Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory by Hugo Münsterberg (100 books to read .txt) 📕

Project Gutenberg’s Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1, by Various

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Title: Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1

Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the

Harvard Psychological Laboratory.

Author: Various

Editor: Hugo Münsterberg

Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16266]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE

Psychological Review

EDITED BY

J. McKEEN CATTELL and J. MARK BALDWIN

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF

ALFRED BINET, ÉCOLE DES HAUTES-ÉTUDES, 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 MÜNSTERBERG, 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,

Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the

Harvard Psychological Laboratory.

EDITED BY

HUGO MÜNSTERBERG.

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remained unpublished through lack of space, henceforth, we hope to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 ‘Grundzüge

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 rôle 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 rôle 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 æsthetic 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 æsthetic 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 rôle 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 coöperation.

*

CONTENTS.

Preface: Hugo Münsterberg ……………………………….. i

STUDIES IN PERCEPTION.

Eye-Movement and Central Anæsthesia: 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 ÆSTHETIC 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 Æsthetics 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 Münsterberg ……………………………………. 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 ANÆSTHESIA.

BY EDWIN B. HOLT.

I. THE PROBLEM OF ANÆSTHESIA DURING EYE-MOVEMENT.

A first suggestion of the possible presence of anæsthesia 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

anæsthesia 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 anæsthesia, perhaps in the latter case there is

anæsthesia.

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