Several considerations may be urged in favour of this view: (i) It brings absolute and relative tone recognition under a single principle; the former arises on the motor side, the latter on the sensory, or assimilative side, of the one process; (2) it accounts for the greater relative ease of recognition of chords and compound tones; apart from their complexity of content, they carry greater and more varied dynamogenic influence; (3) it makes it pos- sible to consider tone recognition in some cases hereditary, as the facts {i.e., cases of v. Kries and others) seem to require; persons have from birth a tendency to give the attention with greater facility to one class of stimulations than to another — so the doctrine of types teaches. Why may not this difference extend also to different notes?
1 Above, Chap. X., § 3. Instead of Hoffding's sentence {Phil. Stud., VIII., p. 90), ^ die organische Ftinctionen gehsn leichier' in absolute recognition, I should say, the psycho-physical function of attention * goes easier.'
PitcJi Recogrnition.
<b The analysis given above of the speech function leads us to see what refinements are possible in the recognition of words. Even the recognition of particular classes of words, as nouns, may be lost while other words are correctly used. Brazier cites a case in which the visual time nota- tion of written music was retained while the pitch notation in the same music was lost. A corresponding native re- finement on the motor side, i.e., in the attention, is all that this theory requires, and if it is not now evident that such refinement exists, a great deal of this book has been writ- ten in vain. Refinements on the sensory side, as seen in association, are dependent, indeed, upon refinements on the motor side. The variations in motor reactions are the win- nowing, selecting agents of all mental progress; (4) it enables us to explain the apparent influence of timbre, a fact not explained by any other theory. The fact that isolated tones from some instruments are recognized, while from others they are not, I hold to arise from differences in the type of attention exerted in the several cases respectively. A 'visual' musician is most likely to recognize tones from instruments whose manipulation or notation involves much visual attention; an 'auditive,' notes from those which exercise hearing in most varied and exclusive ways; and a 'motor,' notes from those in connection with which mus- cular attention is at its best. It is remarkable that in all of v. Kries's recognitions, the method of learning was probably by visual note-reading, — piano, violin, etc., — while his non-recognitions — his own voice, voice of others, steam whistles, lip-whistling, etc. — are apparently in cases in which the auditory indications did not include such sys- tematic visual attention. Now on the supposition that V. Kries is a 'visual,' that the pitch elements of the atten- 44^ The Mechanisvi of Revival.
tion in his case are most readily stimulated from the centre for sight, we have a clear application of our law.^ Further, V. Kries was unable to recognize tones before he learned musical * naming,' which, it is natural to suppose, was at first visual. The case of musical alexia already quoted from Brazier, shows the importance of a single class of notation memories, although it involved the loss, not of tone recognition, but of musical execution;2 (5) one of v. Kries's cases of 'absolute hearing' seems to be, from what he reports of it, motor in its type: a young woman who recognized tones when sung only by means of 'internal repetition,' to herself, of the notes sung {das Bcdiirfniss be standi sie innerlich nacJizusingeii)? This mneidicJies NacJismgen, in a case where the real note is already heard, is probably motor, a supposition supported by the fact that the woman was a 'skilful singer herself.' Her quicker recognition of piano tones might be because of the motor practice in hand execution; (6) this point of view affords us an additional reason for the fact, which all admit, that the best recognitions are for notes of moderate pitch, — not very high or very low; for, being of most frequent occurrence, these notes exercise the attention most, and so get most easily and readily accommodated to. And it is also easy to see that, for this reason, their discrimination becomes finer and better; (7) in the experiments already referred to, Fere found different dynamogenic effects to follow the hearing of the different notes of the musical scale, and the greatest effect to follow the notes in the ^ Of course, such an application is only an illustration; the details of the individual's life and education — the questions 'why?' and 'to what extent?' he is visual, motor, etc. — make any single case extremely complex.
Pitch Recognition. 449 middle of the gamut; this is nothing short of a demonstra- tion of variations in the a element in attention for differ- ent pitches.
