Autobiography of Margaret Floy Washburn 沃什博恩自传
作者: washburn / 20248次阅读 时间: 2011年11月11日
来源: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca 标签: Washburn washburn
www.psychspace.com心理学空间网

$o KW{I0

L{(fY_ WbT _0The experimental study of thought processes that was now being carried on by the so-called Würzburg School suggested a further use for kinaesthetic explanations, and in 1909 I wrote a paper on "The Physiological Basis of Relational Processes" which developed more fully the idea propounded at the 'feeling' symposium, and maintained that relational processes in general are close fusions of kinaesthetic excitations. The arguments for this were that kinaesthesis accompanies all other sensory experience and is a suitable basis for relational processes, which are common factors in different sensory situa-[p. 348]tions; that many relational processes are for introspection accompanied by kinaesthesis from attitudes; and that where the relational processes are unanalyzable into kinaesthetic sensations, this may be due to the fact that the attitudes concerned are phylogenetically very old, and that there has been little practical need for such analysis -- the point made in 1904.心理学空间8W;oRo\ztT"u T

心理学空间U*_*lfA"R,y:b

The influence of the Würzburg School and of Ach also brought to the fore in the psychology of the time the problem of purpose, theAufgabe. Structural psychology had overlooked this in its strong bent towards reducing everything to sensations. I was enough of a structural psychologist to seek for sensational explanations if haply they might be found, for the reason expressed in the 1909 paper just mentioned: "The sensory process is one about which we know more, it is of a less conjectural and made-to-order character, than other hypothetical cortical processes." That the basis of anAufgabeshould lie in an attitude seemed especially possible, since the essence of a purpose lies in its tendency to persist, and attitudes are characteristically persistent as compared with movements and with sensory processes. At the 1913 meeting of the Association I presented the following ideas: "An essential characteristic of anAufgabe... is that it associates with itself a bodily attitude which may be called the activity attitude. TheAufgabemay drop out of consciousness and still influence associative processes if the organic-kinesthetic fusion resulting from the attitude remains." This doctrine of a persistent bodily attitude as the basis of purposive thought and action has strengthened its hold on my mind since its first formulation.心理学空间hY@"kl5fH$}w7y

心理学空间7|Vg8c.y3M;yE

In the next year, the fundamental principles of a motor system of psychology were laid down in an article entitledThe Function of Incipient Motor Processes. It explained association as essentially the association of movements, a doctrine based on the fact that impressions do not become associated merely by occurring together, but only if they are attended to together, attention being regarded as a motor process. It also presented a physiological theory of the image or centrally excited sensation. "If a motor response is initiated" and antagonistic excitations delay its full performance, "all the sensory centers that have recently or frequently discharged into the motor center concerned .. . are set into excitation," this process being accompanied in consciousness by imagery. The idea of incipient or tentative movements had been vaguely in my mind since 1903, when in the HallFestschriftarticle I made use of "sensations resulting from the stirring of an impulse."[p. 348]

$|(LVeX8m^0

!R.Hv1Z'g9w0During all those years most of my vacation time was spent with my parents. The family fortunes having declined, they were living at Newburgh, enjoying a superb view of the Hudson but little variety, and I was disinclined to leave them for long. In the summer of 1906, while working onThe Animal Mind, I spent three weeks at Cambridge looking up material in the Museum Library, and had an opportunity to see Professors James and Royce at their homes. From 1913 to 1917 I taught in the Columbia Summer School and with great pleasure and profit came to know Woodworth, the Hollingworths, Poffenberger, and the Montagues. I occupied Dr. Cattell's office, opening out of Dr. Woodworth's, and admired the chances of fortune that had raised me so high. In December, 1914, my father died and my mother came to live with me at Vassar until her death in 1924. Both my parents always took pleasure in my work.

f8k1A,[6w(n;e,~0心理学空间 YKNtrY?/x%V

I had for some time been collecting the results of all the German and French experiments on the higher mental processes. Vassar celebrated in 1915 the fiftieth anniversary of its founding, and the trustees decided to publish a commemorative series of volumes by alumnae, books of a scholarly rather than popular nature, which might not readily find a publisher in the ordinary way. For this series I wroteMovement and Mental Imagery, trying to interpret the experimentally obtained data on the higher mental processes by the motor principles I had been evolving, and developing the doctrine that thinking involves tentative or incipient movements. Since the series was published in so uncommercial a fashion, it got little advertising, but at least I can say that 'M. and M. I.' has considerably increased its sales within the past three or four years. I shall never cease to be pleased that Hollingworth read it when it came out and spoke kindly of it, not to me but to his wife: a second-hand compliment has double value. Another person whose praise of it will always be remembered is Professor T. H. Pear, who reviewed it for theBritish Journaland discussed it in hisRemembering and Forgetting.

