The development of mathematical tools for describing dynamical systems has made it possible to characterize forms of behavior that could not be characterized before. This represents progress, but the enterprise runs the risk of being nothing more than curve fitting if investigators fail to identify the physical, biological, or psychological mechanisms which are common to systems that follow the same dynamical regime and which are not common to systems that do not follow the same dynamical regime.
David A. Rosenbaum is with the Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.