automatism
(ɔːˈtɒmətɪz(ə)m)
[f. automat-on + -ism; cf. Gr. αὐτοµατισµός that which happens of itself, and F. automatisme.]
1. The quality of being automatic, or of acting mechanically only; involuntary action. Hence, the doctrine attributing this quality to animals.
| 1838 Blackw. Mag. XLIII. 605 The Cartesian doctrine of the automatism of the whole animal kingdom. 1857 T. Webb Intell. Locke viii. 154 Whatever is done from blind Impulse is Automatism rather than Action. 1879 Mallock Life worth Living 171 The unity or dualism of existence, the independence or automatism of the life and will of man. |
2. Mechanical, unthinking routine.
| 1882 in Med. Temp. Jrnl. No. 52. 154 Nowhere, perhaps, is medical automatism seen..more commonly than in our Lunatic Asylums. |
3. The faculty of independently originating action or motion. (From the original sense of automaton.)
| 1876 Foster Phys. i. iii. (1879) 111 Automatism, i.e. the power of initiating disturbances or vital impulses, independent of any immediate disturbing event or stimulus from without, is one of the fundamental properties of protoplasm. 1882 Romanes in Nature XXV. 335 The hypothesis of conscious automatism is nothing more than an emphatic restatement of the truth, that the relation between body and mind is a relation which has so far proved inconceivable. |
4. Any psychic phenomenon that appears spontaneously in consciousness; any action performed subconsciously or unconsciously, undirected by the mind or will of the normal personality; also, the mental state in which these phenomena occur.
| 1884 Myers in Proc. Soc. Psychical Research II. 223 In the graphic automatism of mental abstraction and the graphic automatism of cerebral disease, the passages written are usually very short. 1886 E. Gurney et al. Phantasms of Living I. ii. 76 The planchette-writing obtained through the automatism of a young child. 1889 Barkworth in Proc. Soc. Psychical Research Dec. 85 We have..instances of complete automatism in the case of the sleep-walker who goes through a variety of complicated actions entirely self-suggested. a 1901 Myers Human Personality (1903) I. Gloss. s.v., Sensory automatism will thus include visual and auditory hallucinations; motor automatism will include messages written without intention. |
5. spec. A technique in surrealist painting (see quot. 1958).
| [1935 D. Gascoyne tr. A. Breton in Short Survey Surrealism iv. 61 Surrealism, pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, verbally, in writing, or by other means, the real process of thought.] 1948 H. Read in Philos. Mod. Art (1952) I. ii. 53 Applying Freudian methods to the problems of artistic creation, Breton evolved a theory and..practice of aesthetic automatism which is the essential feature of surréalisme. 1958 M. L. Wolf Dict. Painting 25 Automatism, in art, the principle of creation without the interference of thought... Practically, it is the unfettered stroke of brush or pencil, with no direction, will, or control exercised by the conscious mind. |