AbstractsPsychology

It is perhaps unfortunate that the term rythm must be used in this investigation, but usage seems to demand it. The objection to the term is that it may have three distinct meanings, physical, physiological, and psychological. The last of these concerns us here. There is certainly no danger of confusing the psychological with the physical rythms, but confusion of the two organic rythms, viz., the physiological and the psychological is a common circumstance. For this reason it would seem well to point out the difference between the two by the following concrete example. The physiologists say normal walking is a rythmical act. Whenever a man is so badly paralyzed in one of his limbs that he is obliged to give the diseased member a peculiar swing, in walking they use normal walking as a control and say the afflicted man walked nonrythmically. On the other hand the psychologists call the "hobbling metre" movements of the paralyzed person a two-rythm. The chief characteristic of rythm to the psychologist is the systematic accentuation and subordination of the elements of a series. This interest at once eliminates all physiological and physical rythms from the field of psychology.