Abstract
IN reply to your inquiry for information upon the question raised by Mr. Majid I beg to say that the view of the matter which is, I think, pretty generally accepted and which I have adopted and attempted to develop in several publications (more especially in a series of papers in Mind, vol. xv., “Physiological Factors of the Attention Process”), is that the central nervous system consists of series of sensor-motor arcs superimposed on one another to form strata of successively higher function from below upwards; that the synapses or cell-junctions of the higher level arcs offer higher resistance in the resting state than those of arcs of lower level; that the waking state is essentially one in which the generally diffused excitement of the whole system reduces these resistances of the higher levels to such degree that excitations from lower levels can penetrate them, such penetration being impossible in the quiescent state owing to the high degrees of resistance presented by the synapses of these higher levels.
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MCDOUGALL, W. [Letters to Editor]. Nature 91, 662 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091662a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091662a0
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