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Mental development in the child and the race
Mental development in the child and the race Author:James Mark Baldwin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the necessary elements of the voluntary psychosis for the first time clearly present. The reason that in imitation the material for volition is found is seen ... more »to be that here the 'circular process,' already described, maintains itself in a conscious way through the picturing of sights, sounds, etc. In reactions which are not consciously imitative, for example an ordinary pain-movement reaction, this circular process, whereby the result of the first movement becomes itself a stimulus to the second, etc., is not brought about; or, if it do arise, it consists simply in a repetition of the same motor event fixed by association — as the repetition of the ma sound so common with very young infants. Consciousness remains monoldeistic. But in persistent imitation, the reaction performed comes in by eye or ear as a new and different stimulus (see Fig. XIII.); here mt Fig. XIII.—Simple Imitation. ,' = Visual Seat ; m/= Motor Seat; mt— Muscle Moved; izc= Muscle-sense Seat; A = 'Copy' Imitated; B= Imitation Made. The Two Processes v And v' Flow Together In The Old Channel v, mp, Fixed By Association, And The ReacTion IS REPEATED WITHOUT CHANGE OR EFFORT. is the state of motor polyideism necessary for the rise of the feeling of effort. The motor process must be reduced by coordination to a reaction which will reproduce the copy, and atthe same time employ, with least modification, the channels of discharge already fixed by the association between presentation and movement. From this and the other lines of evidence given below, we are able to see more clearly the conditions under which effort arises. It seems clear that (1) the muscular sensations arising from a suggestive reaction do not present all the conditions; in young children, just as in habitual adult performances, muscul...« less