QUESTIONS77. How are pleasantness and unpleasantness related to sensational states of consciousness?78. How are pleasantness and unpleasantness related to objective conditions?79. How does the repetition of an experience influence its pleasantness or unpleasantness?80. What is the general subjective condition of pleasantness and unpleasantness?81. Is feeling a prophet of the future?82. What difficulties does the existence of feeling cause the psychologist?83. Are there more than two feelings?
QUESTIONS
77. How are pleasantness and unpleasantness related to sensational states of consciousness?
78. How are pleasantness and unpleasantness related to objective conditions?
79. How does the repetition of an experience influence its pleasantness or unpleasantness?
80. What is the general subjective condition of pleasantness and unpleasantness?
81. Is feeling a prophet of the future?
82. What difficulties does the existence of feeling cause the psychologist?
83. Are there more than two feelings?
Willing is usually mentioned as being a distinct class of mental states. However, willing is not a special class in the sense in which perceptions, images, and feelings are called classes. To understand willing, let us consider certain typical actions of an infant which are based on inborn nervous connections. What do we mean by the feeding instinct? We mean unpleasant sensations of hunger and thirst followed by various movements of armsand legs, of crying, of sucking, until the unpleasantness of the situation ceases. The movements themselves are nothing mental. But while they are occurring they become known as kinesthetic sensations, partly also as visual or auditory sensations. Two classes of sensations may therefore be distinguished in any instinctive activity: those which correspond to the sensory phase of the reflexes in question, and those which result from the reflex movements. After frequent occurrence of these reflex movements, images of various parts of the whole satisfying process remain, and these, or some of them, become conscious even before any of the movements occur. For example, as soon as hunger is experienced the infant has also an image of the bottle, of the mother bringing it, of his own movements of grasping, sucking, and so on. The instinctive act has then been replaced by an act of will.Willing, therefore, may be defined as instinct which foresees its end.
No new kind of mental state can be discovered in willing. There is nothing but sensations, feelings of pleasantness-unpleasantness, and images. If we give to such a combination of these three kinds of mental states the name of willing, we justify this new name by the fact that such combinations are the most original, the earliest conscious states which have occurred in our mental life. The first consciousness accompanies instinctive activity, and immediately a simple form of willing is made possible. From the genetic point of view, that is, if we are interested in the growth of our consciousness, willing is the most elementary form of consciousness. Perceptions, images, and feelings did not exist separately for some months or years to become afterwards united into willing. Willing was there when consciousness first awoke. On the other hand, if we are interested in describing the make-up of our presentmental life,—that is, from the point of view of the psychologist searching for concepts of mental states,—sensations, images, and feelings are the most elementary forms of consciousness.
There is no will in the sense of a simple faculty, always remaining identical with itself, merely changing its direction and now applying itself to this thing, now to that thing. Will is an abstract word, referring to that which is common to all states of willing; but, like all abstractions, it does not possess any real existence apart from the realities from which it has been abstracted, that is, from the particular cases of willing occurring in each person’s life. Of course, there is no objection to using the abstract wordwillwithout explaining each time that it is an abstraction. We need not hesitate to refer to typical differences between the cases of willing most frequently observed in one person and those observed in another by saying that one has a strong will, the other a weak, a vacillating will.
QUESTIONS84. How may willing be defined?85. Is willing an elementary kind of consciousness?86. Why is it wrong to answer the preceding question simply by yes or no?87. What is the will?
QUESTIONS
84. How may willing be defined?
85. Is willing an elementary kind of consciousness?
86. Why is it wrong to answer the preceding question simply by yes or no?
87. What is the will?
A ship, under the influence of several forces—the screw, the wind, the current—follows all of them simultaneously, and the place which it reaches after a certain time is the same as that which it would have reached if these forces had acted, each for the same length of time, but one afterthe other. External things, whenever they are under the influence of several forces, are governed by the law of the resultant. The mind’s mode of response is entirely different. When there are many things to see, as a crowd of actors on the stage, many things to hear, as a chorus and orchestra, and in addition some whispered words of our neighbor, the result is by no means the same as if all these impressions acted upon our mind successively. If time enough is given, our mind will successively respond to each of these impressions of sight and hearing. But if the response must occur quickly and be done with, it is restricted to a part of the impressions made by the external objects. A few of these impressions, specially favored by circumstances, affect our consciousness at the expense of the others. The latter are not entirely lost for our mind; but they fail to call forth separate responses, they fuse into a mere background upon which the favored impressions make their appearance. They are often spoken of as the fringe of the clearly conscious mental states.
