Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
"I found myself," is the comment of one, "following the contour of the
star--exploring. The circle I could go around in a twinkle." Again,
"the points entered the field before the rest of the figure." And
again, "the angle is the last to fade away."
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Now this mental exploration involves, of course, changes in the
direction of the attention corresponding in some way to changes in the
direction of the lines. Does this shifting of the attention involve
ideated movements? There can be little doubt that it does. "I felt an
impulse," says one, "to turn in the direction of the image seen." And
the unconscious actual movements, particularly those of the eyes,
which are associated with ideated movements, took place so often that
it is hard to believe they were ever wholly excluded. Such movements,
being slight and automatically executed, were not at first noticed.
The subjects were directed, in fact, to attend in all cases primarily
to the appearance and disappearance of the images, and it was only
after repeated observations and questions were put, that they became
aware of associated movements, and were able, at the close of an
observation, to describe them. After that, it became a common report
that the eyes followed the attention. And as we must assume some
central influence as the cause of this movement, which while the eyes
were closed could have no reflex relation to the stimulus of light, we
must impute it to the character of the ideas, or to their physical
substrates.
The idea, or, as we may call it, in view of the attitude of the
subject, the internal sensory impression, thus seems to bear a double
aspect. It is, in the cases noted, at once sensory and motor, or at
any rate involves motor elements. And the effect of the activity of
such motor elements is both to increase the distinctness of the image
and to prolong the duration of the process by which it is apprehended.
The sensory process thus stands in intimate dependence on the motor.
Nor would failure to move the eyes or any other organ with the
movement of attention, if established, be conclusive as against the
presence of motor elements. A motor impulse or idea does not always
result in apparent peripheral movement. In the suppressed speech,
which is the common language of thought, the possibility of incipient
or incomplete motor innervations is well recognized. But where the
peripheral movement actually occurs it must be accounted for. And as
the cause here must be central, it seems reasonable to impute it to
certain motor innervations which condition the shifting of the mental
attitude and may be incipient merely, but which, if completed, result
in the shifting of the eyes and the changes of bodily attitude which
accompany the scrutiny of an external object. And the sensory process
is, to some extent at least, conditioned by the motor, if, indeed, the
two are anything more than different aspects of one and the same
process.[7]
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