- No links match your filters. Clear Filters
-
Quoted by Sherrington to Denny-Brown - 17 May 1932 (S/2/11/7)
Description:Quotes a non-extant letter from Lodge to Sherrington: ''Oddly Lodge - Oliver L. - wrote me criticizing P[avlov]. last month. It may entertain you to hear how a scientist - not a biologist - regards the P. doctrine. "He is (i.e. P. is) converting all our actions into reflex actions!" "That a dog's salive [sic] should flow when shown a circular patch or at a tuning fork's sounding 256 vibrations p. sec. is natural enough if the repetition has been frequent. But to call this a reflex is begging the question: the stimulus would be without effect on an animal without a cortex, & therefore no-one can say it is purely reflex. The psychic part is merely denied, illegitimately. That it is psychic is shown by making the patch eliptical or changing the note to 264 vibrations makes the stimulus ineffective. I cannot imagine the slight variation differently affecting a tone reflex." And so on. The interest of this is that it shows what a well-educated layman regards as the meaning of the word 'reflex.' I think that as so understood it has become too ingrained for P. & the behaviourists to alter it.'