There will be more to say of "organic states" when we come to the emotions. For the present, do not the facts already cited compel us to enlarge somewhat the conception of a reaction as we left it in the preceding chapters? Besides the external response, there is often an internal response to a stimulus, a changed organic state that persists for a time and has an influence on behavior. The motor response to a given stimulus is determined partly by that stimulus, and partly by the organic state left behind by just preceding stimuli. You cannot predict what response will be made to a given stimulus, unless you know the organic state present when the stimulus arrives.
Preparation for Action
At the second level, the inner state that partly governs the response is more neural than chemical, and is directed [{75}] specifically towards a certain end-result. As good an instance as any is afforded by the "simple reaction", described in an earlier chapter. If the subject in that experiment is to raise his finger promptly from the telegraph key on hearing a given sound, he must be prepared, for there is no permanent reflex connection between this particular stimulus and this particular response. You tell your subject to be ready, whereupon he places his finger on the key, and gets all ready for this particular stimulus and response. The response is determined as much by his inner state of readiness as by the stimulus. Indeed, he sometimes gets too ready, and makes the response before he receives the stimulus.
The preparation in such a case is more specific, less a general organic state, than in the previous cases of fatigue, etc. It is confined for the most part to the nervous system and the sense organ and muscles that are to be used. In an untrained subject, it includes a conscious purpose to make the finger movement quickly when the sound is heard; but as he becomes used to the experiment he loses clear consciousness of what he is to do. He is, as a matter of fact, ready for a specific reaction, but all he is conscious of is a general readiness. He feels ready for what is coming, but does not have to keep his mind on it, since the specific neural adjustment has become automatic with continued use.
Examples of internal states of preparedness might be multiplied indefinitely, and it may be worth while to consider a few more, and try out on them the formula that has already been suggested, to the effect that preparation is an inner adjustment for a specific reaction, set up in response to some stimulus (like the "Ready!" signal), persisting for a time, and predisposing the individual to make the specified reaction whenever a suitable stimulus for it arrives. The preparation may or may not be conscious. It might be named "orientation" or "steer", with the meaning that [{76}] the individual is headed or directed towards a certain end-result. It is like so setting the rudder of a sailboat that, when a puff of wind arrives, the boat will respond by turning to the one side.
The runner on the mark, "set" for a quick start, is a perfect picture of preparedness. Here the onlookers can see the preparation, since the ready signal has aroused visible muscular response in the shape of a crouching position. It is not simple crouching, but "crouching to spring." But if the onlookers imagine themselves to be seeing the whole preparation--if they suppose the preparation to be simply an affair of the muscles--they overlook the established fact that the muscles are held in action by the nerve centers, and would relax instantly if the nerve centers should stop acting. The preparation is neural more than muscular. The neural apparatus is set to respond to the pistol shot by strong discharge into the leg muscles.
What the animal psychologists have called the delayed reaction is a very instructive example of preparation. An animal is placed before a row of three food boxes, all looking just alike, two of them, however, being locked while the third is unlocked. Sometimes one is unlocked and sometimes another, and the one which at any time is unlocked is designated by an electric bulb lighted above the door. The animal is first trained to go to whichever box shows the light; he always gets food from the lighted box. When he has thoroughly learned to respond in this way, the "delayed reaction" experiment begins. Now the animal is held while the light is burning, and only released a certain time after the light is out, and the question is whether, after this delay, he will still follow the signal and go straight to the right door. It is found that he will do so, provided the delay is not too long--how long depends on the animal. With rats the delay cannot exceed 5 seconds, with cats it can reach 18 [{77}] seconds, with dogs 1 to 3 minutes, with children (in a similar test) it increased from 20 seconds at the age of fifteen months to 50 seconds at two and a half years, and to 20 minutes or more at the age of five years.
Rats and cats, in this experiment, need to keep their heads or bodies turned towards the designated box during the interval between the signal and the release; or else lose their orientation. Some dogs, however, and children generally, can shift their position and still, through some inner orientation, react correctly when released. The point of the experiment is that the light signal puts the animal or child into a state tending towards a certain result, and that, when that result is not immediately attainable, the state persists for a time and produces results a little later.
Preparatory Reactions
In the delayed reaction, the inner orientation does little during the interval before the final reaction, except to maintain a readiness for making that reaction; but often "preparatory reactions" occur before the final reaction can take place. Suppose you whistle for your dog when he is some distance off and out of sight. You give one loud whistle and wait. Presently the dog swings around the corner and dashes up to you. Now, what kept the dog running towards you after your whistle had ceased and before he caught sight of you? Evidently he was directed towards the end-result of reaching you, and this directing tendency governed his movements during the process. He made many preparatory reactions on the way to his final reaction of jumping up on you; and these preparatory reactions were, of course, responses to the particular trees he had to dodge, and the ditches he had to jump; but they were at the same time governed by the inner state set up in him by your {78 } whistle. This inner state favored certain reactions and excluded others that would have occurred if the dog had not been in a hurry. He passed another dog on the way without so much as saying, "How d'ye do?" And he responded to a fence by leaping over it, instead of trotting around through the gate. That is to say, the inner state set up in him by your whistle facilitated reactions that were preparatory to the final reaction, and inhibited reactions that were not in that line.