CHAPTER VIII 



SPATIALLY DETERMINED REACTIONS AND SPACE PER- 

 CEPTION 



53* Classes of Spatially Determined Reactions 



MODIFICATION of the behavior of animals with reference 

 to the spatial characteristics of the forces acting upon them 

 appears at the very beginning of the scale of animal life, and 

 throughout is quite as important as modification with refer- 

 ence to the kind or quality of such forces. It assumes a num- 

 ber of distinct forms. Some of these suggest to us, interpret- 

 ing them as we must on the basis of our own experience, no 

 conscious aspect at all; they seem rather mechanical effects 

 upon a passive organism. In other cases, it appears possible 

 that the mental process which we know as space perception, 

 involving the simultaneous awareness of a number of sensa- 

 tions consciously referred to different points in space, may 

 accompany the reaction of an animal with reference to the 

 spatial relations of its environment. And sometimes we can 

 only say that differences in the space characteristics of a 

 stimulus may modify the accompanying sensation in some 

 manner which yet apparently does not involve space per- 

 ception as we know it. 



Our task in the following pages will then be to examine 

 the different ways in which animal behavior is adapted to 

 the spatial characteristics of stimuli, and to ask which of these 

 suggest as their conscious accompaniment some form of space 

 perception. A classification of spatially determined responses 



148 



