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Various - Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1

V >> Various >> Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1



THE
Psychological Review


_EDITED BY_


J. McKEEN CATTELL and J. MARK BALDWIN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY


_WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF_

ALFRED BINET, ECOLE DES HAUTES-ETUDES, PARIS;
JOHN DEWEY, H.H. DONALDSON, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO;
G.S. FULLERTON, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA;
G.H. HOWISON, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA;
JOSEPH JASTROW, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN;
G.T. LADD, YALE UNIVERSITY;
HUGO MUeNSTERBERG, HARVARD UNIVERSITY;
M. ALLEN STARR, COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEW YORK;
CARL STUMPF, UNIVERSITY, BERLIN;
JAMES SULLY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

H.C. WARREN, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, _Associate Editor and Business Manager_.

* * * * *




Series of Monograph Supplements,
Vol. IV., No. 1 (Whole No. 17), January, 1903.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES,

Volume I
CONTAINING

Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the
Harvard Psychological Laboratory.

EDITED BY
HUGO MUeNSTERBERG.


PUBLISHED BI-MONTHLY BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
41 N. QUEEN ST., LANCASTER, PA.
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

AGENT: G.E. STECHERT, LONDON (2 Star Yard, Cary St., W.C.)
Leipzig (Hospital St., 10); PARIS (76 rue de Rennes).



PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
LANCASTER, PA.

* * * * *




PREFACE.


The appearance of the HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES does not indicate
an internal change in the work of the Harvard Psychological
Laboratory. But while up to this time the results of our
investigations have been scattered in various places, and have often
remained unpublished through lack of space, henceforth, we hope to
have in these STUDIES the opportunity to publish the researches of the
Harvard Laboratory more fully and in one place. Only contributions
from members of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory will be printed
in these volumes, which will appear at irregular intervals, and the
contributions will represent only our experimental work;
non-experimental papers will form an exception, as with the present
volume, wherein only the last one of the sixteen papers belongs to
theoretical psychology.

This first volume does not give account of all sides of our laboratory
work. An essential part of the investigations every year has been the
study of the active processes, such as attention, apperception, and
volition. During the last year several papers from these fields have
been completed, but we were unable to include them in this volume on
account of the space limits; they are kept back for the second volume,
in which accordingly the essays on the active functions will prevail,
as those on perception, memory, and feeling prevail in this volume. It
is thus clear that we aim to extend our experimental work over the
whole field of psychology and to avoid one-sideness. Nevertheless
there is no absence of unity in our work; it is not scattered work as
might appear at a first glance; for while the choice of subjects is
always made with relation to the special interests of the students,
there is after all one central interest which unifies the work and has
influenced the development of the whole laboratory during the years of
my direction.

I have always believed--a view I have fully discussed in my 'Grundzuege
der Psychologie'--that of the two great contending theories of modern
psychology, neither the association theory nor the apperception theory
is a satisfactory expression of facts, and that a synthesis of both
which combines the advantages without the defects of either can be
attained as soon as a psychophysical theory is developed which shall
consider the central process in its dependence, not only upon the
sensory, but also upon the motor excitement. This I call the _action
theory_. In the service of this theory it is essential to study more
fully the role of the centrifugal processes in mental life, and,
although perhaps no single paper of this first volume appears to offer
a direct discussion of this motor problem, it was my interest in this
most general question which controlled the selection of all the
particular problems.

This relation to the central problem of the role of centrifugal
processes involves hardly any limitation as to the subject matter;
plenty of problems offer themselves in almost every chapter of
psychology, since no mental function is without relation to the
centrifugal actions. Yet, it is unavoidable that certain groups of
questions should predominate for a while. This volume indicates, for
instance, that the aesthetic processes have attracted our attention in
an especially high degree. But even if we abstract from their
important relation to the motor functions, we have good reasons for
turning to them, as the aesthetic feelings are of all feeling processes
decidedly those which can be produced in the laboratory most purely;
their disinterested character makes them more satisfactory for
experimental study than any other feelings.

