Suppose, however, that we were to look upon the feelings as elementary processes, — to confuse the specific character of a concrete process with the elementariness of affection. Then we should get Professor Wundt's view: the view that there are more affections than there are sensations. For every sensation, at every possible degree of intensity, can (on our view) enter into a feeling; though some do this more readily than others. Hence if every feehng is taken to be an elementary affective process, there must be more affections than sensation qualities.
This is the confusion which Professor Wundt seems to have fallen into. The terms ' strain ' and ' relaxation ' dis- tinctly suggest sensations; the sensations of tendinous strain, and the pressure sensations from skin and muscle (sensa- tions of ^heaviness ') that appear in the feelings of drowsi- ness, tiredness, etc. And it is not surprising that one should fall into it, seeing how closely many sensations (organic sen- sations, tastes, smells) blend with affection, and how difficult it is to get at the really elementary factors even by the most patient introspection. But it is a good rule not to accept a process as elementary which holds out any prospect what- soever of being compound. Hence while we admit that the feehngs are specifically different (as different as the ' wish ' for an apple and the * wish ' for a rehef from pain), we cannot regard them as elementary. Pleasantness and unpleasantness seem to be the sole affective processes.
Questions and Exercises yi Questions and Exercises (i) Cut small squares of coloured paper: say, 7 standard colours, 7 shades of these (darker colours), and 7 tints (lighter colours). Add to the 21 colours 7 brightnesses: black, white and 5 intermediate greys. Sort the squares into pairs; pairing every colour and brightness with every other colour and bright- ness. Show these pairs, in random order, to the observer, and let him say which is the 7nore pleasant of the two impressions. At the end of the experiment, make out a full list of the 28 quali- ties, arranging them in the order of greater to less pleasantness.
Notice (d) that the results got from different observers are very different. This shows how little accustomed we are to find simple colours and brightnesses pleasant or unpleasant.
(J?) The pleasantness may arise in two ways. It may come directly, at sight of the square, from the stimulus itself; or it may come indirectly, by ' association,' — the colour ' suggesting ' something of that colour (a blue gown, a red house, a yellow necktie, etc.) which has played a part, pleasant or unpleasant, in the observer's experience.
What you are trying to find here is the direct value of the different stimuli in calling up an affective process. You must therefore rule out association, as far as you can. As the ob- server gets practised in the experiments, the associations will become fewer and fewer.
(2) Seat the observer before a table. Drive a nail partly into the wood, at his right hand. Measure off 25 cm. along the table's edge, from this nail towards the observer's right. Lay a book at the foot mark. Now {a) let the observer move his finger slowly along the table, from the nail to the book. Then {p) remove the book, and let him try to make the same movement, stopping when he thinks he has reached the point at which the book lay. Do this a number of times, and take the average of the second movements.
Repeat the series, with this difference: before the observer makes the second movement in each experiment (the movement when the book is removed) let him smell a pleasant or unpleas- ant odour. Notice how his average movement is lengthened or shortened under the influence of pleasantness and unpleasantness.
(3) If you possess a hand-dynamometer (Fig. 9), take with it {a) the strongest squeeze that the subject can make under ordi- ^2 Affection and Feeling nary circumstances; {b) the strongest that he can make while tast- ing a very bitter substance; and (<:) the strongest that he can make while tasting a pleasantly sweet substance.
(4) Anal3^se by introspec- tion the feelings of smart (a ^smarting pain^), of health (^I feel first-rate '), of hunger and of oppressive heat. ^^^' 9 (5) Write out a list of all the ^ feelings ' you can think of, — that is, of all the phrases be- ginning with " I feel " or " I have a feeling of. "" Find by intro- spection how many of them really contain the element of affection, and how many are merely sensations or perceptions.
(6) Give in your own words the distinction between elemen- tariness and specific difference. Try to find instances of it in some other science, — e.g.^ in chemistry.
(7) Give instances, from your personal experience or from novels, of the three differences between affection and sensation mentioned in § 27.
(8) We may receive much pleasure from the sight of an ex- panse of blue water, of the starry sky, etc., or from the sound of a friend's voice. Can you reconcile this fact with the statements (9) " If a stimulus is repeated over and over again, the sen- sation aroused becomes clearer and clearer" (§ 27). Is there any exception to this rule? Does it affect the argument of the Section?
References Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., pp. 64-66; vol. II., pp. 1-56. Titchener, Outline^ §§ 31-34, 56. Wundt, Lectures^ Lect. XIV. Wundt, Outlines^ § 7.
CHAPTER V Attention § 29. The Problem of Attention. — We have defined mind as the sum of all those mental processes that make up the experience of a single lifetime. And we have seen that mental processes, when introspec- tively scrutinised and dissected, can be reduced to two kinds of quite simple processes or mental elements, sensation and affection. Every consciousness can be split up into certain groups of sensations and a cer- tain affection.
If, now, these processes always remained unchanged, states of con- if the stream flowed always at the same level, the ^^ ^ ^^^^ * task of the psychologist would be easy. He would take the consciousness which he wished to examine, and pull it to pieces by introspection; then he would state the laws which had led to the grouping of the elementary processes into that consciousness; and then he would describe the bodily processes corre- sponding to the mental processes which he had found. But (as we saw in § 8) the processes do not remain unchanged. The stream of consciousness is sometimes a mere trickle, sometimes a placid river, sometimes a torrent: or, in technical language, there are many dif- ferent states of consciousness. The mental processes may remain the same processes, as we pass from one state of consciousness to another; but their state — their relative prominence or importance — is changed.
73 74 Attention attention and inatten- tion.
The two sides of attention.
The states of consciousness that are most familiar to us in the waking Ufe are those of attention and inattention. The value of attention need hardly be pointed out; every teacher and every learner admits it. The reader may, however, be reminded that the rule *^ Be attentive" occurs in our list of the general rules of experimental introspection (§ 15). It will be well, then, now that we have discussed the element- ary mental processes, to look at attention^ and see how these processes behave in the attentive and inat- tentive states, before we pass on to treat of the laws which govern their union in perceptions and ideas and emotions.
Attention, like the tree in Mark Twain's story, has two sides, an inside and an outside. Looked at from the inside, attention consists of a certain well-marked phase or aspect of the stream of consciousness: our mental processes whert we are attentive are in a different state from our mental processes when we are not attending. Looked at from the outside, attention consists of a certain attitude of the body, and especially of the head. The problem that atten- tion sets us is, therefore, twofold: we must describe and explain the state of consciousness, and we must describe and explain the bodily attitude.
We shall see later (§ 34) that even this outside is in a sense an inside; that it has a distinct psychological value. The bodily attitude is in many cases accompanied by inten- sive and characteristic sensations.
§ 30. Attention as a State of Consciousness. — We have here to ask what attention is, as a psycho- logical fact, — how the state of attention differs, § 30. Attention as a State of Consciotisftess 75 when introspectively examined, from the state of inattention.
When we are inattentive, — when we are in a Attention to reverie, letting our thoughts wander, — the stream of p.^^^ conscious processes is flowing, so to speak, at the same level. Every idea that occurs to us is as im- portant as, but not more important than, the ideas already present. There is no difference in the height of the waves, as the stream of consciousness flows on.
When we are attentive, on ^ the other hand, the stream flows at two distinct levels. The one is the level of the ideas attended to; the other that of the ideas attended from. For we cannot attend at the same moment to all the ideas that make up a consciousness; the ' grasp ' of attention is limited, — so that some ideas must suffer for the benefit of the rest. The ideas attended to are assisted in their course: their waves run at a great height above the average level of the stream. The other ideas in con- sciousness, those attended from, are checked: their waves run sluggishly below the average level.
In Fig. 10, ^ represents an inat- a tentive, and b an attentive conscious- ness. The dark line is the bed of the stream, and the current is sup- posed to be flowing towards you, out of the paper. In ^ there are five ideas present, all proceeding at equal levels. In b the third idea is being attended to; its wave is much height- ened, while the waves of i, 2, 4 and 5, the ideas attended from, are depressed. * ^^ The heightening of the wave which represents the The charac- .. ter of ideas idea attended to means three things. (i)This idea attended/^.
76 Attention Attention may be passive, active, becomes clearer in consciousness than the other ideas of the time; it stands out definitely and distinctly, while the ideas attended from are blurred and ob- scure. (2) It lasts longer than the other ideas. They slip away, but it is ' held ' or arrested. (3) It is more valuable than the others. For it is more * suggestive ' than they are, — it brings to mind a number of other ideas; and it is also more likely to be remembered than they are, so that it will be at our disposal on future occasions when they have altogether disap- peared from memory.
