The foundations of normal and abnormal psychology / [Boris Sidis].

  • Boris Sidis
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The foundations of normal and abnormal psychology / [Boris Sidis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sensory quality that they diffuse it into the other ele¬ ments,—the subordinate elements appear under the sensory form of the nucleus; they become assimilated by the nucleus, and are saturated with its sensory color¬ ing. This holds true not only in regard to saturation, but also in regard to sensory brightness. The central elements possess a sensory brightness far in excess of other elements, and hence they shed their sensory light on the more obscure, though no less important sensory elements. What however they illumine is not so much the peculiar sensory characteristics of those elements, but their own coloring with which they have saturated the total percept. The force of the central elements lies specially in the emotional or affective tone with which they are pervad¬ ed. They arouse an attitude towards the external world in general and to the special object in particular; Taine would call it a tendency. The individual is stimulated by those nuclear elements; his whole attention is going out in direction to the object that has excited them. The whole organism is invaded by the subtle influence of the nucleus giving rise to definite sensori-motor reac¬ tions, intensifying the affective state which permeates the perceptual consciousness. The affective state of the percept is not always obvious in cases of fleeting percepts, but it becomes manifest, when the central elements become temporarily fixed, the stress and strain of consciousness tending in one direction. The very changes occurring in the flicker¬ ing intensity of the nuclear elements tend to sharpen the situation, to enliven the interest, strain the attention, and be all agog so to say. The cat getting a glimpse of a mouse, or the dog catching sight of the cat may be taken