Outlines of physiological psychology : A text-book of mental science for academies and colleges / by George Trumbull Ladd.

George Trumbull Ladd

Date:: 1891 [©1890]

Credit: Outlines of physiological psychology : A text-book of mental science for academies and colleges / by George Trumbull Ladd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

429/534 (page 409)

$ill learning to handle tools, to play on musical instruments, etc. Impulsive Movements. — Those changes of the position f of the body and its members which involve states of con- \ sciousness may be divided into the impulsive and the vol- \ untary. This distinction requires, however, such a variety of degrees that shade into each other as to be difficult of application. By an impulsive movement we understand one which, without a conscious fiat of will, follows upon certain states of ideation and of excited feeling. The motif for such a movement may be said to lie in the im- pulse,'' or push, of feeling, which determines volition one way, without any proper choice. Impulsive movements form the basis of the more dis- ]f tinctively voluntary. They are particularly prominent and influential in the early development of the mind. The neural processes, awakened in the brain of the infant by the action of various forms of stimulus upon the end- organs of sense, are themselves the stimuli, or awakeners, of states of consciousness. The tone of these states of con- sciousness is one of either pleasure or discomfort. By the natural mechanism of the body, certain forms of move- ment are connected with these states of feeling, which in general tend to enhance the feeling, if pleasurable, and to relieve it, if unpleasant. Thus certain bodily movements become connected with certain states of conscious feeling. More indirectly, the same movements become connected with the ideas and perceptions associated with the feelings. The reaction-time is shorter for the impulsive movements than for the voluntary; since will-time proper is dropped out (see p. 371 f.). It is obvious, that the line between the automatic and the impulsive movements, in the earliest life of the child, cannot be drawn with confidence. And, inasmuch as the same thing is true of the automatic and the reflex move-$