The reading of words : a study in apperception / by Walter Bowers Pillsbury.

  • Pillsbury, Walter Bowers.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The reading of words : a study in apperception / by Walter Bowers Pillsbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    examination of the various passages in Wundt’s works in which the question is discussed. Two kinds of evidence are available in this connection. We can examine analyses of the apperceptive process, for evidence of identity or non-identity of the Thatigkeitsgefiihl with the sensational and affective contents usually mentioned as present; and we may look for and evaluate passages that state explicitly that apperception appears in consciousness immediately. One of the passages which offers the most un- equivocal evidence of the former kind is in the Zur Lehre vom Willen. After analysing the side-contents of consciousness during the apperception of an idea into feelings and inner- vation sensations, Wundt says: “In diesen Innervations- empfindungen liegt zugleich der nachste sinnliche Anlass dafiir, dass wir die Apperception Oder Aufmerksamkeit eine Thatigkeit nennen und sie als solche von dem volligen passiven Yerhalten gegeniiber ausseren Eindriicken Oder in uns aufsteigenden Vorstellungen unterscheiden.” 1 Lower down on the same page he gives an equally decisive analysis of will and apperception to prove that they are the same. “In der That sind bei derselben [die primitive Willens- handlung = die Apperception] die bei jeder Willensthatig- keit zu unterscheidenden Stadien auzutreffen : die Erregung des Bewusstseins durch ein Gefiihlsmotiv, die daraus hervorgehende Bichtung des Bewusstseins mit ihren psy- chischen und physischen Folgezustanden, und endlich die durch die letzteren herbeigefiihrte Losung der Spannung.” Similarly the analysis of expectation,2 which Wundt calls the apperception of a future, not a present idea, is reduced entirely to strain sensations, to affective states accompany- ing the strain sensations, and to the oscillation of the dark ideas in consciousness. So in the “Lectures”3: “The whole circle of subjective processes connected with appercep- tion we call attention. Attention contains three essential constituents : an increased clearness of ideas ; muscle sensa- tions, which generally belong to the same modality as the ideas; and the feelings which precede and accompany the ideational change.” Thus wherever Wundt gives an exact analysis of the processes which he includes under the Thdiig- keitsgefiihl, he seems to reduce it mainly to sensations of strain or (as in the older article cited) of innervation. The ‘sensations of innervation’ are, of course, equivalent to the ■ strain sensation ’ of his modern work. This is evident from ' Phil, Stucl., I, p. 347. 2 P/M/8. Psy II p. 280. 3P. 249.