The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-21
DR.. LINDLEY ON PERCEPTION
Funtlon of the Nervous System is To Bring
about Development.

DR.. Lindley spoke on Perception,
and after reviewing the lecture of the
day before. said in part: The percep-
ton of distance, solidity, etc, is not
due to any peculiar effect on the retina,
but through the movement of the eye.
Any device that will interrupt the mo-
ton of the eyes will make the distance
seem greater than it is
When associations become more and
more frequent, when recall happens
frequently, perception becomes cen-
tralized and great many associations
will give the perception of one thing
only.
What is already in our mind becomes
superior to that which comes from
without. A child can read proof better
than his father. All the common illus
ions of perception play upon this fact,
that the mind win supply things for
itself.
The second group of perception III
lusions is that which arises when the
mind is full of any one thing. When you
are in railway car and see another
car moving, you have the illusion of
motion yourself. Science grows by get
ting new names. 1t was once thought
that man was either sane or insane
in. AS age comes on, these meanings
get more and more settled, and our
meanings get settled before we think
1t. 1t is thought that by the time we
are rs, our general conceptions become
fixed.
One of the fruitful pedagogical as
poets to this was the idea of prepare
ton. But there is something in uncon-
scious preparation. When we nave a
problem to do and decide to sleep over
1t and then wake to find 1t worked out
in our minds, that is unconscious prep
aration..
Skill in any industry depends on
our getting higher apperceptive
groups. Man cannot jump to the high
est thinking, but must take the steps
which lead from the bottom. Expert
apperception is a hierarchy of habits.
If you begin at the middle of tonic,
you cannot advance unless you learn
the rudiments. The function Of The
nervous system is to bring about de-
velopment; it is to convert stimuli into
reaction. The nervous system is a mo-
tor system.
AS to the impressions upon the in
voluntary muscles, it has been found
that the beat Of the drum causes the
blood to move faster. Ferier found that
colored lights affected circulation.
Breathing is affected, all the glands of
the body change by stimulation.
Ferai says that colored lights and
music affect mans power to grip.
Lombard studied the knee kick in re-
gard to the effect of impression. Noises
conversation, any slight aggravadon
would exaggerate the knee kick. This
law of diffusion not only tends 10 in
crease these muscular activities, but to
check them.
1t was believed that inhibition had a
special point in the brain. The essen
tials of this process of assimilating all
the stimuli into action, is the fact of
reflex action. When a frog feels d
drop of acid on his skin, he puts up
the hand to brush it off. 1t is entira-
ly unconscious. 1t is taken as a type
of all changes in the nervous system
AS life advances, the tendency os this
diffusion is upward, and when the tvue
gets high enough and has a complex
brain, the reaction becomes conscious
We are born with reflexes, and as we
learn, we regulate them.