Psychology Part 21

5. Attempt an a.n.a.lysis of the "worried feeling", by your own introspection, i.e., try to discover elementary feelings and sensations in this complex state of mind.

6. Following Wundt's three-dimensional scheme of feeling, a.n.a.lyze each of the following states of mind (for example, a child just admitted to the presence of the Christmas tree would be in a state of mind that is pleasant, tense, and excited):

(a) Watching a rocket go up and waiting for it to burst.

(b) Just after the rocket has burst.

(c) Waiting for the dentist to pull.

(d) Just after he has pulled.

(e) Enjoying a warm bed.

(f) Lying abed after waking, not quite able as yet to decide to get up.

(g) Seeing an automobile about to run down a child.

7. Make a list of six primary dislikes, and a list of six dislikes that are dependent on the instincts.

REFERENCES

For a much fuller treatment of the subject, see E. B. t.i.tchener, _Textbook of Psychology_, 1909, pp. 225-264.

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CHAPTER X

SENSATION

AN INVENTORY OF THE ELEMENTARY SENSATIONS OF THE DIFFERENT SENSES

With reflex action, instinct, emotion and feeling, the list of native mental activities is still incomplete. The senses are provided by nature, and the fundamental use of the senses goes with them. The child does not learn to see or hear, though he learns the meaning of what he sees and hears. He gets sensation as soon as his senses are stimulated, but recognition of objects and facts comes with experience. Hold an orange before his open eyes, and he sees, but the first time he doesn't see _an orange_. The adult sees an object, where the baby gets only sensation. "Pure sensation", free from all recognition, can scarcely occur except in the very young baby, for recognition is about the easiest of the learned accomplishments, and traces of it can be seen in the behavior of babies only a few days old.

Sensation is a response; it does not come to us, but is aroused in us by the stimulus. It is the stimulus that comes to us, and the sensation is our own act, aroused by the stimulus. Sensation means the activity of the receiving organ (or sense organ), of the sensory nerves, and of certain parts of the brain, called the sensory centers.

Without the brain response, there is apparently no conscious sensation, so that the activity of the sense organ and sensory nerve is preliminary to the sensation proper. Sensation may be called the first response of the brain to the external stimulus. It is usually only the first in a series of brain {188} responses, the others consisting in the recognition of the object and the utilization of the information so acquired.

Sensation, as we know it in our experience, goes back in the history of the race to the primitive sensitivity (or irritability) of living matter, seen in the protozoa. These minute unicellular creatures, though having no sense organs--any more than they have muscles or digestive organs--respond to a variety of stimuli. They react to mechanical stimuli, as a touch or jar, to chemical stimuli of certain kinds, to thermal stimuli (heat or cold), to electrical stimuli, and to light. There are some forces to which they do not respond: magnetism, X-rays, ultraviolet light; and we ourselves are insensitive to these agents, which are not to be called stimuli, since they arouse no response.

The Sense Organs

In the development of the metazoa, or multicellular animals, specialization has occurred, some parts of the body becoming muscles with the primitive motility much developed, some parts becoming digestive organs, some parts conductors (the nerves) and some parts becoming specialized receptors or sense organs. A sense organ is a portion of the body that has very high sensitivity to some particular kind of stimulus. One sense organ is highly sensitive to one stimulus, and another to another stimulus. The eye responds to very minute amounts of energy in the form of light, but not in other forms; the ear responds to very minute amounts of energy in the form of sound vibrations, the nose to very minute quant.i.ties of energy in certain chemical forms.

There is only one thing that a sense organ always and necessarily contains, and that is the _termination of a sensory nerve_. Without that, the sense organ, being isolated, would have no effect on the brain or muscles or any other {189} part of the body, and would be entirely useless. The axons of the sensory nerve divide into fine branches in the sense organ, and thus are more easily aroused by the stimulus.

Besides the sensory axons, two other things are often found in a sense organ--sometimes one of the two, sometimes the other and sometimes both. First, there are special sense cells in a few sense organs; and second, in most sense organs there is accessory apparatus which, without being itself sensitive, a.s.sists in bringing the stimulus to the sense cells or sensory nerve ends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 25.--Diagram of the taste end-organ. Within the "Taste bud" are seen two sense cells, and around the base of these cells are seen the terminations of two axons of the nerve of taste.

(Figure text: surface of tongue, taste bud, pit)]

_Sense cells_ are present only in the eye, ear, nose and mouth--always in very sheltered situations. The taste cells are located in little pits opening upon the surface of the tongue. In the sides of these pits can be found little flask-shaped chambers, each containing a number of taste cells. The taste cell has a slender prolongation that protrudes from the chamber into the pit; and it is this slender tip of the cell that is exposed to the chemical stimulus of the {190} tasting substance. The stimulus arouses the taste cell, and this in turn arouses the ending of the sensory axon that twines about the base of the cell at the back of the chamber. The taste cell, or its tip, is extra sensitive to chemical stimuli, and its activity, aroused by the chemical stimulus, in turn arouses the axon and so starts a nerve current to the brain stem and eventually to the cortex.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 26.--The olfactory sense cells and their brain connections. (Figure text: axon to brain cortex, dendrites, synapses in brain stem, axons of sense cells sense cells in nose.)]