You can easily verify these three points by intro- spection.
§ 3 1. The Three Forms of Attention. — If we look at attention in the adult mind, we find that it appears in three different stages or strata; and each of these represents a stage in the development of mind at large, in mental evolution. These stages have been named passive attention, active attention and second- ary passive attention. We must look at them in order.
(i) Passive Attention. — There are some things that we must attend to, whether we will or no; things that irresistibly attract us to them, whatever our occupa- tion at the time may be. Such are loud sounds and brilliant lights; things that move amidst unmoved sur- roundings; things that for some reason contrast with their surroundings. When an object of this kind is presented to us, we necessarily attend to it; its idea is borne up in consciousness on the crest of the atten- tion wave, and we are deaf and blind to other stimuli.
(2) Active Attention. — Sometimes, on the other hand, we seem to be holding our mind upon an tion.
§ 31. The Three Forms of Attention yy object by main force, to be making ourselves attend. The ideas attended to in these cases are not such as would * naturally' become the prominent ideas in con- sciousness: indeed, they may be ideas which would naturally escape notice. Thus we may listen in- tently to a very faint sound, a sound that under ordinary circumstances would have had no power whatsoever to attract the attention; or we may note the minute differences between two shells or two plants, finding distinctions where the ordinary unin- , terested observer would find nothing but similarity. This active attention always involves effort.
(3) Secondary Passive Attention. — Active attention, or secondary 1.. passive attenhowever, may pass over mto passive, i he man of science who is comparing the shells or plants may • become so absorbed in his work that he forgets his dinner or misses an appointment; his mind is held as firmly by his work as it could be by a loud sound or a movement. In such a case, an object which has no right of its own to engross consciousness has gained this right in course of time and practice. At first attended to actively, with an effort, and barely able to hold its own against distracting ideas, it now absorbs the full measure of attention; the student is buried or sunk in his task.
The attention of young children and of the lower animals is almost exclusively of the passive sort. Older children and the higher animals are capable of active attention. Sec- ondary passive attention is peculiar to man and to the ani- mals trained by man (dogs, performing animals). Man alone is able to make full use of it. We must now ask what that use is, and what is the significance of the three stages of attention in our mental life.
78 Attention Individuals differ in bodily tendency or mental constitution.
§ 32. Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution. — Every child is born with certain aptitudes. Its mind will not be an all-round mind, but a mind better suited to some one career, some particular employment, than to others. The reason is that every child is the out- come of different conditions. The children of differ- ent families come of different stocks, so that their inherited tendencies or leanings are different; and even brothers and sisters have different natural en- dowments, according as they ' take after ' this or that parent or grandparent, and are brought up under different circumstances.
Biologically regarded, these differences are differ- ences of tendency. The nervous system of each one of us is the product of a long course of development, during which all sorts of influences have been at work to shape and mould it. It is set for acting in a certain way, and cannot act satisfactorily in other ways. Psychologically regarded, the differences are differences of mental constitittion. Each man's mind is differently constituted from his neighbour's, be- cause its processes run their course within the chan- nels laid down by a particular nervous system. With certain nervous tendencies we have a ^ mathematical mind '; with certain others, an ^ emotional mind '; with certain others, a * plodding mind '; etc.
How we know this.
The fact that minds differ in general trend or character is brought home to us in three ways, (i) If we compare the results gained by introspection of different minds, we find curious individual differences. One man remembers an event by seeing it over again; another by hearing it over again. That is, the one is eye-minded, the other ear- §32. Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution 79 minded. It is the same event; but it has appealed to the two minds differently, because of the differences of nervous tendency. The minds are differently constituted. (2) We are sorted out into groups as children; we are told that we are ^bright' or ^ dull/ ^industrious' or impatient,' etc. So it is natural to us to think of minds as being of different types or kinds. (3) We see that different people act dif- ferently under the same circumstances. One man is con- fused and hesitant, another stunned and helpless, another ready and capable, while the external conditions remain precisely the same.
