A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    action on the lining of the stomach. What is called nausea is a still more complex experience, but its essential ingredient is pressure, due to the antiperistaltic reflexes of the oesophagus. The alleged respiratory sensations, such as breathlessness, suffocation, and stuffiness, are evidently experiences including several elements: first, and most important, pressure-sen¬ sations; often also, sensations of strain, as when one holds one’s breath; and, finally, for most people, a visual image of the part of the body — chest or throat — which is affected. The ‘circulatory’ sensations are either, like itching and fever¬ ishness, compounds of warmth and pressure-sensations, or else they are the massive pressure-sensations from difficult breathing or from abnormally strong heart-beat. These ‘organic’ experiences, though seldom attended to, are nevertheless of great significance, for they may form part of our most complex ideas and moods. Emotions are, as we shall see, especially rich in ‘organic’ sensations. When, for example, I am afraid, my heart flutters; when I am grieved, my throat is choked; when I am perplexed, there is a weight on my chest. And though I concern myself little with these seemingly unimportant experiences, they none the less effec¬ tively color my moods.* The cerebral condition of pressure-sensation, whether from external or from internal excitation, is, in the view of most physiologists, excitation of the region about the fissure of Rolando.7 From this centre, motor nerves spread outward and downward to all muscles of the body (and limbs) and pressure-sensations are, therefore, normally accompanied and followed by bodily movements of all varieties. * Cf. Chapter XII., pp. 200 ff.
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