Another group of researches which predominates in our laboratory is
that on comparative psychology. Three rooms of the laboratory are
reserved for psychological experiments on animals, under the special
charge of Dr. Yerkes. The work is strictly psychological, not
vivisectional; and it is our special purpose to bring animal
psychology more in contact with those methods which have found their
development in the laboratories for human psychology. The use of the
reaction-time method for the study of the frog, as described in the
fifteenth paper, may stand as a typical illustration of our aim.

All the work of this volume has been done by well-trained
post-graduate students, and, above all, such advanced students were
not only the experimenters but also the only subjects. It is the rule
of the laboratory that everyone who carries on a special research has
to be a subject in several other investigations. The reporting
experimenters take the responsibility for the theoretical views which
they express. While I have proposed the subjects and methods for all
the investigations, and while I can take the responsibility for the
experiments which were carried on under my daily supervision, I have
left fullest freedom to the authors in the expression of their views.
My own views and my own conclusions from the experiments would not
seldom be in contradiction with theirs, as the authors are sometimes
also in contradiction with one another; but while I, of course, have
taken part in frequent discussions during the work, in the completed
papers my role has been merely that of editor, and I have nowhere
added further comments.

In this work of editing I am under great obligation to Dr. Holt, the
assistant of the laboratory, for his helpful cooeperation.

* * * * *




CONTENTS.


Preface: Hugo Muensterberg ...................................... i

STUDIES IN PERCEPTION.

Eye-Movement and Central Anaesthesia: Edwin B. Holt ........... 3
Tactual Illusions: Charles H. Rieber ......................... 47
Tactual Time Estimation: Knight Dunlap ....................... 101
Perception of Number through Touch: J. Franklin Messenger .... 123
The Subjective Horizon: Robert MacDougall .................... 145
The Illusion of Resolution-Stripes on the Color-Wheel:
Edwin B. Holt .............................................. 167

STUDIES IN MEMORY.

Recall of Words, Objects and Movements: Harvey A. Peterson ... 207
Mutual Inhibition of Memory Images: Frederick Meakin ......... 235
Control of the Memory Image: Charles S. Moore ................ 277

STUDIES IN AESTHETIC PROCESSES.

The Structure of Simple Rhythm Forms: Robert MacDougall ...... 309
Rhythm and Rhyme: R.H. Stetson ............................... 413
Studies in Symmetry: Ethel D. Puffer ......................... 467
The AEsthetics of Unequal Division: Rosewell Parker Angier .... 541

STUDIES IN ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Habit Formation in the Crawfish, Camburus affinis: Robert
M. Yerkes and Gurry E. Huggins ............................. 565
The Instincts, Habits and Reactions of the Frog: Robert
Mearns Yerkes .............................................. 579

STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY.

The Position of Psychology in the System of Knowledge:
Hugo Muensterberg ........................................... 641



PLATES.

OPPOSITE PAGE
Plate I ....................................................... 20
" II ....................................................... 24
" III ....................................................... 28
" IV ....................................................... 34
" V ....................................................... 190
" VI ....................................................... 198
" VII ....................................................... 200
" VIII ....................................................... 314
" IX ....................................................... 417
" X ....................................................... 436

Charts of the Sciences, at end of volume.

* * * * *




STUDIES IN PERCEPTION.




* * * * *




EYE-MOVEMENT AND CENTRAL ANAESTHESIA.

BY EDWIN B. HOLT.


I. THE PROBLEM OF ANAESTHESIA DURING EYE-MOVEMENT.


A first suggestion of the possible presence of anaesthesia during
eye-movement is given by a very simple observation. All near objects
seen from a fairly rapidly moving car appear fused. No further
suggestion of their various contour is distinguishable than blurred
streaks of color arranged parallel, in a hazy stream which flows
rapidly past toward the rear of the train. Whereas if the eye is kept
constantly moving from object to object scarcely a suggestion of this
blurred appearance can be detected. The phenomenon is striking, since,
if the eye moves in the same direction as the train, it is certain
that the images on the retina succeed one another even more rapidly
than when the eye is at rest. A supposition which occurs to one at
once as a possible explanation is that perchance during eye-movement
the retinal stimulations do not affect consciousness.