Finally, if ' motor associates ' be at the bottom of pure- tone recognition, we would expect something of the same kind in the case of colour and odour qualities. This is the sphere of Lehmann's results in Benciinungsassociation to which V. Krics appeals. Now Fere claims to have demon- strated this very point, i.e.^ that colour discrimination and recognition are improved by muscular exercise. He found it possible to bring back purple recognition to purple-blind hysterics, simply by muscular movement. It is a ready deduction, also, from the opposite fact that the different colours, beginning with red, have diminishing dynamogenic effect as measured on the squeeze-dynamometer.
The details now cited, in the case of speech and tune revival, may be taken as detailed examples of the application of my general theory of assimilation to detailed instances. The position of the theory as regards recognition of tones may be stated in the words of James, quoted from his review of my earlier article: " It offers a basis of mediation between the two theories of Recognition over which Hoffding and Lehmann have recently waged war. One theory, stated in its radical form, says that a thing looks familiar to us when it recalls to us its past self. The other theory says it looks or sounds familiar when it recalls its past siirroiuidmgs. The difficulty with the latter view is, that the supposed surroundings fail to become explicitly conscious when the recognition is confined to the bare 'sense of familiarity.' How do we know, then, that they are at all tending to revive } But Professor Baldwin, in 450 The Meckmtism of Revival.
making them sink to the level of mere motor associates of former acts of attention, gives a good reason why our consciousness of them should be so indistinct, and why at the same time we should so unmistakably greet the sensory experience which they accompany as one already ours." ^ An informal criticism by Professor Hoffding is answered in another place. ^ Wallaschek^ objects to my view, that as all persons have the requisite factors, all should have absolute tone recognition. But the reason they do not is, I think, not a fault of their reproduction, but of their per- ception. Some cannot recognize tones again, because they do not closety distinguish them in the first instance, except, perhaps, when they occur together.
It may be well to note, finally, as among the minor questions which this general theory of recognition answers, is that of so-called 'paramnesia,' — the false recognition of new localities, interiors, etc., the sense that an event has happened to one before. It is due to the artificial or acci- dental stirring up of an old attention series. Any new experience which gives exactly the same strains, etc., in the attention complex, as an earlier experience, would seem familiar, at the same time that it did not seem objectively identical.
CHAPTER XV.
The Origin of Attention. § I. Voluntary Attention.
The foregoing examination of current theories of devel- opment has served to throw into relief the elements of the problem. It has also shown that a theory of adaptation must have reference to the repetition of stimulations, fundamentally, not of movements; so far a presumptive proof of my theory, which is the only one, as far as I know, — based as it is upon the work of Darwin and Spencer, — consciously drawn to supply this want.
The three psychological stages or levels at which we find consciousness getting new accommodations have already been pointed out,^ and the claim made that the ' law of excess,' enunciated above, applies to each and all of them. I shall now take them in inverse order for closer ex- amination. The first question is, accordingly: How is the conscious person able to perform a new movement voluntarily t The first remark is this: To make any movement vol- untarily, the attention must be fixed upon some kind of an idea which represents this movement. I do not care to repeat the analysis which I have published elsewhere,^ and 1 Above, p. i8o. 2 Handbook, II, Chaps. XII., XV.
452 The Origin of Attention.
which James has also made, much more forcibly/ of volition back to its last citadel — voluntary attention to an idea. Everybody, it seems, now admits it. If the object of volition, then, is a movement, an idea that meafis the movement, must be attended to.
But in the case of learning a thing for the first time the movement required is not an old, but a new one: ^ hence it cannot be a mental image or memory of the movement, to which the attention is directed; it must be an external movement or event, of some kind, which in some way manages to send its dynamogenic influence into the motor channels required.
Now to acquire a movement seen, or in some other way externally setup, — this is exactly conscious imitation. The problem then reduces itself to the process of per- sistent effortful imitation; and we have to ask how atten- tion to a movement seen, for example, enables the child or man to come to perform this movement himself.
