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

within modes very near the minimum. Glancing for a moment at the

individual averages, we see that none coincides with the total

(although D is very near), and that out of eighteen, only four (D

twice, G twice) come within five millimeters of the general average,

while eight (B, C, J twice each, F, H) lie between ten and

fifteen millimeters away. The two total averages (although near the

golden section), are thus chiefly conspicuous in showing those regions

of the line that were avoided as not beautiful. Within a range of

ninety millimeters, divided into eighteen sections of five millimeters

each, there are ten such sections (50 mm.) each of which represents

the maximum of some one subject. The range of maximum judgments is

thus about one third the whole line. From such wide limits it is, I

think, a methodological error to pick out some single point, and

maintain that any explanation whatever of the divisions there made

interprets adequately our pleasure in unequal division. Can, above

all, the golden section, which in only two cases (D, G) falls

within the maximum mode; in five (A, C, F, J twice) entirely

outside all modes, and in no single instance within the maximum on

both sides the center—can this seriously play the role of æsthetic

norm?

I may state here, briefly, the results of several sets of judgments on

lines of the same length as the first but wider, and on other lines of

the same width but shorter. There were not enough judgments in either

case to make an exact comparison of averages valuable, but in three

successively shorter lines, only one subject out of eight varied in a

constant direction, making his divisions, as the line grew shorter,

absolutely nearer the ends. He himself felt, in fact, that he kept

about the same absolute position on the line, regardless of the

successive shortenings, made by covering up the ends. This I found to

be practically true, and it accounts for the increasing variation

toward the ends. Further, with all the subjects but one, two out of

three pairs of averages (one pair for each length of line) bore the

same relative positions to the center as in the normal line. That is,

if the average was nearer the center on the left than on the right,

then the same held true for the smaller lines. Not only this. With one

exception, the positions of the averages of the various subjects, when

considered relatively to one another, stood the same in the shorter

lines, in two cases out of three. In short, not only did the pair of

averages of each subject on each of the shorter lines retain the same

relative positions as in the normal line, but the zone of preference

of any subject bore the same relation to that of any other. Such

approximations are near enough, perhaps, to warrant the statement that

the absolute length of line makes no appreciable difference in the

æsthetic judgment. In the wider lines the agreement of the judgments

with those of the normal line was, as might be expected, still closer.

In these tests only six subjects were used. As in the former case,

however, E was here the exception, his averages being appreciably

nearer the center than in the original line. But his judgments of this

line, taken during the same period, were so much on the central tack

that a comparison of them with those of the wider lines shows very

close similarity. The following table will show how E‘s judgments

varied constantly towards the center:

AVERAGE.

L. R.

1. Twenty-one judgments (11 on L. and 10 on R.) during

experimentation on I¹, I², etc., but not on same days. 64 65

judging on I¹, I², etc. 69 71

judging on I¹, I², etc. 72 71

4. Twelve taken after all experimentation with I¹,

I², etc., had ceased. 71 69

The measurements are always from the ends of the line. It looks as if

the judgments in (3) were pushed further to the center by being

immediately preceded by those on the shorter and the wider lines, but

those in (1) and (2) differ markedly, and yet were under no such

influences.

From the work on the simple line, with its variations in width and

length, these conclusions seem to me of interest. (1) The records

offer no one division that can be validly taken to represent ‘the most

pleasing proportion’ and from which interpretation may issue. (2) With

one exception (E) the subjects, while differing widely from one

another in elasticity of judgment, confined themselves severally to

pretty constant regions of choice, which hold, relatively, for

different lengths and widths of line. (3) Towards the extremities

judgments seldom stray beyond a point that would divide the line into

fourths, but they approach the center very closely. Most of the

subjects, however, found a slight remove from the center

disagreeable. (4) Introspectively the subjects were ordinarily aware

of a range within which judgments might give equal pleasure, although

a slight disturbance of any particular judgment would usually be

recognized as a departure from the point of maximum pleasingness. This

feeling of potential elasticity of judgment, combined with that of

certainty in regard to any particular instance, demands—when the

other results are also kept in mind—an interpretative theory to take

account of every judgment, and forbids it to seize on an average as

the basis of explanation for judgments that persist in maintaining

their æsthetic autonomy.

