A primer of psychology / by Laura Brackenbury.

  • Brackenbury, Laura.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A primer of psychology / by Laura Brackenbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    invariably on the occurrence of a specific stimulus. The beating of the heart, the dilatation of the pupil, are always—breathing, swallowing, are usually—physiological reflexes. They do not involve a specific sense-experience ; in one sense they enter consciousness, inasmuch as their occurrence modifies our organic sensation as a whole, but they do not enter it as separate experiences. The Sensa- tion-reflex is set up by the action of an occasional stimulation. Blinking, coughing, sneezing are sensation- reflexes ; and so are breathing and swallowing when anything interferes with their normal course. These reactions, unlike the physiological reflex, do enter con- sciousness as specific experiences ; usually, indeed, they have a place only in the margin of our consciousness, but they may occupy its focus. Inasmuch as they involve sensory experience of a specific kind, it is clear that sensation-reflexes (unlike the physiological) contribute to the motor-experiences of the child. Impulsive movements are due to the initiative of the conscious individual. They imply (1) cognitive activity, and (2) feeling, including appetition and aversion which involve a tendency to alter the conscious experience. Now, consciousness is connected with the body in such a way that when we have sense-impressions, accompanied as they are by a feeling-tone and arousing as they do the consequent conation. Movement or a tendency to Move- ment follows ; this we accept in the present state of our knowledge as an ultimate fact. An impulsive movement is a reaction upon some object of cognition by the subject in consequence of its feeling-attitude towards that object. Impulsive movements, then, are those that are due immediately to Pleasure-Pain ; they imply an active tendency in the subject which is determined by Cognition and prompted by Feeling. The earliest movements of a child—e.g. the stretching of his limbs—are probably of this nature. He has sense-experiences corresponding to, say, the cramped position of his limbs ; this sense-experience has the feeling-tone Pain, and sets up an aversive tendency which issues in movement. The movement on its physiological side may be explained by reference to the mechanism of the nervous system, which is so constructed that the excitation of an afferent nerve tends to produce