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exactly the moment at which the stimulus acts and that at which the subject reacts. This
can be accomplished by allowing the stimulus itself (sound, light, or tactual stimulus) to
close an electric current that sets an electric clock reading to 1/1000 sec., in motion, and
then allowing the observer, by means of a simple movement of the hand which raises a
telegraph-key, to break the current again at the moment in which he apprehends the
stimulus. In this way we may measure simple reactions varied in different ways (sensorial
and muscular reactions, reactions with or without preceding signals), or we may bring
into the process various other psychical acts (discriminations, cognitions, associations,
selective processes) which may be regarded either as motives for the volition [p. 202] or
as components of the general interconnection of psychical compounds. A simple reaction
always includes, along with the volitional process, purely physiological factors
(conduction of the sensory excitation to the brain and of the motor excitation to the
muscle). If, now, we insert further psychical processes (discriminations, cognitions,
associations, acts of choice), a modification which can be made only when sensorial
reactions are employed, the duration of clearly definable psychical processes may be
gained by subtracting the interval found for simple reactions from those found for the
compound reactions. In this way it has been determined that the time required for the
cognition and for the discrimination of relatively simple impressions (colors, letters, short
words) is 0.03 - 0.05"; the time for choice between two movements (right and left hand)
is 0.06", between ten movements ,the ten fingers) 0.4", etc. As already remarked, the
value of these figures is not their absolute magnitude, but rather their utility as cheeks for
introspection, while at the same time we may apply this introspective observation to
processes subject to conditions which are prescribed with exactness by means of
experimental methods and which may therefore be repeated at pleasure.
[1] The reaction-times for sensations of taste, smell, temperature, and pain are not
reckoned in the figures given. They are all longer. The differences are, however,
obviously to be attributed to pure physiological conditions (slow transmission of the
stimulation to the nerve-endings, and in the case of pain slower central conduction), so
that they are of no interest for psychology.
III. INTERCONNECTION OF PSYCHICAL COMPOUNDS.
§ 15. CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION
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OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY
118
1. Every psychical compound is composed of a number of psychical elements which do
not usually all begin or end at exactly the same moment. As a result, the interconnection
which unites the elements to a single whole always reaches beyond the individual
compounds, so that different simultaneous and successive compounds are united, though
indeed somewhat more loosely. We call this interconnection of psychical compounds
conscious.
Consciousness, accordingly, does not mean anything that exists apart from psychical
processes, nor does it refer merely to the sum of these processes without reference to how
they are related to one another. It expresses the general synthesis of psychical processes,
in which the single compounds are marked off as more intimate combinations. A state in
which this interconnection is interrupted, as deep sleep or a faint, is called an unconscious
state; and we speak of "disturbances of consciousness" when abnormal changes in the
combination of psychical compounds arise, even though these compounds themselves
show no changes whatever.
Consciousness in this sense, as a comprehensive interconnection of simultaneous and
successive psychical processes, shows itself in experience first of all in the psychical life
of [p. 204] the individual as individual consciousness. But we have analogous
interconnection in the combination of individuals, although it is limited to certain sides of
mental life, so that we may further include under the more general concept consciousness
the concepts of collective consciousness, of social consciousness, etc. For all these
broader forms, however, the foundation is the individual consciousness, and it is to this
that we will first turn our attention. (For collective consciousness see § 21, 14.)
Individual consciousness stands under the same external conditions as psychical
phenomena in general, for which it is, indeed, merely another expression, referring more
particularly to the mutual relations of the components of these phenomena to one another.
As the substratum for the manifestations of an individual consciousness we have in every
case an individual animal organism. In the case of men and similar higher animals the
cerebral cortex, in the cells and fibres of which all the organs that stand in relation to
psychical processes are represented, appears as the immediate organ of this
consciousness. The complete interconnection of the cortical elements may be looked
upon as the physiological correlate of the interconnection of psychical processes in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]