Take a case like that ordinarily urged. Some one suggests in words that you borrow one thousand dollars and go abroad for a year. You think over the situation — the present condition of your research problems, your debts, whether you can leave your family, etc. You are in a brown study for days trying to make up your mind. Now the train of thoughts going on in your mind, according to the upholders of the image, has no adequate behavior counterpart while it is in transit. The behaviorist, ob- serving you, might note that your appetite had departed, that you were smoking and drinking more than usual, and that you w^ere distrait. Finally, experimental tests might show that your ability to make fine coordinations had been seriously interfered with, and that your dynamometric threshold was lowered, and so on ad infinitum. The intro- spectionists would say that all of these tests failed to give anything like a complete record of your ' ' mental content ' * or of the " totality of conscious processes." Indeed, they would urge that such tests have only an analogical refer- ence. Only direct observation of the mental states them- selves by the method of introspection will ever tell whether you are grieving over past sins or are really trying to reach a decision about going abroad! If we grant this, and such an impulse is very strong, the behaviorist must content himself with this reflection: "I care not what goes on in his so-called mind; the important thing is that, given the stimulation (in this case a series of spoken words), it must produce response, or else modify responses w^hich have been already initiated. This is the all-important thing, and I will be content with it." I.e., he contents himself with observing the initial object (stimulation) and the end object (the reaction). Possibly the old saying, '' half a loaf is better than no bread at all," expresses the atti- tude the behaviorist ought to take; and yet we dislike to admit anything which may be construed as an admission of even partial defeat.
Feeling so, it seems wisest, even at the cost of exposing the weakness of our position, to attack rather than to re- main upon the defensive. We spoke above of certain signs 18 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR of disaffection and mutiny among the ranks of the faithful. These signs manifest themselves in three different ways: (1) The attempt on the part of Woodworth, Thorndike, and others to question the dogma of the image and to show that thought processes may go on independently of imagery — or, indeed, even independently of peripherally initiated processes. To this last contention we do not accede, as we shall undertake later to show. (2) The failure on the part of the most earnest upholders of the doctrine of the centrally aroused sensation to obtain any objective experi- mental evidence of the presence of different image-types. Reference here is made to the researches of Angell and of Fernald. Although these ivriters in no way suggest such a conclusion, it seems to us that the way is paved, by reason of their findings, for the complete dismissal of the image from psychology. Furthermore, most psychologists them- selves are willing to admit that introspection furnishes no guide for the determination of one's own image-type. In this field, above all others, introspection, if it is a legitimate method at all, ought to yield its best results. It is just here that it has failed, except in the case of a few fortunate men who seem to have become " adept " in the use of it. We who are less happy in its use must forever do without this wonderful Aladdin's lamp, which, upon demand, illumines the dark places of the human mind. (3) The attempts even of the structuralists to reduce the so-called higher thought processes to groups of obscure organic processes. We have in mind the recent work on recognition, abstraction, etc.
All of these tendencies, initiated by the psychologists themselves, lead directly over to our principal contention, viz., that there are no centrally initiated processes.® The environment in the widest sense forces the forma- ® There are probably in most eases kinaesthetic substitutes for imagery. Concurrently with the faintly articulated word apple there arise associated kinsesthetic impulses in eye muscles. If these latter are strong one can see how the fiction of visual imagery might arise. Mead has already spoken for the existence of a strong tactual and kinpesthetic element (grasping, handling, etc.) in all forms of per- ception and in imagery. Dunlap has rejected the centrally aroused content in the image.
IMPLICIT BEHAVIOR 19 tion of habits. These are exhibited first in the organs which are most mobile: the arms, hands, fingers, legs, etc. By this we do not mean to imply that there is any fixed order in their formation. After such general bodily habits are well under way, speech habits begin. All of the recent work shows that these reach enormous complexity in a com- paratively short time. Furthermore, as language habits become more and more complex behavior takes on refine- ment: short cuts are formed, and finally words come to be, on occasion, substituted for acts. That is, a stimulus which, in early stages, would produce an act (and which will always do so under appropriate conditions) now produces merely a spoken word or a mere movement of the larynx (or of some other expressive organ ).'^ When the stimulus produces either an immediate overt response (as, e.g., when John is told to go to the side- board and get an apple — taking it for granted that he goes), or a delayed overt response (as, e.g., when an engineer is asked to think out and make an apparatus for the conver- sion of salt water into sweet, which may consume years before overt action begins), we have examples of what we may call explicit behavior. In contrast to behavior of this type, which involves the larger musculature in a way plainly apparent to direct observation, we have behavior involving only the speech mechanisms (or the larger musculature in a minimal way; e.g., bodily attitudes or sets). This form of behavior, for lack of a better name, we may call implicit behavior.^ Where explicit behavior is delayed (i.e., where deliberation ensues), the interven- ing time between stimulus and response is given over to implicit behavior (to " thought processes ").
