response to pat

Pat: What wonderful questions! You've given us a lot to think about. I get the feeling we all are thinking along somewhat the same trajectory.

I like the analogy of the deep wide wells with several small peaks in their valleys.

Concerning question #1, Could it be that when a person lacks a wide range of options for action - has few attractors? On the other hand, because of problems with the linkage in real time of perception and movement, s/he has difficulty constructing new patterns - new attractors. When the old well or pattern is no longer working satisfactorily, the ball just rolls around on a semi-flat dimpled surface, dipping briefly into a series of very shallow wells and rolling back out again. Martha in referring to Anne's email (which I read but can't find) said: "When a situation calls for actions that are not well established, the system's scan of shallow wells may become almost aimless, switching from one assembled group of actions to another. Thus, Anne's reference to "System shifts and shutdowns."

The difficulty linking movement and perception in real time might make it difficult for the person to deepen shallow wells or to put together old behavior in new functional ways (components of complex behavior existing as separate shallow wells are not easily combined or integrated to form new more complex behaviors). Eventually the frustration might result in simply returning to old patterns after finding the exploration of new patterns unproductive. Would this account for the "stickiness" of the deep narrow wells? Would this be particularly true in social situations in which the window of opportunity for creating a new response is relatively brief? When a new timely response cannot be organized then you go to the tried and true - rituals, echolalia, deep wells etc.? Of course if these old ways were as effective as the person would like s/he would not be exploring new patterns. Maybe after s/he slides back into that deep well s/he moves about quickly and perhaps desperately through the valley from one small peak to another (ala your small peaks within wide valleys.

Where in the brain does the "pruning" fail to take place? Is it in areas that would affect the integration of percpetion and action?