One might call this selective effect the narrowness or focalness of consciousness; in ordinary life it is called attention. We say that attention is given to certain contents, and that the others are not attended to, that they are under the influence of inattention. There is no similar phenomenon in the whole inorganic world. In our mental life nothing is more ordinary. I look up and notice many things. But many more are projected upon my retina without succeeding in becoming noticed. When reading a book I cannot accomplish everything that I wish I could. Giving attention to the meaning, I fail to become conscious of the beauty of style. Looking for typographical errors, I fail to understand the logical connection of the sentences. For each purpose a new reading is necessary. Mental workrequires the exclusion of piano music and crying babies. Thinking is not so easy while we are performing a gymnastic feat or walking at a rapid gait. When we are listening to difficult music, we shut our eyes. When a momentous question, a dangerous task, presents itself, we are in danger of losing our head; that is, being occupied by ideas of the magnitude of the event, we fail to become conscious of thoughts and memories of the simplest and most ordinary kind.
The popular view of attention is that it is an independent being, separate from the contents of the mind. Attention stands at the helm, and as the mind desires these or those contents, attention changes the ship’s course. This, of course, is pure mythology. The enhancement and impairment of impressions to which we refer in speaking of attention and inattention are not a peculiar activity of mind; they are simply the effects of peculiar relations existing between the impressions themselves. A few of these relations may be briefly discussed.
Whatever situation is capable of being a source of pleasantness or unpleasantness, is also likely to become enhanced in vividness, so that one may say that the value of an impression for our life of feeling is one of the factors determining attention. Any remark of a person near by, although merely whispered and hardly perceived by others, quickly rises to a high degree of consciousness in my mind if it concerns my reputation. That which we have experienced frequently, no longer causes much pleasantness or unpleasantness; and in accordance with this, it is not likely to be attended to.
This parallelism between feeling and attention is expressed in the wordinterest. We are interested in those things which conform to our habits of thinking. Becauseof this conformity they are useful to us at the present moment of our life, and therefore pleasant. Because of this conformity with our habits they become vividly conscious—they are attended to. What is unrelated to our habits of thinking is not useful to us at the moment and is therefore indifferent; and being unrelated, it attracts no attention. Everybody knows how readily the average member of a political party assents to the assertions made by the party leader, how readily the adherent of a religious faith accepts instances proving its correctness, how he unintentionally ignores anything which he cannot accept without opposition or discomfort.
Another factor determining attention is the relation of a new impression to the thoughts occupying the mind at the moment when the impression was made. That which is conscious prepares the path over which everything related may enter. Ordinarily the ticking of a clock remains unnoticed. But let the person think of the clock, or of time, and the next tick is clearly perceived. In order to notice a weak tone in a complicated chord, or a melody in polyphonic music, it is well to hear the tone or the melody first in isolation and try to keep it in mind until the chord or the music is played. A slight difference in the color of two leaves remains unnoticed; but if we are thinking of a color difference just before the leaves are shown to us, it becomes at once vivid in our consciousness. The puzzle pictures common in certain popular magazines would never convey the intended meaning to us, if we were not invited by the text to think of various things which they might represent. If we know beforehand in what order a lecturer will present his arguments to us, we can pay attention to the lecture much more easily and understand it better.
Attention is usually accompanied by numerous instinctive muscular activities, which contribute toward the continuation and toward a greater distinctness or intensity of the impression. When our visual organs are stimulated, the head and the eyes turn so that the impression may be received at the point of keenest vision. If the ear is stimulated, the head turns so that both ears assume the most favorable position with respect to the source of sound. When images occupy the mind, the eyes are directed at an indifferent, uninteresting object, or they are closed, the lips are pressed together, the limbs assume a position of rest. All this tends to keep away avoidable stimulation of the sense organs of the body. These instinctive movements are, of course, perceived as kinesthetic sensations, as varied forms of strain, of activity. Thus they give rise to the erroneous view that attention is a peculiar activity of the mind’s own content. This view is most emphatically expressed in the phrase “voluntary attention.” It often happens that we become conscious of the muscular adaptation characteristic of attention before the mental state to which attention is given has appeared. For example, we see lightning and at once imagine the thunder and the muscular adaptions of the ear and other parts of the body which generally occur when it thunders. Or we hear our teacher’s voice telling us that he will give an explanation, and we imagine the strain, the activity of our muscles, which begins as soon as he starts giving the explanation. This foreseeing of our activities we have above called willing.The foreseeing of our attention is the will to give attention, is voluntary attention.
