Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/771

 in thinking of a building or locality in the neighborhood; a very good record obtained in this way appears in Fig. 9.

The peculiar line of Fig. 10 was obtained in an experiment in which a book was slowly carried about the room, the subject being required to continuously read from the page. It is evident that the hand followed the movement of the attention, not precisely



in a circle, but in an irregular outline, closing in upon itself. The great differences between individuals which the experience of the muscle-reader would lead us to expect are not lacking here. Some movements are direct and extensive, others circuitous and brief. Fig. 11 is a good type of a small movement, though it is quite constantly toward the object of the attention. This may be contrasted with another record in which there is a movement of six and a half inches in forty-five seconds. In some cases the first impulse carries the hand toward the object of thought, and is followed by considerable hesitation and uncertainty. A marked example of this tendency may be seen in Fig. 12. There is, too, an opposite type, in which the initial movements are variable, and the significant movement toward the object of thought comes later, when there is perhaps some fatigue. This tendency appears somewhat in Figs, 4 and 9.

How far these movements are involuntary or unconscious must be largely determined by the subjective experiences of those who execute them. While here, as elsewhere, there is some difference