Psychological Bulletin

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0071321pmid: N/A

Reviews the books and the studies on tropisms and instinctive behavior. The review is presented under 4 headings (1) tropism and the lower forms of behavior, (2) instincts and the higher forms of behavior, (3) nervous system, and (4) miscellaneous. The study of changes in the environment and the organism is hoped to contribute to the study of evolution.

Lashley, K. S.; Dodson, J. D.

doi: 10.1037/h0070889pmid: N/A

Reviews 25 studies in the field of sensory physiology of animals (1915-1919). The topics reviewed included studies on the general sensitivity of the animals, sensitivity to tactile stimuli, light and chemicals, thermal sensitivity, and static and auditory sensitivity. The aim of the review is to update the literature on sensory physiology of various animals.

Shepard, John F.

doi: 10.1037/h0071914pmid: N/A

Reviews 16 studies of 13 authors, who had studied various aspects of habit formation and higher mental functions in animals (1917-1919). The 16 reports were concerned with different forms of learning and 13 of them made use of rats as Ss. The reports included studies on the role of visceral factors in process of selection, motor attitude and sensory results of a preceding act, response reflexes, transfer of training, and the like. The work of authors like Dodson, Watson, Lashley, White, Yoakum, and others have been reviewed.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0067163pmid: N/A

Reviews the book, Orthogenetic Evolution in Pigeons. Posthumous Works of C. O. Whitman. Vol. 3, The Behavior of Pigeons edited by Harvey A. Carr (1919). The "Behavior of Pigeons" brings together Whitman's observations on the instincts and habits of these birds. The material is grouped into three main divisions: the reproductive cycle, homing and other instincts, and instinct and intelligence. The editorial work has been done with care and nice judgment. There is no confusion between the views and data of Whitman and the comments by the editor. The scientific world may well applaud the labor which has made Whitman's observations available.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0069103pmid: N/A

Reviews the book, Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct by J. Loeb . It gives what is perhaps Loeb's best account of his well known views on animal behavior. An appendix lists 554 references representative of the field discussed. Nineteen chapters present a combination of fact and theory concerning the various tropisms, the Bunsen-Roscoe law as applied to heliotropism, instincts, and memory images. The account is neither so extended nor so adequte with reference to experimental facts as other available books. Loeb's present account emphasizes the following important factors: symmetry relations on the surface of the body and in the nervous system; the non-purposeful character of behavior; the view that tropisms are reactions of the organism as a whole and not cases of local action; the necessary physico-chemical nature of explanatory theories; and finally the constant action of the stimulus.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0069554pmid: N/A

Reviews the book, The Elementary Nervous System by G. H. Parker . In this number of the "Monographs on Experimental Biology" the nervous system is treated under three topics: Section I, the Effector Systems, four chapters; Section II, Receptor-Effector System, eight chapters; and Section III, Central Nervous Organs, to which the concluding chapter is given. Professor Parker defines the elementary nervous system as "that type of nervous system in which the structural and functional elements present themselves in their simplest states." It is in reality the neuro-muscular mechanism that constitutes the subject matter of the book. The author has given in detail the results of his own investigations and those of his students upon the problem of nervous functions and structures in lower animals, and has correlated this work in a helpful manner with the work of other authors. A useful bibliography is appended. The reviewer regrets, however, that the author did not extend his discussions, at least briefly, to neuroid structures in protozoa and to physiological gradients in lower animals, which, to some biologists at least, appear to be fundamentally allied with the problem of the elementary nervous system.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0069584pmid: N/A

Reviews the book, The Fundus Oculi of Birds Especially as Viewed by the Ophthalmoscope: A study in comparative anatomy and physiology by C. A. Wood . The great variety of structures presented by the eyes of birds with the diverse functions indicated by the habits of their possessors, makes the study of vision in birds one of the most promising fields for the solution of the general problems of the physiological anatomy of the eye. Investigators in many other fields, also, may look to the study of avian vision for valuable material. The evolutionary theories of sexual selection and mimicry will stand or fall with the analysis of visual acuity of birds; an understanding of such instinctive activities as homing and, at the other extreme, of cerebral function in binocular vision would be greatly furthered by investigations of the powers of sight in birds. With such problems in mind the reviewer took up Dr. Wood's monograph on the ocular fundus of birds with the feeling that here was opportunity for a real advance in the science of avian vision. But after a careful reading of the volume the reviewer was left with much the same feeling of hunger that follows a boarding-house chicken dinner; the portion was large, but it contained surprisingly little meat.