EXPRESSION OF EMOTION IN CASES OF MENTAL DISORDER AS SHOWN BY THE PSYCHO

GALVANIC REFLEX.

By E. PRIDEAUX.

(FROM WORK CARRIED OUT AT CAMBRIDGE
FOR THE MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL.)

(1) Theoretical considerations as to the meaning of the term 'emotion.' THERE is at present no generally accepted definition of the term emotion amongst psychologists, so that it is first necessary to clear the ground as to the meaning we are going to assign to the term. The meaning as popularly understood by the man in the street, as given for instance in the dictionary, is 'a feeling, agitation of mind.' Such a meaning is not in accord with the definitions generally put forward by psychologists. Professor James Ward says: "It has been usual with psychologists to confound emotions with feelings because intense feeling is essential to emotion. Strictly speaking however a state of emotion is a complete state of mind, a psychosis, and not a psychical element, if we may say so"1. It has been emphasised also by Professor Stout and at greater length by Mr Shand that emotion does not consist merely in feelings. Shand holds that an emotion is a self or microcosm of the entire mind, including cognitive and conative attitudes as well as the feeling attitude of a peculiar kind. “Emotion," says Shand," may be used to denote all those forces that are alternating in our minds as joy and sorrow, anger and fear at all degrees of intensity at which they can be felt and recognised "2. For Shand, then, emotions are forces and form systems. He distinguishes three parts of the system of the emotion, the emotion itself as subjectively experienced, the processes connected with it in the organism, and its outward expression and modes of behaviour. Moreover he assumes that certain instincts-he defines an instinct "to be an inherited disposition both to be excited by certain stimuli and to respond with a specific kind of behaviour or expression to such stimuli❞—are parts of the systems of primary emotions. The only objection to this way of looking at the 1 J. Ward, Psychological Principles, 1918, p. 276.

2 A. F. Shand, The Foundations of Character, 1914, p. 178

question is that the term emotion is used by Shand in two different senses,—one is apt to get confused as to whether at one time emotion as a system of forces is referred to, and at another emotion as the part which we feel, the part which is in consciousness and is accessible to introspection.

In contrast to Shand, Professor McDougall regards the primary emotions as parts of the systems of instincts and defines emotion simply as "the affective aspect of an instinctive process "1. The difficulties involved in accepting this view have been discussed fully by Shand, and more recently the observations of Professor Lloyd Morgan upon the similarity in the type and intensity of the response in birds at different emotional periods would seem to support Shand's objections. If an emotion is not the affective aspect of the excitement of an instinct, what is that which corresponds most closely to an instinct in consciousness? To this Shand answers-an impulse, and consequent on it the sensations that accompany the subsidiary motor response.

Another view has been put forward by Dr Drever, who holds that the affective aspect of an instinct consists in 'instinct-interest." "If in any way this normal prosecution of the instinct-interest is checked, tension will arise, a tension in feeling which is emotion "3. Drever admits the objections to his theory, which does not appear to account for the origin of the 'joy emotions,' but he gets over this difficulty by pointing out the kinds of circumstance under which tension of feeling is likely to be produced. One of these is when the urgency of the impulse is such that action cannot keep pace with it. In the case of joy the satisfaction is itself stimulating and the situation, which satisfies, at the same time accentuates the impulse by further stimulation, so that the action cannot keep up the pace. Another kind of circumstance under which tension is said to arise is when there is no inherited provision for the precise reaction, which is appropriate to a particular situation, so that the greater the plasticity, the greater the delay in response and the greater the feeling tension or emotion. Drever's definition comes nearer than any other to the popular meaning of the term 'emotion,' and would seem to gain support from experiments on the psycho-galvanic reflex.

There is still to be considered the view which is upheld by the supporters of the James-Lange theory in a modified form, that emotion is

1 W. McDougall, Social Psychology, 1914, 8th edition, p. 46.

2 C. Lloyd Morgan, "Psychical Selection: Expression and Impression," Brit. Journ. of Psychology, 1921, xi. 206.

3 J. Drever, Instinct in Man, 1917, p. 143.

simply the consciousness of the sum total of organic sensations and that it is nothing more than this. If the term 'emotion' is defined in Ward's or Shand's sense then it is obvious that the organic sensations cannot be the cause of the emotion, and, as Ward says, the theory is psychologically and biologically absurd1. But if the term emotion is restricted to subjective feelings then we have to admit that the organic sensations form an important part of the subjective experience.

Though we are often justified by our observation of behaviour in making the assumption that there is a definite connection between physical and psychical events as cause and effect, we are not justified in pretending to be able to decide by such observation alone which are the causes and which the effects. As Ribot says, "the study of the emotions from the point of view of pure psychology can come to no definite conclusion. Internal observation however subtle can only describe the internal fact and note its graduations; regarding the conditions and genesis of emotion it can give no answer; it can only seize a bodiless emotion, an abstraction"2.

