The American Journal of Psychology Volume 33 (Paperback)

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: egic points of contact with the organism (at pillar of fauces, for deglutition) brings about the action; also in the shelter reactions, the pin prick, the hot or cold object must be in immediate contact with the organism. Now all of these food and shelter conditions are constant factors in the surroundings of the individual and consequently the reflex adaptations remain constant in their functional and morphological character, although as we have intimated, in the human being reflexes may become organized with other behavior segments. It is possible also that the reaction system as a whole in reflex behavior segments may become slightly modified because of changes in the size and tonicity of the organic apparatus, although the general character of the reaction remains constant. (3) Permanency. Since reflexes are elementary forms of responses adapting the organism to permanent specific conditions they are permanent factors in the reactional equipment of the organism. Moreover, reflex reaction systems do not become integrated and modified to become phases of larger and more complex reaction systems. They remain simple reflexes. We have already indicated that complex reflex adjustments consist of numerous repetitions of a particular reaction system of which the preceding members of the series serve as stimuli to the following ones. In short, a serial reflex is merely a series of behavior segments and not an integration of reflexes into more complex behavior. (4) Localization. The comparative simplicity of reflex reaction systems and the definiteness of their operation permit us to look upon them as partial acts. As a result, it appears as though the organism operates in limited segments when functioning reflexly. Thus we speak of an eye or hand reflex. This partial functioning ...