It is a peculiar fact that vividness of a certain thought or even a class of thoughts is never much prolonged.Other impressions or ideas take the place of those which are now focal. Under the most favorable conditions, the same ideas reappear again and again. This limited duration of attention is most conspicuous in children and is one of the greatest obstacles which the teacher has to overcome. Repeated orders to be attentive are of small value. They tend to call up a general notion of the matter which is being taught, and thus make it easier for the ideas presented by the teacher to enter consciousness. But the effect is not lasting because the very thought of being attentive cannot itself have a long duration. It is therefore preferable to take into account the nature of attending, and in accordance with it, to provide a certain change in the ideas presented—to present the matter in an interesting way.
QUESTIONS88. What essential difference between mental function and mechanical function is referred to by the wordattention?89. Can you illustrate the chief facts of attention and inattention?90. Can you illustrate the parallelism between the laws of feeling and of attention?91. How is attention mentally prepared for?92. How is attention assisted by special muscular activity?93. What causes the illusion that attention is a voluntary activity of the mind upon its contents?94. What practical problems are connected with the law of the duration of attention?
QUESTIONS
88. What essential difference between mental function and mechanical function is referred to by the wordattention?
89. Can you illustrate the chief facts of attention and inattention?
90. Can you illustrate the parallelism between the laws of feeling and of attention?
91. How is attention mentally prepared for?
92. How is attention assisted by special muscular activity?
93. What causes the illusion that attention is a voluntary activity of the mind upon its contents?
94. What practical problems are connected with the law of the duration of attention?
While attention means limitation, memory means expansion. From the enormous number of impressions calling simultaneously for response, the mind selects a small group of those related to its present needs. But the mind may go beyond the limits of that which is presentedand respond to impressions of a former time. We then speak of memory. When I hear the first verse of a poem which I have previously heard or read more than once, I continue to hear, in imagination, the following verses although the reader has stopped. When I see a black cloud drawing over the sky and the trees bowing under the pressure of the wind, I know that a thunderstorm is approaching. When I smell carbolic acid or iodoform, I look for a person wearing a bandage. In every case the mind tends toward expansion beyond the limits of the data presented at the moment. The mind thus restores the connections in which the accidentally isolated object of present interest has been experienced with other objects in the past.
We refer to this ability of expansion by the termmemory, to the actual process of expansion byreproductionorassociation. The immense importance of memory for life is easily understood. Nature repeats itself—not without some variations of the accompanying phenomena; but no group of phenomena, aside from such variations, fails to recur at frequent intervals. In reproducing what previously existed under similar conditions, our mind possesses, as a rule, a real knowledge of what now exists but happens to remain hidden, and of what is about to occur. Thus our mind adapts itself to those parts of the world which are for spatial or temporal reasons beyond the reach of our sense organs.
A special case of reproduction deserves to be mentioned because of its frequency of application. Two things may possess one common part while completely differing in other parts: for example, two words that rhyme, or a photograph and an oil portrait, or either of these and the face of the original. Let us call the parts of one thingabcd, those of anothercdef. It easily happens that by mediation of the common parts,cd, the train of thought is carried fromabtoef. Thus we may say that our train of thought is determined, not only by simultaneity of previous experience, which is often quite fortuitous, but also by similarity, by essential connection, by relationship.
The possibilities of reproduction are, of course, very numerous in each case of experience. At present I see before me some books of reference, on the hill at a distance a house partly hidden by trees, and many other things. All these have previously been in my mind, each in various temporal or essential connections with other things. An immense number of images might therefore be reproduced now in my mind. That as a matter of fact I do not become conscious of all of them needs no further explanation. It has been spoken of before when we discussed the limitation, the focalness of consciousness, that is, attention. We have also stated some of the rules determining the selection among these many possibilities. Let us here state these rules more definitely.
Whatever tends to bring about strong feeling, also tends to be reproduced. A brilliant success, but also a humiliating defeat, are not easily forgotten. They are always lying in ambush, so to speak, ready for the least opportunity. As in attention, so here even more, pleasant thoughts show this tendency more strongly than unpleasant ones. What is unpleasant is soon repressed. This is illustrated by such facts as the healing power of time, the painting of the future in glowing colors, the unfailing belief that advancing age has in the good old time.