I shall now proceed to the interpretative part of the paper. Bilateral

symmetry has long been recognized as a primary principle in æsthetic

composition. We inveterately seek to arrange the elements of a figure

so as to secure, horizontally, on either side of a central point of

reference, an objective equivalence of lines and masses. At one

extreme this may be the rigid mathematical symmetry of geometrically

similar halves; at the other, an intricate system of compensations in

which size on one side is balanced by distance on the other,

elaboration of design by mass, and so on. Physiologically speaking,

there is here a corresponding equality of muscular innervations, a

setting free of bilaterally equal organic energies. Introspection will

localize the basis of these in seemingly equal eye movements, in a

strain of the head from side to side, as one half the field is

regarded, or the other, and in the tendency of one half the body

towards a massed horizontal movement, which is nevertheless held in

check by a similar impulse, on the part of the other half, in the

opposite direction, so that equilibrium results. The psychic

accompaniment is a feeling of balance; the mind is æsthetically

satisfied, at rest. And through whatever bewildering variety of

elements in the figure, it is this simple bilateral equivalence that

brings us to æsthetic rest. If, however, the symmetry is not good, if

we find a gap in design where we expected a filling, the accustomed

equilibrium of the organism does not result; psychically there is lack

of balance, and the object is æsthetically painful. We seem to have,

then, in symmetry, three aspects. First, the objective quantitative

equality of sides; second, a corresponding equivalence of bilaterally

disposed organic energies, brought into equilibrium because acting in

opposite directions; third, a feeling of balance, which is, in

symmetry, our æsthetic satisfaction.

It would be possible, as I have intimated, to arrange a series of

symmetrical figures in which the first would show simple geometrical

reduplication of one side by the other, obvious at a glance; and the

last, such a qualitative variety of compensating elements that only

painstaking experimentation could make apparent what elements balanced

others. The second, through its more subtle exemplification of the

rule of quantitative equivalence, might be called a higher order of

symmetry. Suppose now that we find given, objects which, æsthetically

pleasing, nevertheless present, on one side of a point of reference,

or center of division, elements that actually have none corresponding

to them on the other; where there is not, in short, objective

bilateral equivalence, however subtly manifested, but, rather, a

complete lack of compensation, a striking asymmetry. The simplest,

most convincing case of this is the horizontal straight line,

unequally divided. Must we, because of the lack of objective equality

of sides, also say that the bilaterally equivalent muscular

innervations are likewise lacking, and that our pleasure consequently

does not arise from the feeling of balance? A new aspect of

psychophysical æsthetics thus presents itself. Must we invoke a new

principle for horizontal unequal division, or is it but a subtly

disguised variation of the more familiar symmetry? And in vertical

unequal division, what principle governs? A further paper will deal

with vertical division. The present paper, as I have said, offers a

theory for the horizontal.

To this end, there were introduced, along with the simple line figures

already described, more varied ones, designed to suggest

interpretation. One whole class of figures was tried and discarded

because the variations, being introduced at the ends of the simple

line, suggested at once the up-and-down balance of the lever about the

division point as a fulcrum, and became, therefore, instances of

simple symmetry. The parallel between such figures and the simple line

failed, also, in the lack of homogeneity on either side the division

point in the former, so that the figure did not appear to center at,

or issue from the point of division, but rather to terminate or

concentrate in the end variations. A class of figures that obviated

both these difficulties was finally adopted and adhered to throughout

the work. As exposed, the figures were as long as the simple line, but

of varying widths. On one side, by means of horizontal parallels, the

horizontality of the original line was emphasized, while on the other

there were introduced various patterns (fillings). Each figure was

movable to the right or the left, behind a stationary opening 160 mm.

in length, so that one side might be shortened to any desired degree

and the other at the same time lengthened, the total length remaining

constant. In this way the division point (the junction of the two

sides) could be made to occupy any position on the figure. The figures

were also reversible, in order to present the variety-filling on the

right or the left.

If it were found that such a filling in one figure varied from one in

another so that it obviously presented more than the other of some

clearly distinguishable element, and yielded divisions in which it

occupied constantly a shorter space than the other, then we could,

theoretically, shorten the divisions at will by adding to the filling

in the one respect. If this were true it would be evident that what we

demand is an equivalence of fillings—a shorter length being made

equivalent to the longer horizontal parallels by the addition of more

of the element in which the two short fillings essentially differ. It

would then be a fair inference that the different lengths allotted by

the various subjects to the short division of the simple line result

from varying degrees of substitution of the element, reduced to its

simplest terms, in which our filling varied. Unequal division would

thus be an instance of bilateral symmetry.

The thought is plausible. For, in regarding the short part of the line

with the long still in vision, one would be likely, from the æsthetic

tendency to introduce symmetry into the arrangement of objects, to be

irritated by the discrepant inequality of the two lengths, and, in

order