Automatism (redirected from command automatism)

automatism

Method of painting or drawing in which conscious control over the movement of the hand is suppressed so that the subconscious mind may take over. For some Abstract Expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock, the automatic process encompassed the entire process of composition. The Surrealists, having once achieved an interesting image or form by automatic or chance means, exploited the technique with fully conscious purpose. See also Abstract Expressionism, action painting, Surrealism.

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automatism [ȯ′täm·ə‚tiz·əm]

(biology)

Spontaneous activity of tissues or cells.

(medicine)

An act performed with no apparent exercise of will, as in sleepwalking and certain hysterical and epileptic states.

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Automatism 

(1) In physiology, the capacity of an organ or of certain cells for rhythmic, periodic, or aperiodic activity without apparent connection with external, inciting causes. Some examples of automatism are heart contractions, looping of the intestines even when removed from the body, the fluttering of the cilia of certain epithelial cells, and the movement of protoplasm in plant cells. The cause of automatism is either the cyclic character of metabolic processes in the cells or, on a higher level of organization, the activity of systems of stimulated cells—for example, nerve cells located in the cardiac muscle or in the respiratory center of the brain. Another form of automatism, resulting from the strengthening of conditioned reflex connections, is stereotypical activity performed passively and mechanically—for example, the movement of the extremities in walking, the so-called associated movements of various groups of muscles (in the neck, trunk, or extremities), and other motor automatisms.

L. P. LATASH

(2) In psychology, an action performed with the almost complete absence of conscious control. In contradistinction to physiological processes (such as breathing and the working of the heart), which are originally involuntary, psychological actions proceed primarily under conscious control and are only gradually transformed, as learning proceeds, into automatic acts that become the basis for various kinds of habits. On the physiological level, automatism corresponds to the dynamic stereotype.

V. A. KOSTELOVSKII