According to Münsterberg's Action Theory the intensity of the sensation
depends upon the strength of the incoming current. Its quality depends
upon the position or location of this current in its particular
neurone. The vividness depends upon the "openness" or "closedness" of
the neurone conditioning the _outgoing current_. And finally to the
feeling-tone shall correspond the local difference of this discharge in
outgoing currents. For instance, the pleasant feelings have, related to
them, central outgoing paths which lead to approach, and thus to the
continuation of the stimulus, and the unpleasant feelings have related
to them in turn central neurones which lead to withdrawal or escape,
and thus to the breaking-up of the stimulus.
Our empirical data gathered from the experiments above reported demand
not so much a modification as an elaboration of this theory. The
_tridimensionality_ of the feeling-tone itself must be physiologically
described. We must conceive the feeling-tone itself as possessed of its
own vividness, intensity, and quality.
It seems clear indeed that any explanation of the affective or
feeling-character of experience must be sought somewhere in the
outgoing currents from the motor region. This alone will serve to
account for the inevitable volitional or "intent" aspect which
invariably accompanies feeling, and I think may serve to account also
for the organic or necessarily coördinating or functioning aspect
required by some writers who so stoutly object to "barren atomistic or
structural" psychological explanations.
The Action Theory might then be specialized in the following way:
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