'554 



II \NDB' » IK i il PlIYMi 'I ' «.\ 



NEIROPHYSIOLOCY III 



report upon events as they happen, or a reaction to 

 test stimuli periodically inserted while in process of 

 attending to a series of on-going events, we may 

 interfere with that process or destroy its efficacy. If, 

 by preliminary instructions, we attempt to structure 

 an attitude or set to particular events as they occur, 

 we encourage anticipation and watchful waiting 

 which ma\ interfere with, or seriously limit, the 

 process. Naturalness and freedom of response are 

 curtailed, and association between present and past 

 experience mav become seriously restricted. 



For main years attention and consciousness were 

 considered proper subjects for psychological study by 

 the method of introspection. In the second and third 

 decades of the present century the behavioristic move- 

 ment in American psychology, fostered by J. B. 

 Watson, E. B. Holt, A. P. Weiss and others, rejected 

 the idea of subjective descriptions of experiences and 

 abandoned the use of the concepts of attention and 



consciousness. The) substituted description and meas- 

 urement of overt behavioral responses, including 

 vocal, subvocal and other responses of semiovert 

 nature, detectable only by special measuring or re- 

 cording instruments. From the point of view of ob- 

 jective measurement and the establishment of re- 

 liable, though perhaps limited, criteria of response, 

 this was an advance. However, it overlooked the 

 fact that not all stimulation which is capable of ex- 

 citation of, or influence upon, the central nervous 

 system results in overt behavior of an immediate and 

 measurable nature. Although behavioral criteria of 

 sleep and wakefulness, and even of attention and 

 consciousness, may be established, it has become 

 apparent that one cannot depend solely upon these 

 criteria. In fact the very essence of attention and 

 consciousness now seems to reside in shifting proc- 

 esses and states within the central nervous system, 

 some of which are detectable through changes in 



table I . Psychological States and Their EEC, Conscious and Behavioral Correlates* 



'I I.mdsles i ,<| 