Now it is this type of implicit behavior that the intro- spectionist claims as his own and denies to us because its neural seat is cortical and because it goes on without ade- quate bodily portrayal. Why in psychology the stage for ' These substitutes are discussed in detail on p. 332.
8 It may be said in passing that the explicit and implicit forms of behavior referred to throughout this book are acquired and not congenital.
20 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR the neural drama was ever transferred from periphery to cortex must remain somewhat of a mystery. The old idea of strict localization of brain function is in part responsible. Religious convictions are even more largely responsible for it. It is not meant by this that the men originally making the transfer were aware of this religious tendency at all. When the psychologist threw away the soul he compromised with his conscience by setting up a " mind " which was to remain always hidden and difficult of access.® The transfer from periphery to cortex has been the incentive for driving psychology into vain and fruitless searches for the unknown and unknowable. Had the idea of the image not taken such firm hold upon us we would never have originated the notion that w^e are seeking to explain consciousness. We would have been content to study the very tangible phenomena of the growth and control of explicit and implicit habits.
It is implied in these words that there exists or ought to exist a method of observing implicit behavior. There is none at present. The larynx and tongue, we believe, are the loci of most of the phenomena. If their movements could be adequately portrayed we should obtain a record similar to that of the phonogram. Certainly nothing so definite as this could be obtained, but we should get a record, at least, which would largely reveal the subject's word-habits, which, if we are not mistaken, make up the bulk of the implicit forms of behavior.^° ^ The tendency to make the brain itself something more than a mechanism for coordinating incoming and outgoing impulses has been very strong among psychologists, and even among psychologically in- clined neurologists. A still wilder hypothesis is held in regard to the neural impulse. According to many psychologists we are taught that an incoming impulse may be held in statu quo for long periods of time, or at least that it may ramble around in the nervous system for an indefinite period of time — until it can " obtain possession of the motor field," at which time it exerts its effect. So far as we know no such thing occurs. The nervous system functions in complete arcs. An incoming impulse exerts its efi'ect relatively immediately upon one system of effectors or another, as shown by inhibition, reinforcement, summation, phenomena in the muscle in operation, or by inciting wholly new effectors to activity.
^° See the recent work of Anna Wyczoikowska, Psychological Re- view, November, 1913, p. 448. See summary, p. 326.
AFFECTION AS BEHAVIOR 21 Now it is admitted by all of us that words spoken or faintly articulated belong really in the realm of behavior as do movements of the arms and legs. If implicit be- havior can be shown to consist of nothing but word move- ments (or expressive movements of the word-type) the behavior of the human being as a whole is as open to objective control as the behavior of the lowest organism.
Affection as a form of instinctive behavior. — Affection is the other stumbling-block in the way of our main thesis. It is needless for us to enter into a lengthy discussion of the various views of affection. It is sufficient to call at- tention to the generally accepted position that affection is a mental process distinct from cognition. Both Angell and Titchener in this country admit the independence of the two. In Germany likewise, with the exception of the followers of Stumpf, the independence is admitted. In- deed, as it is well known, Wundt and his pupils are at- tempting to introduce into affection the same wealth of detail they have already succeeded in bringing into cogni- tion. We refer to the addition to the elementary processes of pleasure-pain, those of strain-relaxation, excitement-calm.
In maintaining his position as to the independence of the two processes, Titchener states that affection and sensation are closely similar in the following respects. Both possess certain common attributes, viz., quality, intensity, duration. Sensation possesses the additional attribute of clearness, which affection lacks. '' The lack of the attribute of clear- ness is sufficient in itself to differentiate affection from sensation; a process that cannot be made the object of attention is radically different, and must play a radically different part in consciousness, from a process which is held and enhanced by attention." Furthermore, the lack of clearness distinguishes affection from organic sensation — the cognitive processes with which it is most closely allied. On the whole, while sensation and affection are closely allied, " the difference is so great that we have no choice but to rank affection in human psychology as a second type of mental element, distinct from sensation."