The process of persistent imitation, as far as its mechan- ism is concerned, has been depicted and figured above.^ The point essential to our present topic has been only casually mentioned, however, i.e., that the difference be- tween ' simple * and ' persistent ' imitation, of the try-try- again type, is that, in the former, an earlier muscular movement is repeated without variation, while in the latter, 1 Princ. of Psychology, Vol. I., Chap. XI.
2 Unless, indeed, it has been accidentally performed before. I have already admitted that many useful acts are acquired by such happy accident, and it will be seen later that the * excess ' discharge is of use mainly in increasing these happy hits. But no one will deny that the ' hits ' occur mainly through the child's imitations in cases of complex action, such as speech, writing, sewing, etc.
I Voluntary Aitcniion. 453 the earlier movement is modified in such a way as to approximate, more and more closely, the movement-copy attended to.
In persistent imitation the first reaction is not repeated. Hence we must suppose the development of a function of co-ordination by which the two regions excited respectively by the original suggestion and the reaction first made, co- alesce in a coniuion more voliiminons and intense stimulation of the motor cejitre. A movement is thus produced which, by reason of its greater mass and diffusion, includes more of the elements of the movement seen and copied. This is again reported by eye or ear, giving a new excitement, which is again co-ordinated with the original stimulation and with the after-effects of the earHer imitations. The result is yet another motor stimulation, or effort, of still greater mass and diffusion, which includes yet more ele- ments of the 'copy.' And so on, until simply by its in- creased niasSy including the motor excitement of attention itself, — by the greater range and variety of the motor ele- ments thus enervated, — in short, by the excess discharge, the 'copy' is completely reproduced. The effort thus suc- ceeds. (See Fig. XIV., above, in Chap. XIII., § 2.)
This, it is evident, is just the principle of 'excess,' and it is very easy to find in it the origin of the attention. The attention is the mental function corresponding to the habitual motor co-ordination of the processes of heightened or ' excess ' discharge. The exact elements which it in- cludes have already been pointed out, and they will be spoken of again.
Let the child once withdraw attention from his copy, let him be distracted by bird or beast, and woe to his chance of learning the new movement. The whole con- 454 ^/^^' Origin of Attention.
glomerate conscious content falls to pieces and he goes back to be a creature of suggestion. But let him keep on attending — strongly, faithfully, well — and note his actions. His whole physical iDcrsonahty gets concentrated in con- joint, then allied, then unified, then convulsive discharge upon the member which, by habit or previous use, is nearest to the copy requirement. He rolls his tongue, bites his lip, sways his body, works his legs, winks his eyes, etc., until every scheming nerve and tendon bends to do the task. His blood-vessels, even, fill toward the hand he works with. This occurs only in attention, and this is the excess wave by which here in the highest consciousness, as there in the lowest organism, acconiuiodation to new stimulations is secured.
A direct examination of the infant's earliest voluntary movements shows the growth in mass, diffusion, and lack of precision which this theory requires. In acquiring the associations of elements involved in successful handwrit- ing,i the young child uses hand, then hand and arm, then hand, arm, tongue, face, and finally his whole body. In speaking, also, he ' mouths ' his sounds, screws his tongue and hands, etc. And he only gets his movements reduced to order after they have become by effort massive and diffuse. I find no support whatever in the children them- selves, for the current view of psychologists, i.e., that voluntary combinations are gradually built up by adding up earlier voluntary movements, muscle to muscle, and group to group. This is true only after each of these elements has itself become voluntary. Such a view im- plies that the infant, at this stage, has a kind of separate consciousness of the different muscles, including those 1 See the details given above, Chap. V., § 2, Voluntary A lieu t ion, 455 which he has never learned to use, which is false; and is able to avail himself of muscles which he has not learned to use, which is equally false — not to allude to the fact that it leaves suspended in mid-air the problem as to how the new combination, intended and dwelt upon by atten- tion, gets itself actually carried out by the muscles.
When muscular effort thus succeeds, by the simple fact of increased mass and diffusion of reaction, the useless elements fall away because they have no emphasis. The desired motor elements are reinforced by their agreement with the ' copy,' by the dwelling of attention upon them, by the pleasure which accompanies success. In short, the law of survival of the fittest by natural, or, in this case, so-called ' organic ' selection, assures the persistence of the reaction thus gained by effort.