A second law governing reproduction may be called the set of the mind. When a railway train enters a large station, there are many paths over which it mightpass; but its actual path depends on the position which was given to the switches immediately before the train’s arrival. In a similar manner the path taken by the mind depends on the set established just a few seconds or minutes before by the contents of the mind. If during a conversation in English a French word is unexpectedly pronounced by some one, the other people, though perfectly familiar with the French language, may fail to understand it. The French sounds are unexpected—the track is there, but the switch is not properly set—and consequently the sounds remain ineffective. A certain book seen on my desk calls up associated ideas very different from those which are produced when I see it in the bookstore. The same thought leads to one conclusion in the dark or in a dream, to another conclusion in daylight or in the waking state. Every student is familiar with the difficulty of becoming conscious of the right kind of ideas after having just gone from one recitation room to another. After a few minutes the new set of the mind is established, and the difficulty has disappeared.
Many other factors are to be mentioned as influencing the train of thought. During the last decades many experimental investigations have been devoted, with much success, to their exact determination. Numerous methods have been used, some being only slight modifications of the conditions under which ideas are reproduced in ordinary life, others being more artificial in order to yield answers to special questions to which the other methods are not applicable. The common involuntary reproduction of ideas by words or pictures shown has been used in order to determine how this reproduction varies with different individuals under different circumstances, how much time it requires, and so on. Voluntary reproduction of impressionsthat have just been made (as used in school in dictation) has been used by presenting, optically or through speech, words, syllables, numbers, or pictures and telling the subject to write down everything remembered. The quantity of the matter retained, and the number and kind of errors, then permit many important conclusions. Also whole poems or pieces of prose have been memorized, and answers have been found to questions as to the length of time necessary for such memorizing under different conditions, and the number of additional repetitions needed to make the material learned available again after a greater number of days or weeks. The acquisition of the vocabulary of a foreign language or of a set of historical dates has been developed into a special method of hitting or missing. The material to be learned has been presented in pairs, and the number of pairs has been counted of which one element causes the mental reproduction of the other. By all these methods psychologists have definitely secured many rules which had been derived from earlier, less reliable experiences. Many new facts have also been discovered. Let us give a brief account of the results of this work.
That which has been in consciousness most recently is, other conditions being equal, reproduced most readily. For some time the memorized material is reproduced so easily that it seems to have found a permanent place in our mind. Soon, however, it begins to be forgotten. At first this forgetting goes on with great rapidity; but it becomes slower and slower, so that a person retains very little less after thirteen months than after twelve. Even after twenty years definite traces of a single former memorizing have been proved to exist. Nothing, therefore, is likely to be completely lost, although voluntary reproduction has long since become impossible.
The most important factor contributing toward certainty of reproduction is frequent repetition, of course with attention, for without attention no memorizing is possible. The experimental investigation of the influence of repetition has yielded, among minor ones, two particularly interesting results. One of them justifies an educational practice which had already been adopted by teachers because it seemed to be advisable. In order to memorize any material we should not try to force the desired end by accumulated repetition without pause. It is much more economical to devote a short time to learning, long enough for a few repetitions, to do this again after a pause of some hours or days and again after the same interval, until the desired effect is obtained. The total time required for obtaining this effect would be much greater if the total process of memorizing were to occur at one time without intermission.
Another result of experimental investigation is contrary to the tradition of educational practice. It has been proved that, in order to learn a long poem, monologue, or piece of prose, this should not be divided into smaller parts. It is uneconomical to learn each stanza or sentence separately. The whole should always be read from the beginning to the end, without introducing points of division which are not desired at the time of reproduction.
The method of involuntary reproduction has recently been applied to a problem of much practical significance. The attempt has been made to reveal thus associations of ideas which have been firmly established, but which the subject has strong reasons for keeping secret, for instance, the ideas forming the memory of a crime which he has committed. He is asked to tell or write as quickly as possible a word suggested by each of a great number of wordspresented to him in succession. Among these latter words are given some which have a special relation to the knowledge which the subject is suspected of possessing. If the suspicion is correct, it is likely to be shown in either of two ways in the answers to these test words. Either the expected (for instance incriminating) answers are actually given and reveal thus the subject’s knowledge; or if these answers are inhibited and voluntarily replaced by others of a more innocent appearance, the time of answering, the reaction time, is considerably increased. It may also happen that the subject, under these conditions, becomes confused and gives absolutely meaningless answers.