But that the organic sensations are not responsible for the whole of the subjective feeling experienced seems certain from recent psychophysiological experiments3. And in addition to the objections which have hitherto been raised, a very serious objection, it seems to me, is the fact that the emotion is subjectively experienced before there is time for the visceral changes to occur. This objection does not hold good for muscular sensations, but it seems to be possible to elicit emotion in some subjects without any visible muscular movements, so that in such cases we can claim on the hypothesis of the James-Lange theory that most of the sensations should come from the skin and viscera, and it is on these that James relied most for his theory.

Now we know from our experiments with the plethysmograph and psycho-galvanic reflex that there is an average latent period in both of 2-3 seconds before the peripheral reactions are manifest, and that the subject experiences his feeling of emotion some time before these reactions occur. This objection is still more obvious in the case of the viscera. The secretion of the adrenal gland, which plays such an important part, according to Cannon, in the physiology of the emotions does not occur for some seconds-Cannon says: "the latent period of adrenal secretion when the splanchnic nerve is stimulated below the diaphragm is not

1 Op. cit. p. 275.

2 Th. Ribot, The Psychology of the Emotions, 1911, 2nd edition, p. 93.

3 See American Journ. of Psychology, 1919, vol. 48, p. 285.

longer than 16 seconds." And further Pavlov has shown that the latent period of the gastric psychic secretion is five minutes1. It seems most improbable that sensations due to organic changes could make themselves felt in consciousness as an emotion so long before any manifestation of such changes appeared at the periphery.

There seems then to be no doubt as to the fact that some psychical excitement precedes the physical changes and that this is of a specific kind corresponding with different situations. But if we accept Shand's or Drever's views, can we say how much of this excitement is emotion, and how much is due to impulse or instinct-interest, and can we say that the true emotion only makes its appearance when the visceral sensations make themselves felt in consciousness?

An attempt to answer these questions involves us in the difficulty that apart from introspection we have no evidence as to this excitement, and we are led to ask another question-how far can we accept the outward manifestations as indicative of subjective feelings? It seems to have been more or less assumed by psychologists that the strength of the manifestations, in the absence of conventionalism and deceit, indicates the amount of feeling produced. Professor J. Ward, for example, writes: "The intenser the feeling, the intenser the reaction no doubt, whether it be smiles or tears, jumping for joy or writhing in agony "2.

In contradistinction to this, the question I would ask is as to whether the so-called emotional or hysterical persons really feel any emotion at all. Are their emotions only artificial and their expressions simply mimetic? Can we in fact go further and apply these questions to healthy persons and say how far the muscular expressions are merely mimetic, and how far they really indicate the subjective experience of emotion?

James briefly referred to this point in a footnote: "I am inclined to think that in some hysteriform conditions of grief, rage, etc., the visceral disturbances are less strong than those which go to outward expression. We have then a tremendous verbal display with a hollow inside. Whilst the bystanders are wrung with compassion or pale with alarm, the subject all the while lets himself go but feels his insincerity, and wonders how long he can keep up the performance "3. Janet in his Mental State of Hystericals was of the same opinion, for example "their emotions which seem so violent are not just," and "there is very often but little real feeling connected with these loud cries and this great despair." Are James

1 E. P. Cathcart, "Psychic Secretion," Journ. of Mental Sci. 1919, LXV. p. 180. 2 Op. cit. p. 277.

3 W. James, Principles of Psychology, 1890, п. p. 461.

and Janet justified in their contention that these subjects experience little or no emotion and that the emotion in such cases is artificial? To this the psycho-analytical school would give a decided answer in the negative. For this school the inadequacy of the reaction is only apparent, the emotion is perfectly genuine but is overdetermined by displacement, and the hysteric is reacting in reality to an old situation which has been made significant for him by some bond of association aroused by the situation immediately responsible for the reaction. Allowing that this mechanism occurs more often than is generally recognised, there still remain a number of cases which cannot be explained by this process unless we so stretch the point that it loses all value as an explanatory assumption. In these cases it may perhaps be possible to hold with Janet that the emotion is artificial, if one restricts the term emotion to subjective feeling as James and Janet appear to do, for it is true at any rate, as my experiments show, that the visceral expression in these cases is very small or is even non-existent.

In dealing with this question of expression we must first decide the relative values we are going to assign to the different manifestations. We know that in the so-called expression of emotion both the central and autonomic nervous systems play their part. That is to say, expression is partly by the contraction of voluntary muscles, 'muscular expression,' and partly by glandular secretions, contraction of involuntary muscles, vasomotor and visceral reactions, all of which I include under 'visceral expression.' And, whereas visceral expression occurs automatically and independently of any direct control, muscular expression on the other hand varies directly with the amount of voluntary control and can be entirely inhibited.

Now I would agree with Shand that an instinct may be excited without involving an emotion, but that an emotion is incapable of being excited without involving the excitement of some instinct. It would then seem necessary to distinguish how much of the consequent behaviour or muscular expression is due to emotion and how much to instinctive impulse, and how much of the subjective feeling is due to emotion and how much to the sensations set up by muscular reactions evoked in the carrying out of the impulse.

We must then allow that part of the muscular expression may be indicative possibly of subjective feeling, and that part may be certainly an instinctive reaction, the carrying out of the impulse, perhaps a 'pseudaffective reflex' as Sherrington calls it, released from inhibition. This view gains support from the experiments of Professor Sherrington