We have said that nervous tendency and the mental constitu- tion that corresponds to it are the result of influences which have been at work throughout a long course of development, — of the influences that affected parents and grandparents and more re- mote ancestors. That our surroundings can and do exert a pro- found influence on us is a fact, however, that each of us can observe in his own lifetime. The child's nervous system, though set in a certain way, can yet be moulded to a very considerable extent; the habit imposed by education becomes second nature. This, indeed, is the chief problem of education. In psychologi- cal language, the teacher must find out the child's 7iat7irat mental constitution, noticing the good and bad features of it, and must seek by influence of all kinds to accentuate the good and mini- mise the bad. In biological language, he must find out the child's natural nervous tendencies, and strive — by favouring the formation of good habits — to keep the right channels open for the flow of mental processes and dam up those that lead mind astray. Natural constitution and natural tendency must be partly reinforced and partly checked by acquired constitution and acquired tendency.
The existence of nervous tendency is the key to the three forms of attention. (i)The natural con- ditions of life are so far alike that every animal must have certain tendencies, if it is to live at all. An animal that neglected loud sounds, that did not notice movement in its neighbourhood or change in The problem of education.
Bodily ten- dencies account for the forms of attention; passive, 8o Attention active, and second- ary passive attention.
its customary surroundings, would soon fall a prey to its enemies. Hence passive attention to these things is ingrained in our physical structure; a mind so con- stituted as not to attend to them is an impossibility, the conditions of life and evolution being what they are. (2) But the list of things that we must attend to is not very long. And things not in the list cannot, of course, attract the attention so forcibly, cannot demand it so imperatively, as the others can. Hence attention to them is active attention: attention under difficulties, attention with several claimants upon consciousness. The strongest idea wins, i.e,^ the idea that takes most easily the direction of our nervous ten- dencies; but it wins only after a struggle with other ideas, which follow the lines laid down by weaker rival tendencies. The nervous system is so com- plicated that it may be the scene of many conflicting tendencies at the same moment. (3) At this stage the development of the animal mind ceases. The animal (unless dominated by man, formed by human training) must go through the same struggle, make the same effort, every time that it is attentive. But man is superior to the animals in that he has a conscious tradition, a history: he has records of the past, in the light of which he can look forward to the future. Hence man is able to 'take sides' with the ideas that are striving for the first place in consciousness; he can help one idea, and hinder others. Partly we do this for ourselves, thinking that '' this work is a great nuisance now, but will be worth while in the long run"; partly, and more especially, it is done for us by parents and teachers, § 33- Attention and Affection 8i whether we consent or not, while we are children. The child is trained, in the light of the past experi- ence of the human race; the young of animals have no such training. So we get, in man, the state of secondary passive attention. A task at first per- formed against our will, with pains and difficulty, becomes easy and natural.
Secondary passive attention is the chief condition of The condi- human progress. The more a piece of work is reduced to a!^°"f, °^, ^ ° ^ intellectual matter of course, the more power has the mind to advance progress. to further work. This becomes natural and easy in its turn, and gives place to new work j and so on. And secondary passive attention is possible because the teacher, guided by past experience, can lay his finger upon a useful tendency, a useful feature of mental constitution, in the child, and aid it by insisting on the formation of habits in accordance with it. Active attention thus appears as a stage of waste, a stage to be got out of. At the same time, it is a stage that must be passed through, and passed through again and again, if knowledge is to grow and character to be rightly moulded. The child who did not pass through it would remain at the level of the animals, the sport and play of any great or striking or novel occurrence in its surround- ings. Active attention is the battle which must be won by those who mean to master their surroundings and rise to man's full height above the animal world.
§ 33. Attention and Affection. — If the reader had been asked, before he opened this book, why he attended to certain things, he would probably have replied, '^Because they interest me." If he were asked now, after having read the previous Section, he would probably say, ''Because they are the things that follow the lines of my nervous tendencies, or fit in with my mental constitution." Both answers are ccr G 82 Attejition rect, though they are given from different points of view. Interest. What is a thing that * interests ' us? It is a thing the idea of which is overlaid with affection. The affection may be pleasantness or unpleasantness. We are interested in what we like, in what pleases us; and we are interested in repulsive, horrible, dreadful things, — we are * fascinated' by accounts of crimes and disasters. It is quite true to say that the interesting thing is the thing that attracts the attention; just as it is quite true to say that the thing which fits in with our mental constitution is the thing that attracts the attention. Attention. But here we must be on our guard against a comand a action ^^^ error. We are apt to think that we attend to back and ^ front of the a thing after we have found it interesting: that the same state..
pleasure or disgust comes first, and the attention fol- lows, drawn to the thing by its interestingness. That is not true. Affection and attention come together in consciousness; they are back and front, obverse and reverse, of the same state. It is only when we are feeling that we are attending; only when we are attending that we are feeling. We do n^t first feel, and then attend; we feel and attend together.
