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Sooner or later, the experimenter finds that he must take inner conditions into account. In describing how to control inner conditions, or O-variables, Woodworth and Schlosberg begin with a broad hint that this may prove difficult. They write: ‘we readily admit that stimuli can be controlled so far as they come from the environment, for E [the experimenter] can manage the immediate environment consisting of the experimental room and the apparatus. But how can he control the O-variables? At first thought it seems impossible’ ( Woodworth and Schlosberg, 1954 , p. 3). However, they distinguish two broad classes of methods. In one class, the experimenter tries to observe directly what goes on in the organism. Here they mention the methods of introspection and of physiology. In the other class, the experimenter does not try to observe directly, but ‘hopes to find out indirectly by varying the conditions and noting the resulting variation in response’ (ibid., p. 3). They instance the control of hunger, an inner condition, by regulating the feeding schedule. The number of hours since last feeding presumably exerts a control over the strength of hunger. There are also a number of other proposals to which we shall shortly refer.
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