That the individual differences in the ability to memorize are very great, has always been observed. Modern psychology, however, has added to this knowledge an insight into the various kinds of differences and their proper causes. Let us notice the perception and imagery types. There are people who perceive and imagine very readily visual sensation groups. They give attention to the shape and color of the things rather than to any other sensible qualities, and they imagine visual shape or color very vividly so that the right and left, the above and below, of their imagery is clearly in their minds. In others auditory perception and auditory imagery are very vivid; in a third class of persons the same is to be said of kinesthetic mental states. We therefore distinguish visual, auditory, and kinesthetic types of consciousness. There may be also gustatory, olfactory, and other types, but they are of little practical importance. Extreme cases, where one of these classes of mental states is extraordinarily developed at the expense of all others, are rare. Eminent ability in art or music probably depends on such development. Generally, one kind of imagery is but slightly superior to the rest.
There seem to be further individual differences with respect to a predominance of either word images or images of the things of nature. All these differences bring about numerous variations of memory. The visual type is able to play chess blindfolded, to repeat a memorized series of numbers somewhat slowly also backwards. To the auditory type these performances seem miraculous. But the former in recalling easily confuses similar looking elements of such a memorized series, which the latter would certainly distinguish because of their difference in sound. The auditory type, however, confuses elements that are similar in sound or accent. The auditory and kinesthetic types depend largely on reading aloud for memorizing, while the visual type is scarcely aided by it. These differences are of much importance for all the various kinds of professional activity.
QUESTIONS95. In what respect is memory the opposite of attention?96. In what respect is reproduction by similarity superior to reproduction by simultaneity of previous experience?97. Can you illustrate the relations between feeling and memory?98. What is meant by the set of the mind?99. Illustrate the dependence of memory on recency.100. Illustrate the two laws of repetition.101. What method has been devised for the diagnosis of memory which is not voluntarily revealed?102. What is meant by perception or imagery types?103. Can you illustrate the practical importance of the types of consciousness?
QUESTIONS
95. In what respect is memory the opposite of attention?
96. In what respect is reproduction by similarity superior to reproduction by simultaneity of previous experience?
97. Can you illustrate the relations between feeling and memory?
98. What is meant by the set of the mind?
99. Illustrate the dependence of memory on recency.
100. Illustrate the two laws of repetition.
101. What method has been devised for the diagnosis of memory which is not voluntarily revealed?
102. What is meant by perception or imagery types?
103. Can you illustrate the practical importance of the types of consciousness?
The wordpracticerefers to a number of different phenomena having this in common, that they occur when the same mental function is frequently repeated, either in immediatesuccession or with moderately long intermissions. To a large extent practice is identical with the selective and supplementing functions of the mind which are discussed above. But certain effects included in the termpracticecannot be understood thus and must be regarded as the signs of a more fundamental law of the mind. Setting aside, however, the distinction between fundamental and secondary regularities of mental function, two facts should be mentioned here.
The more frequently the same task is imposed upon our mind, the more perfectly—this is the first fact—is it carried out. But perfection has various aspects. So far as sense perception is concerned, perfection means a lowering of the so-called threshold of perception and of discrimination, especially the latter. Weaker sounds, lights, tastes are perceived; smaller differences of color, tone, weight, movement, size are correctly named. Perfection means also greater quickness of response. The same number of elements is perceived in less time, is memorized or reproduced more quickly. The rapidity of reading, thinking, writing, and other skillful movements is increased. Perfection means, further, an enlargement of the scope of the situation responded to. We are conscious of a greater number of its parts after having perceived a certain thing repeatedly. Of different things a greater number are simultaneously perceived. After repeated performance of a certain act, we take into account a greater number of circumstances and adapt it to them. That a certain activity which has been engaged in repeatedly can be continued longer at one time, may also be mentioned in this connection. So far as definite purposes are concerned, these are accomplished more and more economically and accurately, that is, with less expenditureof energy, with stricter avoidance of unnecessary movements, with a decreasing number of errors.