On the other hand, if one fixates a fly which happens to be crawling
across the window-pane and follows its movements continuously, the
objects outside swim past as confusedly as ever, and the image of the
fly remains always distinct. Here the eye is moving, and it may be
rapidly, yet both the fly and the blurred landscape testify to a
thorough awareness of the retinal stimulations. There seems to be no
anaesthesia here. It may be, however, that the eye-movement which
follows a moving object is different from that which strikes out
independently across the visual field; and while in the former case
there is no anaesthesia, perhaps in the latter case there is
anaesthesia.

Cattell,[1] in considering a similar experience, gives his opinion
that not the absence of fusion for the moving eye, but its presence
for the resting eye, needs explanation. "More than a thousand
interruptions per second," he believes, "give a series of sharply
defined retinal processes." But as for the fusion of moving objects
seen when the eyes are at rest, Cattell says, "It is not necessary and
would probably be disadvantageous for us to see the separate phases."
Even where distinct vision would be 'disadvantageous' he half doubts
if fusion comes to the rescue, or if even the color-wheel ever
produces complete fusion. "I have never been able," he writes, "to
make gray in a color-wheel from red and green (with the necessary
correction of blue), but when it is as nearly gray as it can be got I
see both red and green with an appearance of translucence."

[1] Cattell, J. McK., PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1900, VII., p. 325.

That the retina can hold apart more than one thousand stimulations per
second, that there is, in fact, no such thing as fusion, is a
supposition which is in such striking contrast to all previous
explanations of optical phenomena, that it should be accepted only if
no other theory can do justice to them. It is hoped that the following
pages will show that the facts do not demand such a theory.

Another simple observation is interesting in this connection. If at
any time, except when the eyes are quite fresh, one closes one's eyes
and attends to the after-images, some will be found which are so faint
as to be just barely distinguishable from the idioretinal light. If
the attention is then fixed on one such after-image, and the eyes are
moved, the image will suddenly disappear and slowly emerge again after
the eyes have come to rest. This disappearance during eye-movements
can be observed also on after-images of considerable intensity; these,
however, flash back instantly into view, so that the observation is
somewhat more difficult. Exner,[2] in speaking of this phenomenon,
adds that in general "subjective visual phenomena whose origin lies in
the retina, as for instance after-images, Purkinje's vessel-figure,
or the phenomena of circulation under discussion, are almost
exclusively to be seen when the eye is rigidly fixed on a certain
spot: as soon as a movement of the eye is made, the subjective
phenomena disappear."

[2] Exner, Sigmund, _Zeitschrift f. Psychologie u. Physiologie
der Sinnesorgane_, 1890, I., S. 46.

The facts here mentioned in no wise contradict a phenomenon recently
discussed by McDougall,[3] wherein eye-movements revive sensations
which had already faded. Thus an eye-movement will bring back an
after-image which was no longer visible. This return to vividness
takes place after the movement has been completed, and there is no
contention that the image is seen just during the movement.

[3] McDougall, W., _Mind_, N.S., X., 1901, p. 52.

The disappearance of after-images during eye-movements is mentioned by
Fick and Guerber,[4] who seek to explain the phenomenon by ascribing it
to a momentary period of recovery which the retina perhaps undergoes,
and which would for the moment prevent further stimulations from being
transmitted to the optic nerve. Exner observes that this explanation
would not, however, apply to the disappearance of the vessel-figure,
the circulation phenomenon, the foveal figure, the polarization-sheaf
of Haidinger, Maxwell's spot, or the ring of Loewe; for these phenomena
disappear in a similar manner during movement. Exner offers another
and a highly suggestive explanation. He says of the phenomenon (_op.
citat._, S. 47), "This is obviously related to the following fact,
that objective and subjective impressions are not to be distinguished
as such, so long as the eye is at rest, but that they are immediately
distinguished if an eye-movement is executed; for then the subjective
phenomena move with the eye, whereas the objective phenomena are not
displaced.... This neglect of the subjective phenomena is effected,
however, not by means of an act of will, but rather by some central
mechanism which, perhaps in the manner of a reflex inhibition,
withholds the stimulation in question from consciousness, without our
assistance and indeed without our knowledge." The suggestion of a
central mechanism which brings about a reflex inhibition is the
significant point.