Now, then, we can see in what sense the two answers to our question are correct. A thing which follows the lines of our nervous tendencies is a thing- to-be-attended-to; at the same time, it is a thing-to-be- felt. But a felt thing is an interesting thing. Hence the thing that we attend to is from one point of view a thing that follows the lines of our tendencies, and from another point of view a thing that interests us.
attention and affection.
§ 33. Attention and Affection 83 The notion that we attend after we have felt interested is Two intro- 80 wide-spread, and seems so natural, that the reader may ^eTrnW find it hard to adopt the true view, and to think of affection between and attention as two sides of the same mental experience. Let us see, then, what introspection has to say of their resemblance. If it turns out that they have certain essen- tial characteristics in common, it will be easier to believe that, when the one appears, the other appears with it.
(i) We saw in § 27 (i) that affection spreads over the whole of consciousness, thus differing from sensations, many of which may run their course side by side at a given time. Attention, in the same way, is a state of the whole con- sciousness. All the ideas present are influenced by it, by way of exaltation or depression, — some attended to, some attended from.
(2) When we attend to a sensation, we make it clearer, more lasting, etc. We cannot attend to an affection. If we try to do so, we drive the affection away; the pleasantness or unpleasantness disappears, and we find ourselves looking at some obtrusive sensation or idea which we had no intention of observing. The reason is clear: attention and affection are not separate matters, but two sides of one experience, and it is as impossible to attend to affection as it would be to see the ^ head ' side of a coin by looking at the ' tail' side. — Note that here is a fourth difference between sensation and affection (§ 27; and cf. § 12).
A good illustration of the fact that it is impossible to attend to an affection is given in a paragraph of Mrs. F. H. Burnett^s reminiscences. Speaking of her child-life, Mrs. Burnett says: " ' Is this really the party? ' she [the little girl] would say mentally. And then, to convince herself, to make it real, ' Yes, it is the Party. I am at the Party. I have my party frock on — they are all dancing. This is the Party.' And yet as she stood and stared, and the gay sashes floated by, she was restlessly con- scious of not being quite convinced and satisfied, and of some- thing which was saying, ' Yes — we are all here. It looks real, but somehow it doesn't seem exactly as if it was the Party. "^ attention.
84 Attention And one does it all one's life. Everybody dances, everybody hears the music, — but was there ever anyone who really went to the Party? " That is to say: we cannot feel if we try to introspect our pleasure. Attend to the music and the sashes, and you will enjoy yourself; attend to your enjoyment, and it vanishes.
The ' out- § 34. The Bodily Attitude in Attention. — We now turn to the ' outside ' of the attentive state, the bodily attitude which we take up when we are attending. This may be briefly described as the attitude which secures the most favourable conditions for the use of the sense-organ to which the object of attention appeals. There is a brace or tension of the whole body; the muscles are all ^ under control.' The head is set firmly on the shoulders, fronting straight for- ward if the object is a sight, thrust out onesidedly if it is a sound. Breathing is kept as steady as possible in the former case, so that the thing looked at may not be obscured by up and down movements of the head, and as noiseless as possible in the second, so that the sound may not be interfered with by the noises of respiration. If we are listening, too, the eyes are often closed, so that our attention may not be distracted by striking or moving objects in the field of vision.
In the case of passive and secondary passive at- tention, we ' fall into ' this attitude naturally. Our nervous systems have been drilled, whether by the accumulated experiences of the race or in the course of our early education, and we adjust ourselves to the circumstances without difficulty or hesitation. In the case of active attention, where there are two or three ideas (each of them with its own bodily attitude) clamouring to be attended to at the same time, there is a conflict of attitudes as there is of ideas; the ad- justment takes place slowly, and is completed only after many checks and hindrances.
It is plain that when a bodily attitude is assumed and its effect upon the