A second phenomenon of practice is the simplification of the conscious processes preceding purposive action. Unless there are particular causes, as anticipatory ideas or an extraordinary special interest, that which has often occurred tends to remain unconscious, so that the response may be called automatic. The ticking of a clock, the noise of a street, the laughing of a mountain stream, soon cease to be attended to, although attention to them is always possible. Reading, writing, arithmetical work, when being learned, include a vast number of states of consciousness which no longer occur when these activities are performed by a grown person. After thousand-fold repetition great rapidity of execution results from the omission of a multitude of mental states without which the performance could not originally have been brought about. But the original effects of those lost mental states are not at all lost. The same movements are carried out with the same accuracy as if they were governed by those mental states. Each single letter, even each word, is not found in the consciousness of a person who reads rapidly, and yet he pronounces the word correctly. Each single note or printed chord is not in the consciousness of the pianist, and yet he plays the chord correctly. The same holds for all complex movements that are slowly learned and often repeated, as knitting, sewing, swimming, horseback riding, dancing, skating. They finally require a minimum of mental energy. They become comparable in this respect to the native, instinctive movements; but in order to distinguish them from the native movements independent of consciousness, we call them automatic movements.
Practice, therefore, is a general term referring to thewonderful adaptation of mind to the external world for the purpose of self-preservation. By association and reproduction mind adapts itself to frequently recurring events and anticipates them. By practice it adapts itself to those events which recur with particular frequency and which are of particular importance. These events are through practice comprehended more delicately, more quickly, and more inclusively. They are responded to in a manner tested as the most fitting and most prompt, and yet requiring only a minimum of mental energy, of which more than a limited amount is at no time available. Without having to neglect the ordinary and as such important, mind has energy left to devote to that which is new, unusual, surprising.
QUESTIONS104. What are the effects of practice on sense perception?105. Illustrate how practice simplifies thought.
QUESTIONS
104. What are the effects of practice on sense perception?
105. Illustrate how practice simplifies thought.
The conditions of fatigue are similar to those of practice. Fatigue occurs when mental functions are repeated too many times in immediate succession. But the result is not perfection, but deterioration of the performance. The sensitivity for weak stimuli or small differences of stimuli disappears. Attention is decreased, that is, fewer mental states are vivid, and they are also less vivid. New ideas do not easily enter consciousness. Reproduction, as in the processes of reading and arithmetic, is slow and inaccurate. Action becomes slow and awkward, and may cease altogether.
Fatigue is obviously a protective measure. When the continued performance of a task threatens to exhaust the organs, their resistance to the call for action increases,and finally they completely refuse to respond. Because of the continuity of all organic processes, this refusal in extreme cases is impossible without a lesser degree of refusal before the extreme is reached. The first indications of fatigue thus appear soon after a prolonged mental activity has begun, as a diminution of the effects of practice. This leads often to the astonishing consequence that a certain performance is executed better at the beginning of a practice period than at the end of the preceding period. The acquired practice is then still effective, while the effect of fatigue is absent. This experience does not justify the conclusion that skill has increased during the time of intermission.
Because of the great importance of fatigue for mental and bodily health, numerous investigators have in recent years undertaken to study it more closely by experimental methods. Especially fatigue caused by school work has been much under discussion in scientific and popular periodicals and even in the daily press. Little progress, however, has been made in our knowledge of fatigue. It has proved difficult to find reliable methods of measuring it, and the great complexity of the conditions has interfered with the interpretation of the experimental results. The attempt has been made to measure mental fatigue indirectly by measuring the muscular fatigue caused by repeatedly lifting a weight; or by measuring the minimum distance of two touches on the skin recognizable as two. Although there are probably relations of cutaneous sensitivity and of muscular fatigue to mental fatigue, they are not definitely known, and by some their very existence is doubted. Other tests used for the measurement of fatigue are adding numbers of several digits, adding a long series of digits, and taking dictation. In these tests the mentalwork is very one-sided and too simple to permit conclusions with regard to fatigue under ordinary conditions of mental activity. A disturbing element in these tests is the rapid perfection of the work under the influence of practice. If we choose more complicated tasks such as translation into another language, mathematical problems, or filling in words which have been omitted from a certain text, we cannot easily make two tasks sufficiently alike to be able to compare the results obtained from them.
But none of these methods solve the chief problem, namely, the determination of the point at which fatigue begins to be permanently harmful. There is no doubt that in moderate degrees fatigue is a perfectly normal phenomenon, involving no detriment to our future efficiency. Otherwise most people would be wrecked before they are fully grown. The experience of athletes and soldiers shows that even rather high degrees of fatigue are compatible with the normal growth of bodily strength. The same may be true for mental life. The assertions of great damage done to children by school work are—so far as normal children are concerned—certainly greatly exaggerated.
QUESTIONS106. What are the effects of fatigue?107. Into what complication does fatigue enter with practice?108. What attempts have been made at measuring fatigue?109. What is the chief problem in connection with fatigue?110. Is the fatigue of school work harmful?