I may merely note in passing, also, that this theory of the physical process underlying volition is not open to the objections commonly urged against earlier views. How can we conceive the relation of mind and body.'* The alternatives heretofore current are three: either the mind interferes with brain processes, or it directs brain processes, or it does nothing; these are the three. Now, on the view here presented, none of these is true. The function of the mind is simply to have a persistent pres- entation— a suggestion, a 'copy.' The law of motor reaction, plus the accumulated excess, does the rest. The muscles express the influence of the central excitement; this sets inwards as more excitement, which we call atten- tion and emotion, and this the muscles again express; and so on, until by the law of lavish outlay, which nature so often employs, the requisite muscular combination is se- cured and persists. In the words of Zielicn, " the appear- 456 The Origin of Attention.
ance of the concomitant psychical processes themselves is the only fact that needs explanation...The fitness of actions is quite conceivable as the result of natural laws." ^ Besides the general fact that this view makes the stimu- lus or copy the essential thing for reproduction, it takes another step as important for psychology, I think, as the former is for general biology: the identification of vol- untary attention with motor reaction, at once habitual, in the main, but yet 'excessive,' in part, in the centres of highest co-ordination. Attention is, in the main, an accu- mulation, due to habit.
This is considered a grave question by many who forget that whatever the voluntary life is, every child has to pass into it from the involuntary life, without a miracle; and it may be well to present some general considerations, in addition to the facts of infant life now mentioned.
I. It should be remembered, I may repeat, that the problem of adaptation is really the problem of selection. How does an organism select the stimulations which are profitable to it.? It is in answer to this question that the ' excess ' function is postulated, and has been in the ' in- creased nervous discharge ' of biological theories of the Spencer-Bain type. Now in attention we have, undoubt- edly, the one selective function of consciousness. Who claims anything else } Whatever attention may do besides, all the selections which consciousness makes are due to it.
1 Physiol. Psychology, p. 274. Ziehen recognizes the essential sameness of the selecting process for reflex (phylogenetic) and voluntary (ontogenetic) selections. He says: "In both cases the process of selection is the essential factor in the development of this fitness. In the case of reflex action...this selection is essentially a phylogenetic process: in the case of [voluntary] actions, it is an ontogenetic process."
1 Vohiniary Attention. 457 We have, therefore, the requirement that these two things should be connected in theory,?>., the adaptations of lower organisms, and the selections of consciousness. Now it only gives further strength both to the theory of the biological selections of the lower organisms, and to that of the conscious selections of the higher, if we find that one psycho-physical principle runs through the entire development.
2. Farther, the conscious value of a stimulus to the organism, as a whole, is pleasure-pain effect. This we have identified with some form of psycho-physical pro- cess, in the nervous centres, which tends to discharge in the excess wave. In this again, as has been said, I am following the best theories of the past (Darwin, Bain, Meynert). If now my proposition concerning attention be true, it would follow that in the higher representative processes, attention is the great locus of hedonic conscious- ness. It is only necessary to reflect upon the conditions of 'ideal tone' — the pleasures of the intellectual and emotional life — in the exposition, for example, of Ward and the Herbartians, to be convinced that this is true. Developmental considerations enter here to complicate the case; ^ but it is sufficient to note in this place, that pleasure is, in lower organisms, a sign of vital profit, and, by its discharge in the excess wave, an agent of adaptation; and the same is true of intellectual and sentimental pleasure and profit. They indicate conscious adaptation by the phenomenon of attention, which is the genetic channel of an excess wave the same in kind. All the evidence which goes to show that no movement can be made unless the attention gets fixed upon some idea that represents this 1 See below, § 3 in this chapter, on the 'Development of Attention.'
