280 PSYCHOLOGY • described.3 It will be seen that the building up of the coordina- tions requires a long time when the flame is held near enough to produce the avoiding reaction. The habit as a whole grows up like any other habit. "Whether the process would have been greatly hastened by allowing the child to be burned severely on the first test is, of course, not settled. Fear would have been produced very likely which would not only have extended to the candle but possibly also to the experimenter and to the whole experimental situation. Further tests of this kind would there- after have been impossible. As it was, the baby did not cry on any of the tests.
"We have carried out similar1 tests both on reaching for candy and for the candle upon several children (at least fifteen.) with results wholly similar to the above. Experiments upon T, F and N were carried through with some detail. The beginning of reaching as tested by our method was noticed in nearly every a " On seeing a candle the child puts out its hand; the second reaction (of withdrawal) is touched off by stimulation of the heat-pain nerves in the hand, and the moment at which this will happen depends on the sensitiveness of the heat-pain end-organs, and the openness of the path connecting them with the muscles that retract the arm; of which probably the openness of path is the modifiable factor. The warmth of the candle begins, to stimulate this retraction reflex, and stimulates it more, and at an increasing rate of increase, as the hand approaches the candle. All that is needed to save the child from burning its hand, and this is what Meynert's scheme aims to explain, is an openness of the retraction reflex path sufficient to stop the hand before it actually reaches the flame. If the act of extension excited through the eye is not too impetuous, the retraction reflex will from the out- set protect the hand; but if the former is a very open path, the advancing arm may get a momentum which the retraction reflex will not be sufficiently quick and strong to counterbalance in time to save the hand from being burned. A few repetitions of the experience will give retraction an openness which will safeguard the hand for the future; and this process is aided by the prolonged pain yielded by a burn, which continues the retraction stim- ulus for a considerable period and so ' wears ' down the retraction path more than a great many merely momentary stimuli could do. In this way a single experience of burning is often sufficient for all time. Thus experi- ence establishes a balance between the two opposed reflexes, of extension and of pain avoidance, such that the organism carries on its further examina- tion of the candle in safety." — Holt, E. B., "The Freudian Wish." (Italics ours.)
EXPLICIT BODILY HABITS 281 case around the 120th to the 130th day. In poorly developed children it is apparently delayed.
Formation of Habits in Adults. — The process of habit forma- tion in adults is marked off in several ways from that just studied in the infant. In the first place the muscles of the infant are poorly developed. The finer muscles of his moving members have not yet been coordinated into habit systems of general utility, action is lacking in definiteness and sharpness. His learning to reach for the candy and to inhibit reaching for the candle are organizations which will not only serve in this particular situa- tion but also in nearly every other future habit he may form. There is some evidence to show that neuro-physiological growth processes are actually taking place since it is generally affirmed that the large movements of shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand come into prominence long before the finer movements of the fingers. We have gained some evidence for this in our study of the appo- sition of the thumb and first finger. This earlier development of the large muscles is taken into account in the primary grades in teaching children to write by employing large movements and then gradually progressing to the finer. Whether this is a jus- tifiable pedagogical procedure is questionable, since by the time they reach the writing age fine finger movements are undoubtedly possible: the child merely has to learn a double set of habits. It was shown early in the history of psychology that differential contact reactions are finer in the child than in the adult. This is due to the fact that the child has all of the afferent endings developed, and since his hand is smaller than that of the adult the endings lie nearer together. The same argument can be ad- vanced, of course, for the kinnesthetic endings in the muscles. Here again, though, we enter into the realm of research rather than into that of established fact.
In the adult many thousands of experiences like these we have just been considering have brought organization, and most of the habits he has to learn employ in part at least the* organiza- tion gained from previous habit formation. This in a way is his strength and at the same time also his weakness. Our habitual ways of exercising our muscles so fixes them that unusual or PSYCHOLOGY totally new modes of activity are acquired with greater difficulty than if our muscles were not set in such habitual molds. It is difficult for the man of thirty-five to learn to dive well or to use his wrist perfectly in lobbing a tennis ball; it is practically impossible for a woman to learn to be a ballet or toe dancer unless she began practicing at ten years of age or younger. We shall see later though when we come to consider the effects of age upon habit formation that the concept of the rigidity of the muscles of the middle-aged has been overrated. There unques- tionably are differences in the possibilities of acquisition of the adult and the adolescent, but we shall discuss this subject on page 388.