QUESTIONS
106. What are the effects of fatigue?
107. Into what complication does fatigue enter with practice?
108. What attempts have been made at measuring fatigue?
109. What is the chief problem in connection with fatigue?
110. Is the fatigue of school work harmful?
The impression upon the mind is not the ultimate end of the nervous processes originating in the sense organs. The end is rather activity of the motor organs of the body, which we may here, accepting the naïve conception of matter and mind, regard as effects or expressions of mind. The complications of the mental life of a grown person tend to make this connection between mind and motor activity often obscure and doubtful. It seems that often we receive impressions quite passively. Nevertheless the connection exists. Every impression made upon the mind by the external world is in some way responded to by movement. The movement may occur in the stimulated sense organ itself, in the arms, the hands, the fingers, the legs, the feet, the head, the vocal organs, also in the internal organs, the heart, the blood vessels, the alimentary canal, the lungs. The significance of many of these movements is but insufficiently understood, for example, laughing, weeping, blushing, trembling. But those movements which directly affect the organism’s surroundings are easily understood. They may be classed under two headings, self-preservation and play. Another way of classifying them is to distinguish movement toward the object perceived and movement away from the object, without taking these terms in too literal a sense.
Innumerable illustrations for these classes of movements suggest themselves. A piece of bread put on the back of the tongue is moved down the esophagus by the proper muscular contractions. A particle moving into the wrong passage is thrown out again by coughing. If the palm ofan infant is gently stroked, the hand closes and takes hold of the stroking finger. If the palm is scratched, the hand quickly recedes. A mild and steady light attracts the child’s eye, which follows the movements of the light. From an intense and flickering light the eye turns away. A piece of sugar is kept in the child’s mouth and moved about by the tongue until it is dissolved. A bitter root causes the lips to recede and the tongue to make a pushing movement. If the child is hungry, he cries, kicks, and strikes out with his arms until he is fed. After being fed he lies still so that digestion is not interfered with by the blood being drawn into the peripheral parts of the body.
Movements which do not serve self-preservation so directly are called play. When a cat perceives a mouse, she jumps at it and catches it. But before eating it, she usually lets it loose and catches it again, and so on several times. When she finds a ball of yarn, she treats it similarly, although she must know that it is not edible. A dog gnaws a bone because this contributes to his nutrition. But he also gnaws table legs and rugs, although these have no nutritive value. He chases rabbits and other small animals which he can eat. But he chases no less eagerly other dogs, wagons, cyclists, horses, none of which serve as articles of food for him. The same is true for man. The infant’s kicking, the small child’s breaking of his toys, do not have any immediate value. Men and animals respond to things not only by fighting, but also by play. The significance of playful movements is to be found in the exercise, the development, and the conservation of the abilities given to them by nature. As in the movements of self-preservation, so in play pleasantness and unpleasantness make their appearance. Extensive exercise of naturalabilities is highly pleasant, enforced inactivity equally unpleasant.
But play is more than a general exercise of the bodily organs. It is a preparation for the specialized activities of the serious part of life. The animal meets in play things which behave very much like those things which it has to obtain for food. So it learns to obtain food at a time when food is not yet needed. It learns to defend itself when no one yet attacks it. The biological significance of the play movements obviously consists in this preparation for the special activities of life. Those animals which do not possess a strong tendency to play are thus at a disadvantage in the struggle for life, because they miss the opportunity for preparation. Serious activity and play accompany man and animal all through life; but the proportion changes. The young are taken care of by their parents, and play may therefore prevail. With maturity this changes, and less time is left for play.
All these movements of self-preservation and of play are natural inherited responses of the organism to its environment. Many of them do not appear at the very entrance into life, but at different stages of age and growth. They are the raw material from which all conduct is derived and built up. Their nervous conditions are the nervous processes in the reflex arches of the subcortical nerve centers. From the points of sensory stimulation, the nervous processes are carried into definite muscle groups so that definite movements occur. These movements are calledreflexesorinstinctsaccording as they are rather simple or more complex. Both reflexes and instincts are inherited movements following in direct response upon sensory stimulation.
QUESTIONS111. What is the ultimate end of every nervous process?112. What are typical movements of self-preservation?113. What are typical movements of play?114. Is play more than a general exercise of the body?115. Are all inherited movements possible immediately after birth?116. What is the difference between reflexes and instincts?
