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ten Locomotion as a Metaphor for Mind By the mid-1930s, McGraw and Dewey had completed a remarkable series of studies that laid a solid foundation for understanding how developmental processes give birth to judgment and inquiry. But three important questions remained unresolved: How do speci¤c phases in locomotor development become organized? Through what speci¤c neuromuscular processes do these different behaviors become integrated? And by what neural mechanisms is energy allocated and redistributed to bring about fundamental changes in human behavioral capabilities and cognitive powers? Dewey considered the third problem to be particularly important because it bore directly on the issue of whether evolution sustained a progressive enlargement in human consciousness and intelligence . McGraw, Dewey, and Lawrence Frank met in Florida in January 1935 to discuss how they could address these problems in future research. To McGraw’s surprise, Frank indicated that the General Education Board (GEB) of the Rockefeller Foundation was willing to give away some of its principal to support a larger, longer-term interdisciplinary research project.1 Frank subsequently persuaded the GEB in 1936 to make a generous multiyear award to McGraw and her colleagues to conduct a broad array of interrelated studies. With the support of Tilney, Dewey, and Frank, McGraw put together an interdisciplinary group of ten researchers and eight technicians that included a neurophysiologist, a physiologist, a biochemist, two pediatricians, three psychologists , and two nurse-lab technicians. The complete scope of this project, documented in more than ¤fty journal articles, has yet to be fully appreciated. This ambitious undertaking, that Dewey could only dream of before, proposed to analyze all major structural and functional elements of growth including anatomical, physiological, and psychological developmental processes. McGraw outlined the work program in some detail, proposing to gather and correlate quantitative data about neuromuscular processes with other developmental processes involving the brain, respiratory, circulatory, autonomic, and metabolic systems. In addition, she proposed behavioral studies of infant gesture , vocalization, development of emotion, and concept formation. Among these latter proposals, only the study of concept formation was completed and documented in journal articles discussed later.2 brain waves, balance, and centered inquir y Dewey sought more evidence for his long-standing presumption, stated most explicitly in Human Nature and Conduct, that human behavior is governed by mechanisms that make possible the unity of mind and body in coordinated action.3 Dewey believed that biological mechanisms embodied in living organisms are strongly in®uenced or biased by the natural forces of nature that included gravity, energy, and movement. Hegel’s naturalism appealed to Dewey because it construed thought in terms of how lofty ideas are affected by gravitational forces that ground thought in human experience. Hegel contended that the complete grasp or comprehension of our own capabilities is attained only after experiencing the limits of action against gravitational forces that pull us back to earth. Hegel argued that the time during which a body falls freely back to earth is highly signi¤cant. This moment marks the period of ®uidity in which the self-shaping forces of being come to fruition in Spirit, integrating form and content into a uni¤ed whole. Hegel believed that the universal forces shaping matter evoked a speci¤c tonality, which he described metaphorically as “music of the spheres,” to designate the equilibrium attained between opposing forces.4 Hegel’s belief that gravity and balance possess not only scienti¤c importance for nature but have philosophical signi¤cance for thought was given added credibility by C. J. Herrick in 1924. He argued that behavior is coordinated by cerebral “mechanisms of correlation” that effectively balance the discharge of nervous energy by synchronizing metabolic rates governing different physiological functions. Adaptive responses to environmental changes are made possible by the relocation of the center of gravity of neurobiological functions that create new neural pathways through which excitation can be channeled and discharged. However, Herrick admitted that little was known about the exact nature of the nervous mechanism or energetic processes involved.5 Rignano believed that he had resolved these issues. He argued that a mnemonic mechanism furnishes the exact amount of nervous energy needed to bring about neuroanatomical change and then restores the organism to a prior state of physiological equilibrium.6 Rignano stated his argument in sketchy terms that alluded to the possibility that gravity plays a fundamental role in this balancing process. He speculated that “[a] total potential energy would form as it were a force of gravitation toward the environment of those conditions...

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