Adherents of the view that affection is merely an attri- 22 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR bute of sensation have not been lacking. Kiilpe has been given credit for demolishing this assumption.
There remains the view in contrast to the one first out- lined, advanced principally by Stumpf and accepted and amended by Helen Thompson Woolley, viz., that affection is really organic sensation. The theory as advanced by Stumpf is all but unintelligible in view of the fact that the simplification that he obtains by his reduction is more than offset by the complexity he introduces when he states that the emotions, in addition to the complex of sensations, con- tain a mysterious " kernel." Mrs. Woolley, while rejecting the " kernel " hypothesis, insists that affection can be identified with sensation. She gives no clear reason for the solidarity and distinctness of the two groups, nor for the rather constant presence of the one or the other of these two groups. Stumpf no more than she meets these two points.
The Stumpf- Woolley view may be modified and stated in more definite terms. Every stimulus which calls out either overt or delayed response arouses concomitantly (reflexly) a definite and complex group of afferent impulses from tissue not specified definitely by the authors. We assume that the tissue in question belongs to the reproduc- tive organs and to the related erogenous zones. The area involved in sex functions embraces a much wider zone than that of the sex organs proper. The erogenous zones are in infancy widely distributed throughout the body sur- faces. Only gradually does the sex organ come to be looked upon as the focus of sex experience. Even in the case of most adults certain of these primitive zones remain func- tional, as, e.g., the nipples, etc.
This area as a whole may be looked upon as initiating impulses of two fundamental kinds: (1) a group connected with tumescence and rhythmical contractions of other muscular tissue and with increases in the quantity of the various secretions. This group, if functioning alone, as it does in cases of sex response, would lead to the expansive or seeking movements, and ultimately to the unfolding of the instinctive mechanism of the act of reproduction (end- AFFECTION AS BEHAVIOR 23 ing in the orgasm). (2) A group connected with the shrinkage of the sex organs, relaxation of other muscular tissue, and with inhibition of secretion. These impulses, gaining the motor centers, would, if no others inhibitory in character were present, release movements of avoidance.
In order to bring this conception of the sensory character of affection in line with our general scheme, it is necessary to suppose that the impulses from the erotic tissues func- tion as do the impulses arising from other receptors, i.e., looking at it from a neurological standpoint, there is a definite system of reflex arcs running from these regions (both enteroceptive and proprioceptive impulses are in- volved) to the muscles. This, as far as we know, is thor- oughly established. In order to illustrate the point, let us take the neurophysiological situation at the moment of sex excitement.
When a definite sex object (female) appeals to any one receptor, the eye, the ear, or the nose of the animal, grant- ing a certain physiological condition of the animal (i.e., the proper season of the year, period of sex excitement, etc.: in general, since seasonal rhythms are not so marked in the male, the animal must be in a receptive condition for such stimuli), several sets of arcs begin to function: (a) one leading from the distance receptor (aroused by the sex object) to the striped muscles, tending to produce a heightened tonus in the skeletal muscles. Movements in the striped muscles do not become overt until definite im- pulses are sent in from the sex zones. When these are present with sufficient intensity, overt seeking movements begin. The impulses from the sex zones are aroused by the second set of arcs: the initial impulse aroused by the sex object while arousing tonus in the striped muscle (5) passes out (via the white rami) also to the appropriate sympathetic ganglia. When these neurones are stimulated, changes are produced in the circulatory, glandular, secretory and muscular mechanisms, possibly of the char- acter described in (1) above, p. 22. As soon as these effectors are thrown into activity they set up a characteristic group of afferent impulses (they represent a definite 24 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR set of bodily reverberations, to use William James' term, and hence in current psychological terminology they are the bodily substrata of the emotion of pleasantness), which upon reaching the motor centers, produce the actual seek- ing movements in the striped muscles. When the situation is p/olonged, i.e., when definite receptors other than the initial one become stimulated by the sex object by reason of the seeking movements, the complete act of reproduction follows. On the other hand, if the general physiological condition is different (organism not receptive to sex stimuli) there again arise (a) an increased tonus in the striped muscles and (h) activity in the sympathetic mechanisms, checking of secretion, lack of tonicity in the muscles, etc., which arouse, in turn, a definite group of afferent impulses (" bodily substrata of unpleasantness ") that tends definitely to set free the avoiding reaction. Since the mechanisms involved in sex are fundamental, it seems reasonable to suppose that every object, either instinctively or through habit, tends to throw them into the one or the other form of action, of which we have just spoken. ^^ Certainly many objects (non-affective stimuli, stimuli ^^ In fact we see no escape from such a conchision, if the Stumpf- Woolley hypothesis is adopted. By its o\vn admission, this theory must be able to account for several so-called observed facts. We state them from the standpoint of current psychology.