[4] Fick, Eug., and Guerber, A., _Berichte d. ophthalmologischen
Gesellschaft in Heidelberg_, 1889.

It is furthermore worth noting that movements of the eyelid and
changes in the accommodation also cause the after-images to disappear
(Fick and Guerber), whereas artificial displacement of the eye, as by
means of pressure from the finger, does not interfere with the images
(Exner).

Another motive for suspecting anaesthesia during eye-movement is found
by Dodge,[5] in the fact that, "One may watch one's eyes as closely as
possible, even with the aid of a concave reflector, whether one looks
from one eye to the other, or from some more distant object to one's
own eyes, the eyes may be seen now in one position and now in another,
but never in motion." This phenomenon was described by Graefe,[6] who
believed it was to be explained in the same way as the illusion which
one experiences in a railway coach when another train is moving
parallel with the coach in which one sits, in the same direction and
at the same speed. The second train, of course, appears motionless.

[5] Dodge, Raymond, PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1900, VII., p. 456.

[6] Graefe, A., _Archiv f. Ophthalmologie_, 1895, XLI., 3, S.
136.

This explanation of Graefe is not to be admitted, however, since in
the case of eye-movement there are muscular sensations of one's own
activity, which are not present when one merely sits in a coach. These
sensations of eye-movement are in all cases so intimately connected
with our perception of the movement of objects, that they may not be
in this case simply neglected. The case of the eye trying to watch its
own movement in a mirror is more nearly comparable with the case in
which the eye follows the movement of some independent object, as a
race-horse or a shooting-star. In both cases the image remains on
virtually the same point of the retina, and in both cases muscular
sensations afford the knowledge that the eye is moving. The
shooting-star, however, is perceived to move, and the question
remains, why is not the eye in the mirror also seen to move?

F. Ostwald[7] refutes the explanation of Graefe from quite different
considerations, and gives one of his own, which depends on the
geometrical relations subsisting between the axes of vision of the
real eye and its reflected image. His explanation is too long to be
here considered, an undertaking which indeed the following
circumstance renders unnecessary. While it is true that the eye cannot
observe the full sweep of its own movement, yet nothing is easier than
to observe its movement through the very last part of the arc. If one
eye is closed, and the other is brought to within about six inches of
an ordinary mirror, and made to describe little movements from some
adjacent part of the mirror to its own reflected image, this image can
almost without exception be observed as just coming to rest. That is,
the very last part of the movement _can_ be seen. The explanation of
Ostwald can therefore not be correct, for according to it not alone
some parts of the movement, but absolutely all parts alike must remain
invisible. It still remains, therefore, to ask why the greater part of
the movement eludes observation. The correct explanation will account
not only for the impossibility of seeing the first part of the
movement but also for the possibility of seeing the remainder.

[7] Ostwald, F., _Revue Scientifique_, 1896, 4e Serie, V., p.
466.

Apart from the experience of the eye watching itself in a glass, Dodge
(_loc. citat._) found another fact which strongly suggested
anaesthesia. In the course of some experiments on reading, conducted by
Erdmann and Dodge, the question came up, how "to explain the meaning
of those strangely rhythmic pauses of the eye in reading every page of
printed matter." It was demonstrated (_ibid._, p. 457) "that the
rhythmic pauses in reading are the moments of significant
stimulation.... If a simple letter or figure is placed between two
fixation-points so as to be irrecognizable from both, no eye-movement
is found to make it clear, which does not show a full stop between
them."

