MACH ET LE ZEITSINNTravaux et Contexte

HERBART 1816 Lehrbuch zur Psychologie

CZERMAK 1857 Ideen zu einer Lehre vom Zeitsinn

FECHNER 1860 Elemente der Psychophysik

WUNDT 1862 Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung

MACH 1863 (A) Compendium der Physik

MACH 1863 (B) Vorträge über Psychophysik

HÖRING 1864 Versuche über das Unterscheidungsvermögen des Hörsinnes für die Zeitgrössen

MACH 1865 (A) Untersuchung über den Zeitsinn des Ohres

MACH 1865 (B) Bemerkungen über den Raumsinn des Ohres

VIERORDT 1868 Der Zeitsinn

MACH 1875 Grundlinien der Lehre von den Bewegungsempfindungen

FECHNER 1877 In Sachen der Psychophysik

MACH 1885 Die Analyse der Empfindungen

MACH 1910 Eine Betrachtung über Zeit und Raum

HELMHOLTZ AND THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF TIME

INCENTIVE TO THE WORK:

- Contemporary Researches on the Neurophysiological Mechanisms of the Zeitsinn and of Time Consciousness in General (Zeitbewusstsein).

- In Germany, Researches done by Ernst Poppel and Wolf Singer. Roots of these Researches in XIXth Century (German) Psychophysiology.

MAIN POINTS:

- Theory of Perception, Psychophysical Parallelism (shrewd but a little unfair comments of James on Helmholtz).

- Question of the Time Order and its Possible Inversion (from Libet back to Wundt and Helmholtz).

- Cognitive Mechanisms of Memory. Are there Inconscious Inferences in Time Perception?

- Kantian Background for New Facts and Ideas in Psychology.

SUMMARY

I - FROM PROPAGATION VELOCITY IN NERVES TO CONSCIOUSNESS OF VISUAL STIMULI

1850: Helmholtz starts to extend his nervous velocity measurements to man1858: he discusses after-images1860: he thinks of using this phenomenon to study the time course of visual impressions1867: extensive discussion of after-images and their duration in the Handbuch1867: he restarts and publishes his measurements of nervous velocity in man with Baxt1868: his collaborator Sigmund Exner publishes results on the time necessary for a visual perception1868-1869: experiments with Baxt on nervous velocity, using the Pendelmyograph1870: new publication with Baxt1871: publication with Baxt on the time necessary for a visual stimulus to reach consciousness1871: publication by Baxt on the same subject1873: publication by Exner of results with the Pendel myograph referring to the Helmholtz-Baxt experiments

Important publications by other authors: 1865: Mach on the time sense of the ear

Helmholtz's results: the minimal duration for a visual stimulus to be perceived is about thirty milliseconds. The spontaneous life-time of an afterimage is about twelve seconds (James's specious present).

II - TIME PERCEPTION AND PSYCHOPHYSICAL PARALLELISM

Helmholtz's assumption of the validity of psychophysical parallelism in the case of time. However, the parallelism may not be entirely accurate.

James does not quote Helmholtz precisely. However, his criticism of the idea of time being an exception to the difference between perception and reality is surely relevant.

A succession of feelings is not a feeling of succession: James after Lotze, Volkmann, Wundt.

Wundt's concept of a displacement of the perceived stimuli. Possibility of temporal illusions. Discontinuity (Wundt, Poppel) or continuity (James) of consciousness.

III - TIME AS INTERNAL INTUITION: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ARITHMETICS

Some quotations from Zählen and Messen. Helmholtz's "psychologism"?

IV - FROM TIME TO CAUSATION. HELMHOLTZ AND KANT

In the second edition of the Handbuch, the discussion on the validity of psychophysical parallelism in the case of time is no more found.

Instead, a discussion of the unconscious (cognitive) mechanisms of memory takes place, together with the idea that the time order is based on the causal law as an a priori principle.

Kant's discussion on the time ordre in connection with the causal law. Helmholtz's move towards the hypothetical character of the causal law.

CONCLUSION

The concepts borrowed from the philosophical tradition by Helmholtz are perhaps not entirely suitable to his psychophysiological orientation

LOI DU TOUT OU RIEN, RELATION INTENSITE FREQUENCECHRONOLOGIE

1899 Francis GOTCH et G.J. BURCH The electrical response of nerve to two stimuli J. Physiol. 24 410.1902 Francis GOTCH The submaximal electrical response of nerve to a single stimulus J. Physiol. 28 395.1905 Keith LUCAS On the gradation of activity in a skeletal muscle-fiber J. Physiol. 33 125.1906 Keith LUCAS On the optimal electric stimuli of normal and curarised muscle J. Physiol. 34 372.1905 Keith LUCAS On the optimal electric stimuli of muscle and nerve J. Physiol. 35 103.1907 Keith LUCAS The excitable substances of amphibian muscle J. Physiol. 36 1131909 Keith LUCAS The "all or none" contraction of the amlphibian skeletal muscle fibre J. Physiol. 38 113.1913 E.D. ADRIAN The all-or-none principle in nerve J. Physiol. 47 460.1915 Alexander FORBES et Alan GREGG Electrical studies in mammalian reflexes II. The correlation between strength of stimuli and the direct and reflex nerve response Amer. J. Physiol. 39 172.1917 Keith LUCAS The Conduction of the Nervous Impulse. Revised by E.D. ADRIAN. London, Longmans, Green.1920 Alexander FORBES et Catharine THATCHER Amplification of action currents with the electron tube in recording with the string galvanometer Amer. J. Physiol. 52 409.1922 E.D. ADRIAN et Alexander FORBES The all-or-nothing response of sensory nerve fibers J. Physiol. 56 301.1924 Alexander FORBES, C.J. CAMPBELL et H.B. WILLIAMS Electrical records of afferent nerve impulses from muscular receptors Amer. J. Physiol. 59 283.1926 E.D. ADRIAN The impulses produced by sensory nerve endings Part I J. Physiol. 61 49.1926 E.D. ADRIAN et Y. ZOTTERMAN The impulses produced by sensory nerve-endings Part 3. Impulses set up by touch and pressure J. Physiol. 61 1511928 E.D. ADRIAN The Basis of Sensation. The Action of the Sense Organs. London, Christophers.1933 E.D. ADRIAN The All-or-Nothing Reaction Ergebnisse der Physiologie 35 744.