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Reflex action   /rˈiflɛks ˈækʃən/   Listen
Reflex action

noun
1.
An automatic instinctive unlearned reaction to a stimulus.  Synonyms: inborn reflex, innate reflex, instinctive reflex, physiological reaction, reflex, reflex response, unconditioned reflex.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Reflex action" Quotes from Famous Books



... of God. Now, I say, that if man does not go out of God he will never sin; and if he sin, it is because he has gone out of Him, which can only be the effect of appropriation; and the soul can only take itself back from its abandonment by reflex action, which would be to it a hell similar to that into which the great angel fell when, looking with complacency upon himself, and preferring himself to God, he became a devil. And this state would be more terrible as that which had been ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... all quivering with the reflex action of the words which had burst from his heart, and with the feverish fire in his blood. His legs shook and bent under him. He was once or twice obliged to seize the banisters and stop. On reaching the last column, he leaned ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... modern psychology and physiology, Dr. Max Dessoir, of Berlin, following, indeed, M. Taine, has arrived, as we saw, at somewhat similar conclusions. 'This fully conscious life of the spirit,' in which we moderns now live, 'seems to rest upon a substratum of reflex action of a hallucinatory type.' Our actual modern condition is not 'fundamental,' and 'hallucination represents, at least in its nascent condition, the main trunk ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... of the race has been organically modified by these experiences, we have no choice but to conclude, that when a young bird is led to fly, it is because the impression produced in its senses by the approaching man entails, through an incipiently reflex action, a partial excitement of all those nerves which in its ancestors had been excited under the like conditions; that this partial excitement has its accompanying painful consciousness, and that the vague painful consciousness thus arising constitutes emotion proper—emotion undecomposable ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... enough accuracy for ordinary purposes as the result of reflex action, or the immediate response of the nerves to a stimulus, without the intervention of consciousness. Many bodily functions are naturally reflex, and most movements may be made so by constant repetition; ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... principle and such as refer to candidates, have in them a moral element which is vital. And here we are safer with the ballot in the hands of woman; for her keener insight and truer moral sense will more certainly guide her aright—and not her alone, but also, by reflex action, all whose minds are open to the influence of her example. The weight of this answer can hardly be overestimated. In my judgment, this moral consideration far more than offsets all the objections that can be based on any assumed lack of an intellectual ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... finally abolishes reflex action by a direct action upon the cord, and by a slight action upon the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... hence, nervous ganglia, being composed of that material, may be considered as registering apparatus. They also introduce the element of time into the action of the nervous mechanism. An impression, which without them might have forthwith ended in reflex action, is delayed, and with this duration come all those important effects arising through the interaction of many impressions, old ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... into the tree were soon lost in the overgrowth, and yet all the branches that came from them carried the genius of one single variety and of none other. And I often speculated whether there were any reflex action of these many varieties on the root, demanding a certain kind of ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... under the conscious influence of the mind, it would be found that the pulse under the conscious effort is beating either more rapidly or more slowly or that it is not beating as regularly as in the case of unconscious or reflex action. ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... 1841, it would be a serious omission not to notice the important contributions of the late Professor Laycock shortly before as well as after that year. In 1840 he first promulgated the opinion that "the brain, although the organ of consciousness, is subject to the laws of reflex action, and in this respect does not differ from other ganglia of the nervous system."[304] And in a paper read before the British Association, September, 1844, he observed, "Insanity and dreaming present the best field for investigating the laws of that extension of action from ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... beside him, gripping his arm. Now she could see the outline of Leffler's body at her feet. The wealthy collector was doubled up on the ground, shrivelled as had been Rooney. His feet, moving as though by reflex action, patted the floor from time to time, making a curious clicking sound as the buttons of his gray spats struck ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... liveliest spirits of that time it had seemed nothing less than "impeccable," after the manner of the great sacred products of the past, though in a living tongue. Nay! to Gaston for one, the power of the old classic poetry itself was explained by the reflex action of the new, and might seem to justify its pretensions ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... The reflex action upon Rhodes was that unconsciously he drifted into the conviction that every man could be bought, provided one knew what it was he wanted. He understood perfectly well the art of speculating in his neighbours' weaknesses, and thus ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... subsequent delight consequent upon the examination of a curiosity; that its function is sometimes, with this portion of delight, to commingle grief or distress, and that it may, (though this is not its function,) excite mental anguish, and by a reflex action, actual body pain. Now then to particularize, by example; let us suppose a perfect and correct painting of a stone, a common stone such as we walk over. Now although this subject might to a religious man, suggest a text of scripture; ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... any sudden noise reaches the ears. It appears to be due to the fact that motor impulse is excited by perceptions without the necessary concurrence of the volition of the individual to cause the discharge, and are analogous to epileptiform paroxysms due to reflex action. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... little scientific control over the height of his ideal and the intensity of his belief in himself. He is born with them, as he is born with a certain pulse and a certain reflex action. He can neglect the ideal, so that it almost dissolves, but he cannot change its height. He can maim his belief in himself by persistent abandonment to folly, but he cannot lower its flame by an effort of the will, as he might lower the flame of a gas by a calculated turn of the hand. ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett

... The simplest example of the action of the nervous system is reflex action. For instance, when the foot of a frog, or the hand of a soundly sleeping person, is tickled very gently, the limb is moved away from the irritation, without any mental action, and entirely without will being exercised. And when we go ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... certain delicate nerves of the surface of the skin, generally connected with the roots of the downy hair of the body—or resting where the hair roots would naturally be, in the case of a hairless skin. These seem to report directly to the solar-plexus, which then acts quickly by reflex action on the other parts of the body, causing an instinctive feeling to either fly the scene or else to crouch and hide oneself. This feeling, as may be seen at once, is an inheritance from our savage ancestors, or perhaps from our lowly-animal ancestral roots. It is a most unpleasant feeling, and ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... to the "Hornung crowd." Their answering challenge of "Sold" was as the voice of one man. They did not pause to reflect upon the strangeness of the circumstance. (That was for afterward.) Their response to the offer was as unconscious, as reflex action and almost as rapid, and before the pit was well aware of what had happened the transaction of one thousand bushels was down upon Going's trading-card and fifteen hundred dollars had changed hands. But here was a marvel—the whole available supply of wheat cornered, Hornung master of the situation, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris



Words linked to "Reflex action" :   accommodation reflex, reaction, belching, myotactic reflex, nictitation, pharyngeal reflex, yawning, rooting reflex, stretch reflex, patellar reflex, eructation, blink, goose pimple, fart, breaking wind, micturition reflex, winking, singultus, oscitance, pupillary reflex, plantar reflex, goosebump, electric shock, shake, vomit, myosis, gulping, burp, knee jerk, wind, startle, disgorgement, instinctive reflex, yawn, start, emesis, flush, blush, mydriasis, hiccup, rectal reflex, belch, sneeze, oscitancy, sternutation, horripilation, shock, electrical shock, shiver, miosis, puking, jump, innate reflex, Babinski sign, Babinski reflex, gag reflex, nictation, response, flatus, blinking, hiccough, burping, goose bump, eye blink, tremble, gooseflesh, light reflex, pilomotor reflex, gulp, knee-jerk reflex, wink, goose skin, regurgitation, defecation reflex, sneezing, vomiting, Babinski, suckling reflex, farting



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