show that, among uninstructed groups of students, reacting for the first time in the laboratory, about one-quarter of the entire number, when questioned immediately after giving a series of reactions, were clearly conscious of having paid attention to the hand (motor attention). The average time of their reactions is considerably lower than the general average. This result shows clearly, not only that the difference in time of the two kinds of reactions is a real difference; but also that there are individuals who normally react most readily, and most effectively, in one way or the other.[1] The bearing on speech is this: it becomes at once evident that the most rapid speakers are generally ceteris paribus ‘motors’ in their type. The direction of the attention serves to arouse the organs of speech in advance by an influence, the nature of which is discussed below.[2]
The further questions arise: Is a person motor, visual, or auditory, in his speech, and in his reactions generally, because he has strengthened a particular kind of memories by the prevailing concentration of his attention upon them? Or does he give motor or sensory attention and reaction, because of the predominant strength of a certain class of his memories? Probably both of these positions are true: and each of them is of great importance in the education of speech, and other motor functions. The case is simply the exhibition, on a large scale, of what we find to be true of the relation of attention to sensations generally. Increased intensity of sensation tends to draw the attention; and the attention increases the intensity of sensations. It is one of those processes of ‘reasoning in a circle’ which characterize the growth of body and mind together. Another instance is this: pleasure arises from healthy function, while healthy function is directly assisted by pleasure.
The case before us is capable, however, of a closer psycho-physical explanation. We know that increasing intensity of sensation liberates energy increasingly toward the motor
- ↑ See the further position on this subject below.
- ↑ To quote my own case again–I find it impossible to reproduce a French sentence without keeping my attention on the visual picture of the printed signs; but I can follow a German sentence by memories of speech movements with no trace of visual attention.