In observing the 120-day infant we saw that instinctive fac- tors came into play as soon as it was faced by a situation to which it was not adjusted. In man in a similar situation, instead of the infantile random activity appearing, the habitual unitary activity previously learned appears. Suppose we try to teach him to play tennis. He grasps the racket accurately but possibly not at the right place. He swings it awkwardly enough, possibly as he would a baseball bat or a board — he does the thing which he has in the past most frequently done to objects of that type. In general, when put in new situations he tries first one old act and then another. When these fail to work, splitting and partial reactions appear. The situation may become an emotional one at any time, especially when his past organization fails to help him. He then falls back upon infantile types of reaction: he may throw the thing down, stamp on it, pull, twist and manipulate any part of it at random, finally breaking the object in his raging. Occasionally, but rarely, the infantile reactions lead to the adjustment, since in emotional excitement a larger number of random acts is released than when the individual is working at an organized integrated level. Usually in adults the display of activity in new situations is, as we have mentioned, orderly. The adult attacks the simpler things first, combining them as he can, each combination making the succeeding step easier until finally the problem is solved.
'Learning to Shoot with the English Long Bow. — The stages EXPLICIT BODILY HABITS 283 can be illustrated by an experimental study on learning to shoot the English long bow (Lashley). The bow used for the study was six feet in length, requiring a pull of forty-four pounds to draw the arrow to the head. The arrow was the regulation feathered, steel-tipped, twenty-eight-inch arrow used in tourna- ment work. The target was four feet in diameter with a ten-inch bull's-eye placed at a distance of one hundred and twenty feet. The subject was given the bow, told how to nock the arrow and only enough more to keep him from injuring himself and others. He had to learn how to adjust his fingers to the string and to the arrow, to get his stance, to raise the bow properly, to get the arrow aligned, to point the arrow up far enough to counteract its parabolic flight (sighting or aiming), to hold the bow with extreme steadiness, to release so as to get the full power of the string, to hold the bow so that the string after the arrow was released would not strike the wrist and finally to brace himself for the recoil. It would be impossible for us to trace these part adjustments through in detail. At first the shooting is very wild, so wild that only rarely is the target hit. A wide back- ground of cotton sheeting had to be placed behind the target in order to provide a method of marking the errors. The arrows at first are likely to fall short because of the difficulty in pulling the arrow back to the piling or in aiming too low. In counter- acting this the subject begins to shoot entirely too high. On account of the wobbling of his arrow he also shoots to the right and left as well as above and below. Little by little the part reactions begin to fall in place, the subject begins to hit the target and to come closer and closer to the bull's-eye. In one group studied, the average of the first 20 shots was 56.9 inches away from the bull 's-eye. The average of the last 20 shots when 360 shots in all were given was 27.1 inches. While this shows considerable progress it is really very far away from the record of the expert. The championship score at the forty-yard range between 1890 and 1908 varied from about 8-11 inches from the bull's-eye. One interesting thing appearing in this as in most habits is the fact that initial progress is quite rapid but that all later progress is slow. One might think at first sight that if a 284 PSYCHOLOGY • beginner can change his score from 57 to 27 inches in 360 shots he ought to be able to drop to 11 inches after a few hundred more shots. But such is not the case. The 11-inch record is one which few individuals can ever attain no matter what amount of prac- tice they have had. In one exceptionally good subject we got a final record of 15 inches at the end of 1300 shots. This brings out the fact that in every act of skill there is what is called a GO SHOTS.
FIG. 58. — Acquisition of skill in archery (12 shots per day). The vertical line or ordinate shows the average error in the shot, that is, the average distance in inches from the bull's eye. The horizontal, abscissa, shows the number of shots. Each point on the curve is an average of 20 shots.
physiological limit of accuracy or speed beyond which the indi- vidual cannot go. We find a good example of this in typewriting, where the individual rarely exceeds a sustained speed of over 64 words per minute of straight copy. The same thing has been brought out in rifle shooting, billiards, golf, and in fact in every act of skill which has been investigated.
