybernetics I: Adaptive self-stabilization." He states that the
general invariance that characterizes the steady state of the system is governed by its fixed
internal constraints. When exposed to externally introduced perturbations, systems act to
recover and conserve the relative invariance of their total complex by reorganizing their
subordinate activities. Such homeostatic regulation allows the system to remain unchanged
(cf. Laszlo, 1972a; Germana, 1989).
Reorganization~progressive development is the second kind of adaptive response to
systemic uncertainty or perturbation. Laszlo termed this characteristic "System cybernetics
II: Adaptive self-organization." He stated that this is a more striking form of adaptation in
systems because it involves reorganization of the fixed forces themselves and, therefore,
involves change/growth of the characteristic organization of the system. Such evolution of
a complex system may move in the direction of merging some characteristics, differentiat-
ing others, and developing hierarchically organized subsystems (cf. Laszlo, 1972a;
Germana, 1989).
Biological organization is so replete with cases of "reorganization/progressive develop-
ment" at all levels of integration that this characteristic has become part of the very
definition of life and living systems. Cell division and growth, embryological develop-
ment, maturation, learning, species evolution are prominent examples.
216 GERMANA

There has been a rapidly growing interest in "self-organization," especially in the

science(s) of chaos. The preeminent work in these fields has been that of the Nobel
laureate, Ilya Prigogine, who has advanced the concept of "order through chaos." "A
random fluctuation in the external flux, often termed 'noise,' far from being a nuisance,
produces new types of behavior" (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984, p. 166).
Time (subscript t), psychophysiological interactions within [O] and behavioral interac-
tions between [O] and [E], take place over time and in accordance with system characteris-
tics 1-3. The overall result of these interactions is the superordinate, organism-environ-
ment complex [L], which emerges over time in accordance with the three system charac-
teristics.

Conclusion

Like the general biological science and systems theory upon which it is based, the
present scheme of "biological significance from a systems view" offers heuristic value to
the extent to which its fundamental generalizations may be meaningfully applied to obser-
vations and generalizations of the special sciences.
Something of the kind may be offered here in a concise treatment of the two interre-
lated, biobehavioral processes that have served as the specific sources of the general
scheme over the last twenty-five years (e.g., Germana, 1968, 1973, 1986, 1989, 1995).
The two processes have been termed "variational" and "specificational," and were de-
vised to account for the fuller range of physiological and behavioral activities that accom-
pany behavioral learning.
In general, the "earlier" stages of learning are characterized by a general exploratory or
problem-solving mode in which [O] shows augmented orienting and investigatory activity
in relationship to [El, enhanced receptivity (decreased sensory thresholds), generalized
behavioral preparations--sometimes with actual behavioral variation and testing of alter-
native hypotheses, diffuse activation of peripheral physiological systems and increases in
brain chaos.
Such [O] and [B] uncertainty represents a variational process of enormous biological
significance insofar as the broadened heuristic search and psychophysiological functioning
works to resolve the behavior question or problem by establishing an adaptive transac-
tional [B]-relationship between [O] and [El.
In the "later" stages of learning, [B]-relationships become more fully established--
behavior more fully trued--as central and peripheral physiological activities become more
highly differentiated and localized, exploratory behavior subsides, and behavioral perfor-
mance becomes more "expert."
The biobehavioral process involved in the resolution of uncertainty and the correspond-
ing emergence of special [O] and [B] organization represents a specificational process of
equivalent biological significance. Being essentially transactional in nature, [B] is in true
when it more fully corresponds with [E], as it more fully satisfies the needs, goals, inten-
tions (psychophysiology) of [O]. In short, the truing of [B] is nothing less than the en-
hancement of [[O]<---~[E]]and, therefore, [L] integration.
The whole process of behavioral learning--seen as the "reorganization/progressive de-
velopment" of [B], and representing the dynamic interplay between uncertainty and cer-
tainty, variational and specificational processes--appears, more meaningfully, in its "bio-
logical significance from a systems view."
 TRANSACTIONAIJBIOBEHAVIORALANALYSIS 217

Reflections o f Pavlov

About learning as a truing process with biological significance, Pavlov says:

So infinitely complex, so continuously in flux, are the conditions in the world

around, that (only the) complex animal system which is itself in living f l u x . . , has
a chance to establish dynamic equilibrium with the environment. (Pavlov, 1927, p.
15)

H e states, regarding the nervous system's biobehavioral functions:

[T]he nervous system is an inexpressibly complex and delicate instrument for

relations and connections between the numerous parts o f a living organism and
between the organism, as a most complex system, and the infinite n u m b e r o f
outward factors which may influence it. (Pavlov, 1941, p. 169)

On a holistic, ecological perspective, he says:

[T]he wonderful complexity o f the higher and lower animals can exist as a whole
only so long as all the delicate and exact balances o f their constituents remain in
equilibrium one with the other and with the outside world. (Pavlov, 1928, p. 49)

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