relatively stable dynamic tension; the various associative connections among these centers are paths of less and more rather than of least and most resistance; that the range of alternative adjustments is excessively wide; and, consequently, that any individual has his ‘personal equation’ in all functions as complex as that of speech. One man is a ‘motor,’ another a ‘visual,’ a third an ‘auditive,’ according as one or another of the extrinsic sources of stimulation suffices to release the necessary energy into his motor speech center. No one doubts Stricker, therefore, when he says that he remembers words only by means of sensations of incipient movement; but for the same reason we cannot dispute the claim of Stumpf, and Wernicke, and Kussmaul, and Lichtheim, that auditory and visual images may, in other cases, play an equally leading rôle.
Assuming, then, this answer to the question of the antecedents of speech, some additional considerations arise which have not hitherto been suggested, as far as I am aware. 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 the attention.[1] If the attention be directed to the vocal organs–either one’s own or some one’s else–movements of the tongue, lips, and larynx are clearly felt in the organs, and sometimes 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 heard, 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 which is now familiar in connection with reaction-time experiments. The reaction-time is shorter in so-called ‘motor’ reactions. 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
- ↑ Paulhan notices the influence of the attention (loc. cit., p. 43), but does not inquire into it; so also does de Watteville, I fancy, from references I have seen to an article of his (Progrés Medicale, March 21, 1885) which I have been unable to procure.