458 The Origin of At lent ion.
movement, and that no movement can be prevented upon the representation of which (itself or by proxy) the atten- tion is fixed — all this evidence shows also, that attention is some kind of generalized motor phenomenon. General- ized, because it bears equally on all presented contents. All initiation of voluntary movement is a matter of atten- tion, and all voluntary inhibition or control of movement a matter of withdrawal of attention. Now this is just what the excess wave ought to do — come to the aid of that which claims by highest right the aid of accumulated habit, that which, by this aid, is selected for doing, chosen, willed; and by its withdrawal to prevent that which should, by the same tests, be ruled out and denied.
I have elsewhere argued for the view that reflex atten- tion is an affair of motor association. The facts so evi- dently show that there is no mental initiative in the case of a violent drawing of attention — as by a clap of thunder, or a flash of light — that the problem is, not to prove that the entire psychological phenomena is a change in the con- tent of consciousness, but merely to determine what kind of a change it is. I have proposed to call consciousness when occupied with such reflex attention * reactive,' since the essential thing about reflex attention is the attitude or reactive condition in which one finds himself as soon as his surprise — after such a clap of thunder — allows him to ask himself the question. Certain muscular tensions, vary- ing somewhat with the kind of sensation or image to which his attention is drawn — this seems to be all he finds. It seems quite in the line of fact, therefore, to say that reflex Reflex and 'Primary' Attention. 459 attention is a consciousness of a group of muscular and organic processes fixed in certain forms by habit.
The earliest form of attention is that directed upon sense qualities. It may be called 'primary attention,' in the phrase of late writers (Hoffding, Ladd), or 'conation,' considered as the active side of consciousness. It is by indulgence only that the term 'attention' is used for it, since when we use that word we have in mind so distinctly the exact tensions and contractions habitual in our developed lives of attention. But if the general view which I am advo- cating is true, we should expect to find, in all conscious- ness, the presence of such a motor element; and while in any particular case the 'motor associates' may not be special enough to give well-marked tone to the content, yet it should, in its real nature, be called a phenomenon of attention. The place of this early attention may be made plainer in the next paragraph.
§ 3. The Development of Attentio7i: Sensori-Moior Association.
Assuming the answer now given to the question of the mechanism of speech, considered as a typical volun- tary function, some additional considerations arise which had not been suggested, as far as I am aware, before my first publication of them,^ and which bring us back to our problem of the development of attention.
In the first place, I find in my own case and from experiments with others, that the presence or absence of elements of movement in the consciousness of a word depends in many individuals largely upon the direction of 1 See the article already mentioned in the Philosophical Review, II., 1893, 460 The Origin of Attention.
the attention} If the attention be directed to the vocal organs, — either one's own, or some one's else, — move- ments of the tongue, lips, and larynx are clearly felt in the organs, sometimes also by touch, and may be seen. If, on the other hand, the attention be directed to the ear, and the words be thought of as sound, these muscular sensations fall perceptibly away or disappear. This indicates that there are two great speech types, a motor type and a sensory type, according as the attention is given in one direction or the other — a distinction of types now familiar in connection with reaction-time experiments.
The reaction time is, in a great percentage of cases, shorter when the attention gives a so-called ' motor ' re- action, i.e., is directed to the reacting member, rather than to the signal. I have experimented to some extent with a view to finding in what per cent of individuals one kind of hand reaction is normal as against the other kind. The results show that, among uninstructed groups of students, reacting for the first time in the labora- tory, about one-quarter of the entire number, when ques- tioned immediately after giving a series of sound-hand reactions, were clearly conscious of having paid attention to the movement of the hand. The average time of their reactions is considerably lower than the general average. This result shows clearly, not only that the difference in time of the two kinds of reactions is a real difference in many persons, but also that there are individuals who normally react most readily, and most effectively, in one way or the other. The bearing on speech is this: it becomes at once evident that the most rapid speakers are 1 Paulhan notices the influence of the attention (Joe. cit.., p. 43), but does not inquire into it.
* TJie DevcLopvicjit of Attention. 461 generally, ceteris paribus, 'motors' in their type. The direction of the attention serves to arouse the organs of speech in advance, by an influence, the nature of which is still to be explained.^