automatism

Example Sentences

• "The automatism of the primary constitution is such that previous experience and conscious effort are not needed; nor will any experience or any effort alter the mode of reaction. If a strong light falls on the eye, the iris contracts; if the eyeball is dry, the eyelid drops; if the soundwaves beat upon the tympanum, the stapedius muscle contracts; if the lining of the throat be tickled, the muscles involved in coughing or in vomiting contract. No experience is necessary for these actions[…]"
• "Whatever is done from Blind Impulse is Automatism rather than Action. Whatever is done from motives of Happiness,—whether it be Indolentia, Pleasure, or Interest,—can be calculated with Mathematical precision."
• "Mr. Lewes thinks that Automatism vanishes if it can be shewn that Man's feelings exercise causal power over his actions; but this alone is far from satisfying Dr. Carpenter. He would still continue to regard Man as an Automaton, unless there is ground for the assurance that Free-will is no illusion."
• "For any doctrine which removes our thoughts from the control of a hypothetical agent which is independent of external influences, and confines them to certain channels in which they are propelled, directly or indirectly, by stimuli (external or internal) is practically automatism."
• "Overcoming the gravity of representation and the figurative, automatism and acquired reflexes, she mixes brute force and translucid emotions to paint an ontological, disquieting, enigmatic human figure free from artifice, universal in its expression."
• "[G]eneralising this phenomenon, Mr. Myers has given the name of automatism, sensory or motor, emotional or intellectual, to this whole sphere of effects, due to 'uprushes' into the ordinary consciousness of energies originating in the subliminal parts of the mind. The simplest instance of an automatism is the phenomenon of post-hypnotic suggestion, so-called."