"The Centipede's Dilemma" is a short poem which has given its name to an effect in psychology: the centipede effect (or centipede syndrome). This is when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it. For example a golfer thinking too closely about her swing or someone thinking too much about how they knot their tie may find their performance of the task impaired. The effect is also known as hyper-reflection or Humphrey's law[1] after the English psychologist George Humphrey (1889-1966) who propounded it in 1923. As he wrote of the poem, "This is a most psychological rhyme. It contains a profound truth which is illustrated daily in the lives of all of us".
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The poem, a short rhyme illustrating a solvitur ambulando-in reverse, is usually attributed to Katherine Craster (1841-74)[1] in Pinafore Peoms, 1871.[2] It had begun appearing in journals by 1881, in particular The Spectator and The Living Age.[3] The poem later appeared in an article by the British zoologist E. Ray Lankester in the May 23, 1889 issue of the scientific journal Nature[4] which discussed the work of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge in capturing the motion of animals: "For my own part," wrote Lankester, "I should greatly like to apply Mr. Muybridge's cameras, or a similar set of batteries, to the investigation of a phenomenon more puzzling even than that of "the galloping horse". I allude to the problem of "the running centipede." Lankester finished the article on a fanciful note by imagining the "disastrous results in the way of perplexity" that could result from such an investigation, quoting the poem and mentioning that the author was unknown to him or to the friend who sent it to him. It has since been variously attributed to specific authors but without convincing evidence, and often appears under the title "The Centipede's Dilemma".
The version in the article is as follows:
Modern versions of the poem often recast it in verse as a fable of a spider (or other protagonist) who found a clever way to avoid being eaten:
The psychologist George Humphrey referred to the tale in his 1923 book The story of man's mind:[5] "No man skilled at a trade needs to put his constant attention on the routine work," he wrote. "If he does, the job is apt to be spoiled." He went on to recount the centipede's story, commenting, "This is a most psychological rhyme. It contains a profound truth which is illustrated daily in the lives of all of us, for exactly the same thing happens if we pay conscious attention to any well-formed habit, such as walking." Thus, the eponymous "Humphrey's law" states that once performance of a task has become automatized, conscious thought about the task, while performing it, impairs performance.[6] Whereas habit diminishes and then eliminates the attention required for routine tasks, this automaticity is disrupted by attention to a normally unconscious competence.
The philosopher Karl Popper referred to the centipede effect in his book Knowledge and the body-mind problem: in defence of interaction:[7] "if we have learnt certain movements so that they have sunk below the level of conscious control, then if we try to follow them consciously we very often interfere with them so badly that we stop them." He gives the example of the violinist Adolf Busch who was asked by fellow-violinist Bronisław Huberman how he played a certain passage of Beethoven's violin concerto. Busch told Huberman that it was quite simple — and then found that he could no longer play the passage.
In 1903 Simplicissimus magazine printed an adaptation of the story by the Austrian author Gustav Meyrink, "The Curse of The Toad" ("Der Fluch der Kröte"). The fable was also published in Meyrink's 1903 collection of tales, The Hot Soldier and Other Stories.[8]
The fable was later applied in Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon story of the same name,[9] in which an amoral but unimaginative man was using an unusual psychic power to win games, do well as a fisherman, and steal booze from others in the bar. He was found out, and when asked how he did it, he replied that he made things "want" other things. His glass "wanted" booze, the dartboard "wanted" darts, and so on. When pressed for details on what the "state of wanting darts" was like, which he had never actually considered before, he created the state in his own head—which caused the darts to fly from the dart board to hit him, luckily non-lethally, in the forehead. Robinson also used the concept in his completion of the Robert Heinlein novel Variable Star.