With these facts in view Dodge made an experiment to test the
hypothesis of anaesthesia. He proceeded as follows (_ibid._, p. 458):
"A disc of black cardboard thirteen inches in diameter, in which a
circle of one-eighth inch round holes, one half inch apart, had been
punched close to the periphery all around, was made to revolve at such
a velocity that, while the light from the holes fused to a bright
circle when the eye was at rest, when the eye moved in the direction
of the disc's rotation from one fixation point, seen through the fused
circle of light, to another one inch distant, three clear-cut round
holes were seen much brighter than the band of light out of which they
seemed to emerge. This was only possible when the velocity of the
holes was sufficient to keep their images at exactly the same spot on
the retina during the movement of the eye. The significant thing is
that the individual round spots of light thus seen were much more
intense than the fused line of light seen while the eyes were at rest.
Neither my assistant nor I was able to detect any difference in
brightness between them and the background when altogether
unobstructed." Dodge finds that this experiment 'disproves' the
hypothesis of anaesthesia.

If by 'anaesthesia' is meant a condition of the retinal end-organs in
which they should be momentarily indifferent to excitation by
light-waves, the hypothesis is indeed disproved, for obviously the
'three clear-cut round holes' which appeared as bright as the
unobstructed background were due to a summation of the light which
reached the retina during the movement, through three holes of the
disc, and which fell on the same three spots of the retina as long as
the disc and the eyeball were moving at the same angular rate. But
such a momentary anaesthesia of the retina itself would in any case,
from our knowledge of its physiological and chemical structure, be
utterly inconceivable.

On the other hand, there seems to be nothing in the experiment which
shows that the images of the three holes were present to consciousness
just during the movement, rather than immediately thereafter. A
central mechanism of inhibition, such as Exner mentions, might
condition a central anaesthesia during movement, although the
functioning of the retina should remain unaltered. Such a central
anaesthesia would just as well account for the phenomena which have
been enumerated. The three luminous images could be supposed to remain
unmodified for a finite interval as positive after-images, and as such
first to appear in consciousness. Inasmuch as 'the arc of eye
movements was 4.7 deg.' only, the time would be too brief to make possible
any reliable judgment as to whether the three holes were seen during
or just after the eye-movement. With this point in view, the writer
repeated the experiment of Dodge, and found indeed nothing which gave
a hint as to the exact time when the images emerged in consciousness.
The results of Dodge were otherwise entirely confirmed.


II. THE PHENOMENON OF 'FALSELY LOCALIZED AFTER-IMAGES.'


A further fact suggestive of anaesthesia during movement comes from an
unexpected source. While walking in the street of an evening, if one
fixates for a moment some bright light and then quickly turns the eye
away, one will observe that a luminous streak seems to dart out from
the light and to shoot away in either of two directions, either in the
same direction as that in which the eye moved, or in just the
opposite. If the eye makes only a slight movement, say of 5 deg., the
streak jumps with the eye; but if the eye sweeps through a rather
large arc, say of 40 deg., the luminous streak darts away in the opposite
direction. In the latter case, moreover, a faint streak of light
appears later, lying in the direction of the eye-movement.

This phenomenon was probably first described by Mach, in 1886.[8] His
view is essentially as follows: It is clear that in whatever direction
the eye moves, away from its luminous fixation point, the streak
described on the retina by the luminous image will lie on the same
part of the retina as it would have lain on had the eye remained at
rest but the object moved in the opposite direction. Thus, if the eye
moves to the right, we should expect the streak to appear to dart to
the left. If, however, the streak has not faded by the time the eye
has come to rest on a new fixation point (by supposition to the right
of the old), we should expect the streak to be localized to the left
of this, that is, to the right of the former fixation-point. In order
to be projected, a retinal image has to be localized with reference to
some point, generally the fixation-point of the eyes; and it is
therefore clear that when two such fixation-points are involved, the
localization will be ambiguous if for any reason the central apparatus
does not clearly determine which shall be the point of reference. With
regard to the oppositely moving streak Mach says:[9] "The streak is,
of course, an after-image, which comes to consciousness only on, or
shortly before, the completion of the eye-movement, nevertheless with
positional values which correspond, remarkably enough, not to the
later but to the earlier position and innervation of the eyes." Mach
does not further attempt to explain the phenomenon.

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