THE PSYCHOPHYSICAL BASIS OF FEELINGS. 

 C. L. Herrick. 



In a paper before the International Congress of Experimen- 

 tal Psychology, session ')f 1892. Professor Hugo Miinsterberg 

 details the results of experiments, showing that the emotional 

 states react differently on the extensor and flexor systems of 

 skeletal muscles. After having for some time practiced moving 

 an index on a scale 10 or 20 centimeters centripitally and centri- 

 fugally until the distance could be quite accurately estimated 

 with closed eyes, he tried the same experiment while experienc- 

 ing pleasurable and painful emotions. The results are 'interest- 

 ing. Purely physical variations, such as would be expected 

 a priori are seen in the underestimation of the distance in dull 

 or serious moods and over estimation when excited or amused. 

 But psychical variations appear when they would hardly have 

 been expected. Thus in unpleasurable emotions the extensor 

 motions are too small while flexor motions are too large and 

 during pleasurable emotions the flexor motions are too small and 

 the extensor motions too large. The author does not hesitate to 

 found on this observation the theory that it is not simply true 

 that painful emotions produce flexor motions and pleasurable 

 emotions extensor motions, but that the psychophysical effect of 

 the reflexly produced extension and flexion is precicely what we 

 term pleasure or painful emotion. A farther generalization is 

 that extension must always, from the biological standpoint, 

 occur with serviceable and flexion with harmful irritations. 



Even the infusoria exhibit the Same tendency. This lies at 

 one extreme while at the other the pleasurable emotion of assent 

 is but an associated reproduction of earlier extensor motions and 

 vice versa. Pain and pleasurable sensations acquire emotional 

 value only through the aid of associated muscle sensations i.e. 

 such as form the foundation of our empirical ago. 



It seems to us that this elaborate structure is somewhat 

 heavy for the slender foundation in fact on which it is reared 

 but this may be left for psychologists to decide It is true that 