7BgN ^ U0

"UMAJZn~oW0In 1917, I wrote for Titchener'sFestschriftan article which had nothing to do with the motor theory, but presented some ideas on which I had been basing a course in social psychology ever since 1902. The concept ofejective consciousnesshad proved itself useful in analyzing and classifying the phenomena of social relations. The term was borrowed from W. K. Clifford's 'eject,' by which he meant [p. 350] a state in another person's mind, and ejective consciousness was used to designate awareness of processes in other minds. Thus, while both man and lower animals act socially, man has a much greater tendency to think about what is going on in the minds of his fellow-beings than the animals have, and this tendency brings about characteristic modifications in social behavior. The term is not a motor one, but in the HallFestschriftfourteen years earlier I had suggested a motor basis for ejective consciousness. In social psychology it seems more convenient to use the concept without discussing its physiology. It is serviceable in discussions of language, religion, and art, and is still employed in my social psychology course.心理学空间RP AW;K+A Pu

D1WDQ'z0U;c3o&r}c0Watson's radical behaviorism was of course the favorite topic of discussion in the years from 1915 to 1922 or thereabouts. It will be remembered that his first attack on the existence of conscious processes consisted in denying that of mental imagery. A critic could easily point out that his principles required also denial of the existence of all sensation qualities. In fact, the existence of sensation qualities is irreconcilable with any materialistic monism. My presidential address before the 1921 meeting of the Psychological Association tried, while rejecting the Watsonian metaphysics, to show that introspection itself is an objective method and one necessarily used by the behaviorist.

D#c^&jL)lP0

-GE$P,My0The evening of that address was one of perfect happiness for the speaker, whatever the sufferings of the audience may have been. The scene was the beautiful Gothic dining-hall of the Princeton Graduate School, and I sat at the high table on the dais. At intervals during the banquet strains from the fine organ, under the skillful hands of Dr. Carroll Pratt, rose to the carved beams of the roof. I had rewritten my speech so many times that it was as good as I could make it and was dismissed from my thoughts. Just before we sat down, Dr. Walter Bingham had completely surprised me by saying that before my address he would announce the award of the prize of five hundred dollars offered by the Edison Phonograph Company for the best research on the effects of music, to a study made by my colleague Dr. George Dickinson of the Vassar Department of Music and myself on "The Emotional Effects of Instrumental Music." By the way, Dr. Bingham's memory played him false when, in his introduction to the volume,The Effects of Music, which contained the papers submitted in the contest, he stated that the prize was given to the other study which I had submitted, in collaboration with Misses Mead and Child.[p. 351]

0Vn8CkKv-Sr0心理学空间{#X$Mtd7F)fYk

At this meeting of the Association a Committee on the Relation of the Association to Publication was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Langfeld, Franz, and myself as Chairman. A previous committee under the chairmanship of Judd had been formed in 1920 and had been unable to present a report. The subject in hand was the development of aJournal of Psychological Abstracts, and the difficulty was as follows. Professor Warren, the owner of thePsychological Reviewpublications, was conducting an abstract journal in the form of certain numbers of thePsychological Bulletin. There was a desire on the part of many psychologists that such a journal should be enlarged, which could not be done without a considerable subsidy; but no subsidy could be obtained, for example, through the National Research Council, so long as the journal was privately owned. At the 1922 meeting of the Association, our Committee reported that Professor Warren had offered to give the Association an option to buy the fifty-five shares of the Psychological Review Company's shares at fifty dollars per share,plusthe accumulated unpaid dividends since the incorporation of the company, amounting to 42 per cent of the purchase price. Thus the Association would become the owner of all the publications. The Association authorized our Committee to see that the option was drawn up. On December first, 1923, Dr. Cattell, Chairman of the National Research Council's Committee on Psychological Abstracts, asked Mr. Langfeld and me to meet his Committee; we accordingly did so, and reported to the 1923 meeting that the Psychological Division of the National Research Council would try to obtain funds for the establishment of an independent Abstract Journal if the Association would vote to take up the option for the purchase of thePsychological Reviewjournals and appoint a committee on ways and means of paying for them. The Association did so, appointing our Committee to continue in this function. In the spring of 1924 Mr. Langfeld and I met with Messrs. Anderson and Fernberger, the Association's Secretary and Treasurer, and a plan was formed which involved gradually raising the annual dues to ten dollars and paying off the debt by notes falling due in successive years. Meantime, Professor Warren had generously waived the matter of the unpaid dividends. This plan was laid before the members of the Association by mail for an expression of opinion, which was favorable by a large majority, and at the 1924 meeting the project was adopted. Meantime, I had been appointed by our Division of the National Research Council chair-[p. 352]man of a sub-committee to secure a subsidy for the projected Abstract Journal, the other member being Professor Stratton. We met with a committee from the Association, consisting of Professors Langfeld, Fernberger, and Hunter, and made out a budget, with Dr. Cattell's advice, for the new journal, requiring a subsidy of $76,500, which was subsequently obtained from the Laura Spelman Foundation. At the 1928 meeting of the Association, Professor Warren cancelled the remainder of the Association's debt to him.www.psychspace.com心理学空间网

TAG: Washburn washburn
123456
«Margaret Floy Washburn[ 90 沃什博恩 | Margaret Floy Washburn
《90 沃什博恩 | Margaret Floy Washburn》
(1928)Emotion and Thought: A Motor Theory of Their Relations»
延伸阅读· · · · · ·
2011-11-11 20:26:34 心理空间心理空间

continued...


I am sure our foreign friends will never forget the revelation of democracy in action which they obtained from standing in line and collecting their own sustenance at that cafeteria. I was elected to the International Committee at this meeting, an honor I appreciated the more because of the other Americans chosen at the same time.[p. 358]

One of the difficulties in writing these recollections has been that the present is so much more interesting than the past. It is hard to keep one's attention on reminiscence. Scientific psychology in America -- though not, alas! in Germany, its birthplace -- seems fuller of promise than ever before. The behaviorists have stimulated the development of objective methods, while configurationism is reasserting the importance of introspection; and, best of all, pure psychology is enlisting young men of excellent ability and a far sounder general scientific training than that possessed by any but a few of their predecessors.
查看全部回复