Illusions by James Sully (story reading txt) 📕

Again, even when there is no error of recognition, in the sense of confusing one object with other objects, there may be partial illusion. I have remarked that the process of recognizing an object commonly involves an overlooking of points of diversity in the object, or aspect of the object, now present. And sometimes this inattention to what is actually present includes an error as to the actual visual sensation of the moment. Thus, for example, when I look at a sheet of white paper in a feebly lit room, I seem to see its whiteness. If, however, I bring it near the window, and let the sun fall on a part of it, I at once recognize that what I have been seeing is not white, but a decided grey. Similarly, when I look at a brick viaduct a mile or two off, I appear to myself to recognize its redness. In fact, however, the impression of colour which I receive from the object is not that of brick-red at all, but a much less decided tint; which I may easily prove by bending my head downwards and letting the scene image itself on the retina in an unusual way, in which case the recognition of the object as a viaduct being less distinct, I am better able to attend to the exact shade of the colour.

Nowhere is this inattention to the sensation of the moment exhibited in so striking a manner as in pictorial art. A picture of Meissonier may give the eye a representation of a scene in which the objects, as the human figures and horses, have a distinctness that belongs to near objects, but an apparent magnitude that belongs to distant objects. So again, it is found that the degree of luminosity or brightness of a pictorial representation differs in general enormously from that of the actual objects. Thus, according to the calculations of Helmholtz,[44] a picture representing a Bedouin's white raiment in blinding sunshine, will, when seen in a fairly lit gallery, have a degree of luminosity reaching only to about one-thirtieth of that of the actual object. On the other hand, a painting representing marble ruins illuminated by moonlight, will, under the same conditions of illumination, have a luminosity amounting to as much as from ten to twenty thousand times that of the object. Yet the spectator does not notice these stupendous discrepancies. The representation, in spite of its vast difference, at once carries the mind on to the actuality, and the spectator may even appear to himself, in moments of complete absorption, to be looking at the actual scene.

The truly startling part of these illusions is, that the direct result of sensory stimulation appears to be actually displaced by a mental image. Thus, in the case of Meyer's experiment, of looking at the distant viaduct, and of recognizing an artistic representation, imagination seems in a measure to take the place of sensation, or to blind the mind to what is actually before it.

The mystery of the process, however, greatly disappears when it is remembered that what we call a conscious "sensation" is really compounded of a result of sensory stimulation and a result of central reaction, of a purely passive impression and the mental activity involved in attending to this and classing it.[45] This being so, a sensation may be modified by anything exceptional in the mode of central reaction of the moment. Now, in all the cases just considered, we have one common feature, a powerful suggestion of the presence of a particular object or local arrangement. This suggestion, taking the form of a vivid mental image, dominates and overpowers the passive impression. Thus, in Meyer's experiment, the mind is possessed by the supposition that we are looking at the grey spot through a greenish medium. So in the case of the distant viaduct, we are under the mastery of the idea that what we see in the distance is a red brick structure. Once more, in the instance of looking at the picture, the spectator's imagination is enchained by the vivid representation of the object for which the picture stands, as the marble ruins in the moonlight or the Bedouin in the desert.

It may be well to add that this mental uncertainty as to the exact nature of a present impression is necessitated by the very conditions of accurate perception. If, as I have said, all recognition takes place by overlooking points of diversity, the mind must, in course of time, acquire a habit of not attending to the exact quality of sense-impressions in all cases where the interpretation seems plain and obvious. Or, to use Helmholtz's words, our sensations are, in a general way, of interest to us only as signs of things, and if we are sure of the thing, we readily overlook the precise nature of the impression. In short, we get into the way of attending only to what is essential, constant, and characteristic in objects, and disregarding what is variable and accidental.[46] Thus, we attend, in the first place, to the form of objects, the most constant and characteristic element of all, being comparatively inattentive to colour, which varies with distance, atmospheric changes, and mode of illumination. So we attend to the relative magnitude of objects rather than to the absolute, and to the relative intensities of light and shade rather than to the absolute; for in so doing we are noting what is constant for all distances and modes of illumination, and overlooking what is variable. And the success of pictorial art depends on the observance of this law of perception.

