Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (intellectual books to read .TXT) 📖

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 canals", 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 canals. 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 pass 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.

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".

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 canal, 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 pass 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.

Fig. 30.--Two views of the internal ear. These views show the shape of the internal ear cavity. The sense organs lie inside this cavity. Notice how the three semi-circular canals lie in three perpendicular planes. (Figure text: cochlea, vestibule, 3 Canals)

The ear is about as complex a piece of mechanism as the eye. We speak of the "outer", "middle" and "inner" ear. The outer, in such an animal as the horse, serves as a movable ear trumpet, catching the sound waves and concentrating them upon the ear drum, or middle ear. The human external ear seems to accomplish little; it can be cut off without noticeably affecting hearing. The most essential part of the external ear is the "meatus" or hole that allows the sound waves to pass through the skin to the tympanic membrane or drum head. The sound waves throw this membrane into vibration, and the vibration is transmitted, by an assembly of three little bones, across the air-filled cavity {196} of the middle ear to an opening leading to the water-filled cavity of the inner ear. This opening from the middle to the inner ear is closed by a membrane in which one end of the assembly of little bones is imbedded, as the other end is imbedded in the tympanic membrane; and thus the vibrations are transmitted from the tympanic membrane to the liquid of the inner ear. Once started in this liquid, the vibrations are propagated through it to the sense cells of the cochlea and stimulate them in the way already suggested.

Fig. 31.--A small sample of the sense cells of the cochlea. The hairs of the sense cells are shaken by the vibration of the water, and pass the impulse back to the end-brushes of the auditory axons, The tectorial membrane looks as if it might act as a damper, but may be concerned, as "accessory apparatus," in the stimulation of the hair cells. The basilar membrane consists in part of fibers extending across between the ledges of bone; these fibers are arranged somewhat after the manner of piano strings, and have suggested the "piano theory" of hearing, to be mentioned later in the chapter. (Figure text: water space, membrane, Tectorial membrane, bone, soft tissue, basilar membrane, auditory axons to brain stem, nerve cells of auditory nerves, auditory hair cells with end brushes of auditory axons)

Further study of the accessory apparatus of the eye and ear can be recommended as very interesting, but the little that has been said will serve as an introduction to the study of sensation.

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Analysis of Sensations

Prominent among the psychological problems regarding sensation is that of analysis. Probably each sense gives comparatively few elementary sensations, and many blends or compounds of these elements. To identify the elements is by no means a simple task, for under ordinary circumstances what we get is a compound, and it is only by carefully controlling the stimulus that we are able to get the elements before us; and even then the question whether these are really elementary sensations can scarcely be settled by direct observation.

Along with the search for elementary sensations goes identification of the stimuli that arouse them, and also a study of the sensations aroused by any combination of stimuli. Our task now will be to ask these questions regarding each of the senses.

The Skin Senses

Rough and smooth, hard and soft, moist and dry, hot and cold, itching, tickling, pricking, stinging, aching are skin sensations; but some of these are almost certainly compounds. The most successful way of isolating the elements out of these compounds is to explore the skin, point by point, with weak stimuli of different kinds. If a blunt metal point, or the point of a lead pencil, a few degrees cooler than the skin, is passed slowly over the skin, at most points no sensation except that of contact arises, but at certain points there is a clear sensation of cold. Within an area an inch square on the back of the hand, several of these cold spots can be found; and when the exploration is carefully made, and the cold spots marked, they will be found to give the same sensation every time. Substitute a metal point a few {198} degrees warmer than the skin, and a few spots will be found that give the sensation of warmth, these being the warmth spots. Use a sharp point, like that of a needle or of a sharp bristle, pressing it moderately against the skin, and you get at most points simply the sensation of contact, but at quite a number of points a small, sharp pain sensation arises. These are the pain spots. Finally, if the skin is explored with a hair of proper length and thickness, no sensation at all will be felt at most points, because the hair bends so readily when one end of it is pressed against the skin as not to exert sufficient force to arouse a sensation; but a number of points are found where a definite sensation of touch or contact is felt; these are the touch spots.

No other varieties of "spots" are found, and the four sensations of touch, warmth, cold and pain are believed to be the only elementary skin sensations. Itch, stinging and aching seem to be the same as pain. Tickle is touch, usually light touch or a succession of light touches. Smooth and rough are successions of touch sensations. Moist is usually a compound of smooth and cold. Hard and soft combine touch and the muscular sensation of resistance.

Hot and cold require more discussion. The elementary sensations are warmth and coolness, rather than hot and cold. Hot and cold are painful, and the fact is that strong temperature stimuli arouse the pain spots as well as the warmth or cold spots. Hot, accordingly, is a sensation compounded of warmth and pain, and cold a sensation composed of coolness and pain. More than this, when a cold spot is touched with a point heated well above the skin temperature (best to a little over 100 Fahrenheit), the curious fact is noted that the cold spot responds with its normal sensation of cold. This is called the "paradoxical cold sensation". From this fact it is probable that a hot object excites the cold sensation, along with those of warmth and {199} pain; so that the sensation of heat is a blend of the three. Another curious fact is that a very cold object produces a burning sensation indistinguishable from that of a hot object; so that the sensation of great cold, like that of heat, is probably a blend of the three elementary sensations of warmth, cold and pain.

Fig. 32.--Diagram of various sorts of sensory end-organ found in the skin.

A is a hair end-organ; the sensory axons can be seen coiling around the root of the hair; evidently a touch on the hair, outside, would squeeze the coiled axon and stimulate it. The hair is a bit of "accessory apparatus."

B is a touch corpuscle, consisting of a coiled axon-end surrounded by a little cone of other tissue.

C is an end-bulb, presumably belonging to the temperature sense. It has, again,