The olfactory cells, located in a little recess in the upper and back part of the nose, out of the direct air currents going toward the lungs, are rather similar to the taste cells. They have fine tips reaching to the surface of the mucous membrane lining the nasal cavity and exposed to the chemical stimuli of odors. The olfactory cell has also a long slender branch extending from its base through the bone into the skull cavity and connecting there with dendrites of nerve cells. This central branch of the olfactory cell is, in fact, an axon; and it is peculiar in being an axon growing from a sense cell. This is the rule in invertebrates, but in vertebrates the sensory axon is regularly an outgrowth of a {191} nerve cell, and only in the nose do we find sense cells providing their own sensory nerve.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27.--Sense cells and nerve cells of the retina.

Light, reaching the retina from the interior of the eyeball (as shown in Fig. 28), pa.s.ses through the nearly transparent retina till stopped by the pigment layer, and then and there arouses to activity the tips of the rods and cones. The rods and cones pa.s.s the impulse along to the bipolar cells and these in turn to the optic nerve cells, the axons of which extend by way of the optic nerve to the thalamus in the brain. (Figure text: pigment layer, rods, cones, light, bipolar Cells, optic Nerve Cells)]

In the eye, the sense cells are the rods and cones of the retina.

These are highly sensitive to light, or, it may be, to chemical or electrical stimuli generated in the pigment of the retina by the action of light. The rods are less highly developed than the cones.

Both rods and cones connect at their base with neurones that pa.s.s the activity along through the optic nerve to the brain.

The internal ear contains sense cells of three rather similar kinds, all being "hair cells", Instead of a single {192} sensitive tip, each cell has a number of fine hair-tips, and it is these that first respond to the physical stimulus. In the cochlea, the part of the inner ear concerned with hearing, the hairs are shaken by sound vibrations that have reached the liquid in which the whole end-organ is immersed. In the "semicircular ca.n.a.ls", a part of the inner ear that is concerned not with sound but with rotary movements of the head, we find hair cells again, their hair-tips being matted together and so located as to be bent, like reeds growing on the bottom of a brook, by currents of the liquid filling the ca.n.a.ls. In the "vestibule", the central part of the inner ear, the hair-tips of the sense cells are matted together, and in the mat are imbedded little particles of stony matter, called the "otoliths". When the head is inclined in any direction, these heavy particles sag and bend the hairs, so stimulating them; and the same result occurs when a sudden motion up or down or in any direction is given to the head. Around the base of the sense cells, in any of these parts of the internal ear, are twined the fine endings of sensory axons, which are excited by the activity of the sense cells, and pa.s.s the activity on to the brain.

Accessory sense-apparatus.

Every sense except the "pain sense" has more or less of this. The hairs of the skin are accessory to the sense of touch. A touch on a hair is so easily felt that we often think of the hairs as sensitive; but really it is the skin that is sensitive, or, rather, it is the sensory axon terminating around the root of the hair in the skin. The tongue can be thought of as accessory apparatus serving the sense of taste, and the breathing apparatus as accessory to the sense of smell, "tasting" being largely a tongue movement that brings the substance to the taste cells, and "smelling" of anything being largely a series of little inspiratory movements that carry the odor-laden air to the olfactory part of the nasal cavity.

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But it is in the eye and the ear that the highest development of accessory sense apparatus has taken place. All of the eye except the retina, and all of the ear except the sense cells and the sensory axons, are accessory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28.--Horizontal cross section through the right eyeball. (Figure text: cornea, ciliary muscle, retina, choroid.

sclerotic, Optic Nerve)]

The eye is an optical instrument, like the camera. In fact, it is a camera, the sensitive plate being the retina, which differs indeed from the ordinary photographic plate in recovering after an exposure so as to be ready for another. Comparing the eye with the camera, we see that the eyeball corresponds to the box, the outer tough coat {194} of the eyeball (the "sclerotic" coat) taking the place of the wood or metal of which the box is built, and the deeply pigmented "choroid" coat, that lines the sclerotic, corresponding to the coating of paint used to blacken the inside of the camera box and prevent stray light from getting in and blurring the picture. At the front of the eye, where light is admitted, the sclerotic is transformed into the transparent "cornea", and the choroid into the contractile "iris", with the hole in its center that we call "the pupil of the eye".

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29.--Diagram to show the course of the sound waves through the outer and middle ear and into the inner ear. The arrow is placed within the "meatus," and points in the direction taken by the sound waves. See text for their further course. (Figure text: cochlea, vestibule, semicircular ca.n.a.l, ossicles, Eustachian, ear drum)]

The iris corresponds to the adjustable diaphragm of the camera. Just behind the pupil is the lens of the eye, which also is adjustable by the action of a little muscle, called the "ciliary muscle". This muscle corresponds to the focussing mechanism of the camera; by it the eye is focussed on near or far objects. The eye really {195} has two lenses, for the cornea acts as a lens, but is not adjustable. The "aqueous and vitreous humors" fill the eyeball and keep it in shape, while still, being transparent, they allow the light to pa.s.s through them on the way to the retina. The retina is a thin coat, lying inside the choroid at the back of the eyeball, and having the form of a hollow hemisphere. The light, coming through the pupil and traversing the vitreous humor, strikes the retina from the inside of the eyeball.

Other accessory apparatus of the eye includes the lids, the tear glands, and the muscles that turn the eyeball in any direction.