These remarks at once point out the limits of these illusions. In normal circumstances, an act of imagination, however vivid, cannot create the semblance of a sensation which is altogether absent; it can only slightly modify the actual impression by interfering with that process of comparison and classification which enters into all definite determination of sensational quality.

Another great fact that has come to light in the investigation of these illusions is that oft-recurring and familiar types of experience leave permanent dispositions in the mind. As I said when describing the process of perception, what has been frequently perceived is perceived more and more readily. It follows from this that the mind will be habitually disposed to form the corresponding mental images, and to interpret impressions by help of these. The range of artistic suggestion depends on this. A clever draughtsman can indicate a face by a few rough touches, and this is due to the fact that the spectator's mind is so familiarized, through recurring experience and special interest, with the object, that it is ready to construct the requisite mental image at the slightest external suggestion. And hence the risk of hasty and illusory interpretation.

These observations naturally conduct us to the consideration of the second great group of sense-illusions, which I have marked off as active illusions, where the action of a pre-existing intellectual disposition becomes much more clearly marked, and assumes the form of a free imaginative transformation of reality.

B. Active Illusions.

When giving an account of the mechanism of perception, I spoke of an independent action of the imagination which tends to anticipate the process of suggestion from without. Thus, when expecting a particular friend, I recognize his form much more readily than when my mind has not been preoccupied with his image.

A little consideration will show that this process must be highly favourable to illusion. To begin with, even if the preperception be correct, that is to say, if it answer to the perception, the mere fact of vivid expectation will affect the exact moment of the completed act of perception. And recent experiment shows that in certain cases such a previous activity of expectant attention may even lead to the illusory belief that the perception takes place before it actually does.[47]

A more palpable source of error resides in the risk of the formation of an inappropriate preperception. If a wrong mental image happens to have been formed and vividly entertained, and if the actual impression fits in to a certain extent with this independently formed preperception, we may have a fusion of the two which exactly simulates the form of a complete percept. Thus, for example, in the case just supposed, if another person, bearing some resemblance to our expected friend, chances to come into view, we may probably stumble into the error of taking one person for another.

On the physical side, we may, agreeably to the hypothesis mentioned above, express this result by saying that, owing to a partial identity in the nervous processes involved in the anticipatory image and the impression, the two tend to run one into the other, constituting one continuous process.

There are different ways in which this independent activity of the imagination may falsify our perceptions. Thus, we may voluntarily choose to entertain a certain image for the moment, and to look at the impression in a particular way, and within certain limits such capricious selection of an interpretation is effectual in giving a special significance to an impression. Or the process of independent preperception may go on apart from our volitions, and perhaps in spite of these, in which case the illusion has something of the irresistible necessity of a passive illusion. Let us consider separately each mode of production.

Voluntary Selection of Interpretation.

The action of a capricious exercise of the imagination in relation to an impression is illustrated in those cases where experience and suggestion offer to the interpreting mind an uncertain sound, that is to say, where the present sense-signs are ambiguous. Here we obviously have a choice of interpretation. And it is found that, in these cases, what we see depends very much on what we wish to see. The interpretation adopted is still, in a sense, the result of suggestion, but of one particular suggestion which the fancy of the moment determines. Or, to put it another way, the caprice of the moment causes the attention to focus itself in a particular manner, to direct itself specially to certain aspects and relations of objects.

The eye's interpretation of movement, already referred to, obviously offers a wide field for this play of selective imagination. When looking out of the window of a railway carriage, I can at will picture to my mind the trees and telegraph posts as moving objects. Sometimes the true interpretation is so uncertain that the least inclination to view the phenomenon in one way determines the result. This is illustrated in a curious observation of Sinsteden. One evening, on approaching a windmill obliquely from one side, which under these circumstances he saw only as a dark silhouette against a bright sky, he noticed that the sails appeared to go, now in one direction, now in another, according as he imagined himself looking at the front or at the back of the windmill.[48]

In the interpretation of geometrical drawings, as those of crystals, there is, as I have observed, a general tendency to view the flat delineation as answering to a raised object, or a body in relief, according to the common run of our experience. Yet there are cases where experience is less decided, and where, consequently, we may regard any particular line as advancing or receding. And it is found that when we vividly imagine that the drawing is that of a convex or concave