Above we give a curve (Fig. 58) of acquisition of skill in archery. It shows the method of constructing charts and tabu- lating results and the main features to be learned from such EXPLICIT BODILY HABITS 285 a tabulation. The horizontal line, the abscissa, shows the amount of practice (number of shots); the vertical, the ordinate, shows the number of inches each shot was distant from the bull's-eye. From such a curve one can determine the total amount of im- provement by subtracting the average of the first 20 shots from the average of the last 20 shots. In the curve under consideration the improvement was from 75.4 inches to 45.1 inches. One can also determine the rate of improvement between any two points, and finally the limit of improvement for the given amount of practice; for example, in this curve the subjects were finally shooting at an average of 45.1 inches. This learning curve is typical of most curves. Note (1) that initial accuracy was low, the average of the first 20 shots being 75.4 inches; (2) that im- provement through the first 60 shots was very rapid indeed, from an average of 75.4 to an average of 51.5 inches; (3) that during the next 80 shots there is little total improvement. These long periods of no improvement are called plateaux; shorter periods of no improvement are called resting places. It will be seen that the curve ends on another plateau, the last 40 or 50 shots show- ing a decrease in accuracy. Note (4) that just before the 200th shot has been taken a period of marked improvement occurs which continues with slight irregularity to the 320th shot, where the second plateau begins. From what we know of such curves we can be reasonably sure that after a longer or shorter time of no improvement the curve would again take a decided drop, since the limit of improvement had by no means been approached. If the practice had continued, for example, to the 5000th, shot the plotted curve would have been checked as the physiological limit for those particular individuals was approached. As soon as this limit was reached the curve would become, except for slight variations, a straight line. Certain individuals would find their limit probably at 15 inches and others at 12. It is, of course, possible even in as small a group as this (six) that an exceptional individual might be included. If so, a final record of 8 inches might have been attained. In Chapter X we shall discuss in detail a great many of the factors which affect the shape of such curves, the total amount and rate of improvement and 286 PSYCHOLOGY % the limits of improvement. The permanence of the improve- ment for curves of this type is discussed in the present chapter Single Adjustments and Partial Habits of Every-Day Life. — Only rarely in every-day life are acts of skill acquired in the systematic manner we have outlined. Our practice periods are sketchy, and are repeated only after long intervals. The best example of the ordinary way in which skill isi attained in daily life is the behavior of an individual when he gets stuck on a problem. He solves the problem or leaves it, as the case may be, without mastering all the details. Possibly we can illustrate this by an actual example from motor-boating, which will fit the various automobile troubles fully as well. Suppose we take the following situation: The new gas engine in a motor-boat runs smoothly for a short time, then begins to miss and to lose power. Certain of the spark-plugs begin to heat up, and a valve or two sticks. The boat may run again smoothly for a mile or two, and then again get cranky. The owner stops the boat and looks at the engine, and undoubtedly * * thinks ' ' in the sense of acting with his language organization rather than with his hands. Previous scraps of reading and instruction are (kinaesthetically) rein- stated, as for example: ' * when the engine misses, clean the spark- plugs." This intra-organically aroused stimulus leads to the act of taking out the spark-plugs and cleaning them. That done he puts on his spark and starts the engine. Again the miss. That leads to his investigating the gas supply. It is sufficient. He runs the boat to the dock, takes the magneto apart and sand- papers the points for luck. Still the miss. He next cleans the carbureter and the feed-pipe. Not being successful, he opens up the engine and looks at the valves. They are now cool, and are working properly. This exhausts his own organization. He takes the boat to a local ' ( expert. ' ' The expert goes over every- thing in much the same way as the owner has already gone over it. He tells the owner that the engine is no' good. The owner takes the boat back to the dock, his every act showing his de- pressed emotional level. At the dock he becomes infantile in his reactions, trying first one thing and then another, pushing EXPLICIT BODILY HABITS 287 this part, pulling that, finally lying down exhausted. Night comes on and he leaves the boat to eat and sleep, coming back to it next morning in a better physiological condition. He starts the engine up slowly, leaning over it and watching the various parts as they work. He sees the heads of the bolts which fasten the engine to the bed moving up and down. Like a flash he stops his engine, tightens the four bolts and sails off to tell the engine expert that he is fit only to patch up holes in rowboats.
Many of the mal-adjustments of the day are of this type. We have used thinking here in advance of our special study of that type of activity, but we mean only the language activity which corresponds in all respects to other kinds of organized motor activity. We pointed out earlier that the number of such language habits is far in excess of all others. Hence when stuck or in difficulty there is a constant shifting from overt language (talking to one's self or to one's companion) to implicit language (thought), and to overt activity in arms, hands and fingers. The words he has read or that others have spoken to him are rein- stated; they become in turn adequate stimuli for the arousal of overt activity. We thus see that overt activity constantly arouses the implicit and the latter in turn arouses the overt. All the way through the individual in our illustration has been acting con- stantly under the guidance of extra-organically or intra-organi- cally aroused stimuli.
