[The comparison of human reflex and instinct behaviour (author's transl)]

On the basis of characteristics of the exteroceptive reflexes and of the instincts it was shown that instinct behaviour developed from reflex characteristics (local characteristic of the stimuli, pos. and neg. taxis, habituation, conditioning). Most similarities are found between reflex and avoidance instinct behaviour (instincts for excretion, thermoregulation, body care, pain avoidance and safety). Except the safety instinct, all others react on stimuli, characterised by the localisation of the receptors. In the safety instinct the structure of the stimulus becomes important, together with the growing importance of the third dimension. This instinct shows also for the first time a variability of the threshold with spontaneous remaining low for some time after stimulation of the system. Inverse the gain instincts (nutrition, sex and social instinct). Here the threshold falls spontaneously, when stimuli are lacking and raises, when stimuli are found. The spontaneous motor expression of the lowering of the threshold is the appetite behaviour. It means seeking stimuli, which will be gained by elements of the initial and terminal success behaviour. The successfull nutritional and sexual behaviour is stopped by success inhibition, whereas the social instinct remains in the terminal success behaviour with group dynamic hierarchy, with imitating and helping behaviour. Overchanging of the gain instincts provokes avoidance behaviour with constant threshold. The neural systems of most reflexes lie distributed in the spinal cord and brainstem, the ones of the instincts in the limbic part of the brain, the nutrition and sex instinct with a hypothalamic pacemaker. Simultaneous activation of two or many instinct motivation systems result, not comparable with the direct reflex interaction, in interactions on the level of the global interaction, in interactions on the level of the global integration (summation, mixture, synthesis, rest, oscillation, intention) which projects the activity patterns via the motor cortex to the peripheral neurons. There it is completed by the reflexes. The hormonal and vegetative projection instead go directly to the end organs. The motivation is responsible for the subjective experience, the dominating integration with its motor projection for the instinct behaviour.