AbstractsPsychology

The relation of muscle tension to mental work has been studied since the days of the Wurzburg school and the controversy over “imageless thought” (Humphrey, 1951, p. 187). In 1887, for example, Lombard (cited by Bills, 1927) found the knee jerk to be enhanced by mental effort, and Loeb reported that pressure on a dynamometer tends to slacken when accompanied by mental effort. Bills has also reviewed extensive studies by Golla, in which it was shown that the tonicity of many muscles measured during mental work was invariably heightened. Bills (1927) was apparently the first to test the functional significance of experimentally induced muscle tension and psychological activity.