1. That there should be two well-marked and opposite groups.
2. That they always accompany perceptions or images.
3. That they are evanescent and hard to observe (Titchener says they cannot be " observed " ).
4. That the image carries its own tone which need not be, and often is not, the same as that given in the original perception.
5. That there should at times be neutral perceptions and images, and that tone tends to disappear with frequency of appearance of the stimulating object.
Were we interested in arguing for a structural psychology, we could readily show how 1, 2, 4, and 5 follow immediately from our premises. In regard to 3. it could be said ( 1 ) that evanescence would be the character expected in all cases except that of direct sex stimula- tion, since these arcs are functioning only slightly along with the arcs from distance receptors to voluntary muscles, which are functioning at high intensity. Titchener's statement that they cannot be attended to is a pure assumption in the interests of a structural criterion. Pathological cases tend to support the view that at certain times affective processes, or. on this view, affective sensations, are often the only sensations which are attended to.
'' AFFECTION " OPEN TO EXPERIMENTATION 25 distantly or not at all connected with sex stimuli) do not, in the beginning, arouse these groups, hut through the ordinary mechanism of habit come later to arouse faintly the one or the other (substitution, p. 272). There is evidence in sexual pathology to show not only that such habit connections are formed, but also that they can be- come more fundamental than the primal instinctive path- ways, as is shown in the use of phallic symbols, fetishes, etc. "We thus seem to be able to connect so-called affective processes definitely with general processes of adjustment. Behavior, while possibly not immediately interested in such processes, need not escape its share of work in their study. On the one hand, the student of behavior, when some of the more pressing problems are solved, will be interested in the types of stimuli which jointly arouse movements in the striped muscles and in the unstriped muscles and glandular tissues in the sex zones, and in the finer analysis of the movements themselves. He will try to determine whether such stimuli arouse these movements by means of inherent connections or through habit. Furthermore, he will try to determine whether the movements of the glands, etc., actu- ally set up sensory impulses in the sexual zones, and whether they have the effect called for upon his theory. This can be attacked in two ways: (1) probably by actual plethysmo- graphic and galvanometric studies upon the sex organs themselves; (2) by the elimination of the sensory avenues which lead from these zones to the central system. His primary interest, however, will be engaged in determining the effect of these impulses upon overt movement, since it is highly probable that they are responsible for so-called preferences, which play such an enormous role in the daily life of the human being, and for the many forms of artistic, esthetic, and religious modes of response. To those who have inherent objections to admitting that the aesthetic, artistic, and religious sides of life are at bottom sexual, this view will not sound convincing. Fortunately, thanks to the work of the scientific students of social phenomena we are fast losing our prejudices against admit- ting the sex reference of all behavior.
26 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR It must be confessed that wholly new methods will have to be devised for the pursuit of studies in this field. There is still hope, as was suggested above, for galvanometrie and plethysmographic experimentation. You may object that expressive methods have already failed to show any constant physiological processes occurring in conjunction with the examination of '' pleasant " and " unpleasant " objects. We have worked for years upon the expressive methods and no one is more ready to admit their failure in the past. Our present feeling is that we have taken our plethysmograms from the wrong organs. Whether there are too many technical difficulties in the way of the objec- tive registration of the many delicate changes in the sex organs (circulation, secretion, etc.) remains for the future to decide.
The result of our examination into the nature of both image and affection seems to indicate that after all the be- haviorist can bring them into his general scheme of work without in any way weakening his position. It would thus seem that there is no field which an introspective psy- chology legitimately can call its own.
Will there be left over in psychology a world of pure psychics, to use Yerkes' term? The plans which we most favor for psychology lead practically to the ignoring of consciousness in the sense in which that term is used by psychologists today. We have virtually denied that this realm of psychics is open to experimental investigation. We do not wish to go further into the problem because its future rests with the metaphysician. If you will grant the behaviorist the right to use consciousness in the same way that other natural scientists employ it — i.e., without making consciousness a special object of observation — you have granted all that our thesis requires.