QUESTIONS
111. What is the ultimate end of every nervous process?
112. What are typical movements of self-preservation?
113. What are typical movements of play?
114. Is play more than a general exercise of the body?
115. Are all inherited movements possible immediately after birth?
116. What is the difference between reflexes and instincts?
Consciousness is not a factor in reflex or instinctive movements. But these movements soon enter into a twofold connection with consciousness. (1) When such movements occur, they often result in consciousness. They are either seen, or perceived through the sense of touch or through the kinesthetic sense. These images of the movement become associated with the images originating from the sensory stimulations which give rise to the movement. (2) In consequence of this association the visual, touch, and kinesthetic images of the movement, particularly the most common, the kinesthetic, may themselves produce this movement to which they owe their existence. The mere thought of how one feels when performing a movement brings about, if it is vivid enough, the movement itself. The hearing of dance music awakens the kinesthetic ideas of dancing, and these become real movements, although perhaps only swaying movements of the body or the head. Vivid thinking similarly brings about whispering of words. Even vivid imagination of the movement of a foreign body has such powers. A passionate and excited billiard player thinks of the hoped-for movement of the running ball. This leads to imagery of a similar movement of his own body, and the result is the actual movement,rather ridiculous to the onlooker because it is entirely purposeless.
Through this connection with consciousness instinctive movements become voluntary movements. The termvoluntarymeans just this connection with consciousness; it has no other meaning.
Suppose a child sees something white and glittering and puts it instinctively into his mouth. It happens to be a lump of sugar. Its taste is pleasant. It is retained, dissolved, and swallowed. All the impressions, occurring at about the same time, become associated: the sight of the thing, the movements of the arm and hand, the taste, the movements of the tongue and the lips. The more frequently this thing happens, the more firmly established are the associations. Later the sight of sugar reproduces at once its taste, the visual and kinesthetic images of the movements, and the movements themselves—the arm is stretched out, the tongue and lips making sucking movements—although the sugar may be lying so far away that it cannot be touched. The child’s consciousness then contains what we have previously called will, and what may also be called desire: a vivid impression accompanied by pleasantness, sensations of restlessness, and an image of a pleasant conclusion of the whole experience. We say then that the child wills, desires, to have the sugar.
We can will to do only that which in its elements we have previously done by instinct. If we do not know how a movement feels when we perform it, of course we cannot bring it about by way of our consciousness, that is, by our will. Children have as much command of speech as they have acquired by instinctively producing speech sounds in response to accidental stimulations. This instinctive production occurs usually rather late in the case of certainsounds, ask,r,sh; and accordingly, in spite of all special efforts on the part of the parents, children learn to produce those sounds only at that late time. We presuppose, of course, that they are not deaf. For in deaf children the speech sounds instinctively produced do not enter into an association with the kinesthetic sensations and therefore cannot be voluntarily reproduced; that is, the children remain dumb. Many a grown person remembers that all his attempts at learning the pronunciation of a certain sound in foreign speech (take for example the gutteral Germanr, or the Germanch, or the French nasal sounds) were in vain until by a mere accident, instinctively, he pronounced that very sound. After that he had command of it.
This interweaving of the instinctive reactions of the body with conscious life is of the greatest practical significance. However well adapted the inherited reflexes may be to the purpose of keeping the young animal alive, they are very insufficient in meeting the ever growing complications of life. And they are not perfect even in the beginning. A reflex is the response to a present and direct impression upon the organism; but very similar impressions may come from things of different properties. Poisonous substances often look and taste like articles of food. The enemy assumes the attitude of a friend welcoming you. Reflex action is powerless to give the organism the protection needed in such cases. Instinct is easily deceived. But as soon as the harmful consequences impress themselves upon the organism, the instinct is modified, and in the future these consequences will be avoided. The instincts are ready-made institutions intended to be applied to average conditions. Their readiness and completeness is in so far of inestimable advantage to the organism. If it had to learn everything necessary for life, it could not survive.But for the manifold deviations of the external world from the average no provision can be made in this manner.
The variation of the organism’s response is made possible by the existence of higher nerve centers, that is, of connecting neurons of a higher order, more remote from the sensory and motor points of the body. Let us imagine the proverbial reaction of a child to the sight of a flame, and discuss the successive stages of development by the help of figure 15. (1) The visual stimulation starts a nervous process froms1, which passes through the bulb and spinal cord into the muscles of the arm atm1. A small part of the current may branch off ataand, instead of passing down towardsb, take the direction ofv. But the resistance in this direction is for the present so high that only an insignificant part of the process can take this way, and so no corresponding motor response is noticeable.