FEELING
THE EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS
BY F. M. URBAN
The material of this paper was obtained by an experimental investigation which was carried on in the Harvard laboratory from February, 1904, till June, 1905. The immediate purpose of these experiments was a study in the expression of the feeling-tone of simple sense-stimuli. Breathing and circulation were the functions the changes of which were observed by tracing the curves of thoracal and of abdominal breathing and the sphygmographic curves simultaneously. Acoustical, tactual, pain, and smell sensations were studied in this way, special attention being devoted to the smell and pain sensations. These stimuli have the advantage that the physiological reactions of the subject are more uniform than the reactions to other stimuli. The number of experiments performed in this investigation was large, although a subject was never experimented on for more than forty minutes, because the facilities of the laboratory allowed a continuous experimenting for several hours a day on different subjects. All the experiments were performed on trained subjects. Only the changes in the form of the sphygmographic curve will be discussed in this paper. The results of this observation confirm the observations of previous investigators in so far as the same changes in the curves were observed and the introspections of the subject were, on the whole, similar to those obtained by other observers. It does not seem probable, however, that a satisfactory discussion of the results can be given on the basis of merely mechanical measurements of the curves, and it, therefore, seemed necessary to reconsider the principles of the theory of the sphygmographic curves.
There are two methods which can be applied to the study of the psychology of feelings. They are called the method of impression and the method of expression. The first is a purely psychological method, while the latter is confined by its definition to the study of the physiological changes which are the accompaniments of feelings. The method of expression is never used as a pure method in investigations which are carried on for psychological purposes, because the introspections of the subject must be compared with the physiological results. It therefore has the character of a mixed method. The first experimental investigations into the psychology of feelings were started by Fechner, who employed the pure method of impression. At this time, however, the apparatus for studying the circulation had been greatly improved and sooner or later these instruments were sure to be used for a more exact study of the influence of feelings on circulation. It was to be hoped that the crude observations on the changes of the heart-beats and of the circulation under the influence of feelings might be followed up in detail.
Darwin laid stress on the importance of certain bodily accompaniments of feelings, and he inaugurated the genetic explanation in this field. But even if the genetic explanation is successfully carried through, human psychology remains unexplained, and, furthermore, those emotional expressions which Darwin described form only a part of the physiological accompaniments which may be observed with the instruments now in use. The invention or at least the great improvement of these instruments is due to the investigators in the middle of the last century, and a more thorough understanding of the delicate changes of respiration, circulation, and of temperature was not possible before the construction of these sensitive recorders. It seems that Mosso was the first to observe these small changes under the influence of mental activity in general, and feelings in special; in this sense it may be said that Mosso started the experimental physiology of feelings. The discovery of the influence of feelings on circulation is very important, and it is to be appreciated that Mosso saw these slight changes which escaped an observer like Marey. In the Mémoire offered to the Academy[29] on March 26, 1860, Marey gives a great number of circumstances which influence the sphygmographic curve, but feelings or mental phenomena are not mentioned in this list. It is true that he speaks in a later publication[30] of the influence of "moral ideas" on the circulation and makes the hypothesis that these ideas influence the circulation in the same way as other disturbing influences, i. e., by changing the peripheral resistance. At this time Marey was already in possession of his sphygmograph, but nothing in this passage indicates that he saw the influence of feelings on the tracings. On the contrary, the words "Sans rien livrer à l'hypothèse" seem to indicate that Marey had no other facts in mind than those commonly known. He certainly did not follow up his observation, and his statement at this point does not differ very much from the observations of the old psychologists, that emotions change certain physiological functions, of which a more or less complete list is frequently given.[31]