Summary. — 1. Human psychology has failed to make good its claim as a natural science. Due to a mistaken notion that its fields of facts are conscious phenomena and that introspection is the only direct method of ascertaining these facts, it has enmeshed itself in a series of speculative questions which, while fundamental to its present tenets, SUMMARY 27 are not open to experimental treatment. In the pursuit of answers to these questions, it has become further and fur- ther divorced from contact with problems which vitally concern human interest.
2. Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science which needs introspection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. It is granted that the behavior of animals can be investigated without appeal to consciousness. Heretofore the viewpoint has been that such data have value only in so far as they can be interpreted by analogy in terms of consciousness. The position is taken here that the behavior of man and the behavior of animals must be considered on the same plane; as being equally essential to a general understanding of behavior. It can dispense with consciousness in a psychological sense. The separate ob- servation of ^' states of consciousness " is, on this assump- tion, no more a part of the task of the psychologist than of the physicist. We might call this the return to a non-re- flective and naive use of consciousness. In this sense consciousness may be said to be the instrument or tool with which all scientists work. Whether or not the tool is properly used at present by scientists is a problem for philosophy and not for psychology.
3. From the viewpoint here suggested the facts on the behavior of amoebae have value in and for themselves without reference to the behavior of man. In biology studies on race differentiation and inheritance in amoebge form a separate division of study which must be evaluated in terms of the laws found there. The conclusions so reached may not hold in any other form. Regardless of the possible lack of generality, such studies must be made if evolution as a whole is ever to be regulated and con- trolled. Similarly the laws of behavior in amoebae, the range of responses, and the determination of effective stimuli, of habit formation, persistency of habits, inter- ference and reinforcement of habits, must be determined and evaluated in and for themselves, regardless of their generality, or of their bearing upon such laws in other 28 PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR forms, if the phenomena of behavior are ever to be brought within the sphere of scientific control.
4. This suggested elimination of states of consciousness as proper objects of investigation in themselves will remove the barrier which exists between psychology and the other sciences. The findings of psychology become the func- tional correlates of structure and lend themselves to ex- planation in physico-chemical terms.
5. Psychology as behavior will, after all, have to neglect but few of the really essential problems with which psy- chology as an introspective science now concerns itself. In all probability even this residue of problems may be phrased in such a way that refined methods in behavior (which certainly must come) will lead to their solution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Angell, James R., " Behavior as a Category of Psychology," Psych.
Bode. B. H.. " Psychology as a Science of Behavior," Psych. Rev., DUNLAP, K., A System of Psychology. New York, Scribner's, 1912. " The Case Against Introspection," Psych. Rev., 1912, Images and Ideas," The Johns Hopkins University LovEJOY, A. 0., " On the Existence of Ideas," The Johns HopJcins University Circular, 1914, Ko. 3, 42. Marshall, H. R., "Is Psychology Evaporating?" Jour. Philos., 1913, Mead, Gr. H., " Concerning Animal Perception," Psych. Rev., 1907, TiTCHENER, E. B., " Prolegomena to a Study of Introspection," Am.
Jour. Psych., 1912, XXIII, 427.
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" A Text-Book of Psychology." New York, Macraillan, Warrex. H. C, "The Mental and the Physical," Psych. Rev., 1914, Watson, J. B., " Image and Affection in Behavior," Jour. Philos., Psych, and Sci. Meth., 1913, X, 421. " Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," Psych. Rev., WooLLEY. Helen T., " Sensory Affection and Emotion," Psych. Rev., Yerkes. R, M., Introduction to Psychology. New York, Henry Holt, CHAPTER II SOME PROBLEMS ENUMERATED No lack of unity in behavior problems. — Field versus laboratory studies. — Grouping of problems. I. Sense organ processes, — In- troduction.— L Vision. — Necessity for consiaering anatomical structure. — Reflex responses to light. — General division of prob- lems in vision. — (a) White light vision. — (6) Response to monochromatic light. — 2. Audition. — Grouping of problems. — (1) Response to pendular vibrations. — (a) Range of sensitivity.
— (&) Localization. — (c) Response to clangs. — (2) Response to a-periodic vibrations. — (a) Stimulus threshold. — (&) Difference threshold. — (3) Response to ordinary sounds in the environment.