automaticity (a to mat is it i)

The state of being automatic; automatic action. Martin, Human Body (3d ed.), p. 23. automatism (a-tom'a-tizm), n. [ In considering the body as the instrument of the mind, I shall show you, first, the large amount of automatism in the human body. W. B. Carpenter. The imperfections in sensation, and the inhibition on the moral faculties imposed by alcoholic anæsthesia, so depre the mental powers as to compel them to a ume the characteristics of automatism; but the semblances of automatism are so similar to conscious rationality, that they disguise the actual incompetency of the moral powers. Alien. and Neurol., VI. 40. 2. The doctrine that animals, especially those below man, are automata, in the sense that all the phenomena exhibited by them are results of physical laws; especially, the doctrine of Des cartes that animals are devoid of consciousne .-3. The faculty of independently originating action or motion. (From the original sense of automaton.] N. E. D.