It may be objected that our illustration is not a habit. This is true in the sense that after making such an adjustment as the above we cannot immediately try the man out in a similar situa- tion. But our illustration does correspond, in some respects, to the first trial in our previous example of acquisition of skill in archery. Given enough similar situations and the owner could always spot a gas engine that is loose upon its bed. If we continue varying the situation, putting the trouble now in the valves, next in the magneto and then in order in the pump, piston rings and oiling system we could finally build up by this trial and error process such a series of specialized habits that given the sight or sound of an, improperly working engine he could at once dive to the troublesome part. We would have then the practically 288 PSYCHOLOGY • trained expert gas engineer. But life is too short for us all to become experts in all of the activities in which we occasionally engage. We become Jacks-of -all-trades in lines other than those by means of which we earn our daily bread. The number of abbreviated habits possessed by any given individual in the differ- ent spheres of life, as in music, painting, drawing, lecturing and engineering, is very large indeed.
Cross Education. — One of the interesting and significant things in connection with habit formation is the fact that when a habit is established which utilizes any particular organ of the body, for example, the right hand and arm, the bilaterally sym- metrical organ, the left hand and arm, shares in the training. The improvement does not seem to be confined wholly to the bilaterally symmetrical organ, since training the right toe to tap increases most markedly not only the ability of the left toe to tap, but also the improvement extends to the right hand and to the left hand. This phenomenon was noticed very early in sensory physiology (differential reaction to two contacts), but it has been more recently investigated by several psychologists. The method in brief is as follows: A measure of initial accuracy of a given function is tested in two symmetrical organs. One organ is then practiced until high skill is attained. The unused organ is then r'etested. The initial score made by this organ is compared with its later score and the difference in the two gives the measure of the amount of improvement (less, of course, the small practice effect gained by giving the original test). In this way it has been found that lunging at a target with a foil one hundred times with the right hand produced an improvement in the left hand about three-fourths as great as in the right (Davis). Woodworth has shown that practice with the left hand in hitting dots greatly improves the ability of the right hand in the same performance. Swift found that after training the right hand in tossing and catching balls the ability of the left hand improved. Starch found that when the right hand has been practiced in tracing the outline of a six-pointed star seen in a mirror the im- provement in the left hand was about nine-tenths as great as in the right hand.
EXPLICIT BODILY HABITS 289 Certain individuals have used these results as an argument in favor of a general transfer of training, a subject which we consider below. Although we do not know the various physi- ological factors involved in cross education there seems to be no justification for extending our conclusions beyond the facts that can actually be observed.
The So-Called Transfer of Training. — The problems involved in the controversy as to whether training along any specific line produces a general transfer effect upon other lines are as old as are the school systems and older. The whole question at one- or another time has centered around the problem as to whether training in the classics and in mathematics facilitates the acquisi- tion of all other subjects. The experimental literature is large and extremely controversial. The results of a. few experiments only are given here. Thorndike and Woodworth trained their subjects in estimating weights of 40 to 120 grams. This practice produced only a slight improvement in the ability to react cor- rectly to weights ranging in weight from 120 to 1800 grams. Foster, working with adult students, each of whom spent 40 hours in practice distributed over 10 weeks, measured and analyzed the improvement in drawing objects, pictures and nonsense draw- ing. He concludes: "That training in these experiments has made the observers noticeably better observers or memorizers in general, or given them any habits of observing closely or report- ing correctly, or furnished any ability to meet better any situa- tion generally met with, neither we nor the observers themselves believe...It seems, therefore, as if the value of formal training of our kind has been greatly overestimated." Gilbert and Fracker tested two individuals for quickness in moving the fingers (1) to a sound stimulus, (2) to an electric shock, (3) when a blow was given, and (4) when a blue surface was shown. Under the conditions of the experiment, which we cannot enter into here, a spread of training seemed to be secured. Coover and Angell tested four adult subjects in typewriting before and after training in sorting cards, but their records show little gain which cannot be accounted for by the special improvement accruing from the practice in typewriting the test material. 19 290 PSYCHOLOGY Most of the experiments have been carried out upon the im- provement in one language function due to the previous train- ing in another. The subject, for example, would be trained on learning "Paradise Lost" and then tested on his ability to learn the "Coming of Arthur," or trained on learning nonsense syl- lables and tested upon the learning of ordinary words, or trained on learning poetry and tested on history. It is assumed, of course, in such experiments that a measure of the subject's ability to learn the material upon which later he is to be tested has been obtained. In general it may be stated that pt.]|flftn|^ of experi- mental education are inclined to admit thp fa^t. that, iniprnvp- mqnt, in onp function may brine* about improvement in another function, hnt. they maintain that there is no general transfer of training* (thm-p may bp jnat. tj].f rfiwrsp) nf thp kind usually npan. In acquiring skill in any one function part ad-