HABIT FORMATION AND FEELING QUALITIES 259 



Recent investigations have been made to determine the effect 

 of feeling tone on the memory processes, the results of which might 

 be more conclusive. 



But the literature, so far as I know, records no attempt to 

 determine the effect of the feelings reflexly generated by a volun- 

 tary movement upon the movement's value as a factor in skillful 

 action. Book's incidental observations are the nearest approach 

 to the problem. 



PROBLEM 



Accordingly, the present investigation seeks to determine the 

 nature and extent of the influence of feeling qualities of move- 

 ments on their entering into skilful combinations. Here a num- 

 ber of questions may be raised: (1) Does the unpleasant feeling 

 growing out of a movement per se inhibit or facilitate its entering 

 into a combination of skilful acts? (2) Does a pleasant, or a 

 tense, or any other feeling quality, generated by the coordination 

 of any group of muscles, affect their habit-forming values? or 



(3) Is there no causal relation between the capacity of a move- 

 ment for skilful purposes and its feeling quality of whatever sort? 



(4) What, if any, are the psycho-technical values of such a study? 



METHODS AND APPARATUS 



The above statement of the problem foreshadows, in a meas- 

 ure, the group of methods essential for such an investigation. 

 It appears that the method should involve learning in which the 

 acquisition of motor skill may be registered in many degrees of 

 improvement, and in which varied feelings, for the most part, 

 are constant accompaniments. Accordingly, a method was de- 

 vised whereby both objective and introspective records were ob- 

 tained for every phase and stage of the learning process. Pre- 

 vious experience in the use of a distributing case (diagram 1) 

 and packs of ordinary playing cards for a study of interference 

 and transference (Kline and Owens 25), suggested the possibility 

 of adapting them to the present problem. Jastrow (20) hi 1886 

 first made use of the ordinary playing cards in determining the 



