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

usually came from either the lower left-hand or the upper right-hand

corner. F. kept a clear outline and the new color came in from the

right.

When E. found it difficult to create at the center the desired color,

he thought of some object (garment, grass, sky, etc.) of that color

and then transferred it to fill in the outline preserved at the

center. B. moved the colored figure aside and in its place put one of

the desired color, moved the new figure up to the old and there

superposed it. With G. the new colors seemed of new material and there

was felt to be an accumulation about the center, of old

color-material. Then he located the square outside of this imaginary

debris and began again. H. found that the colors of his own

experiments, in which he used color squares framed in black, came to

his mind at the names of the desired colors, and the association soon

gave him the figure also. I. located the new colors around the

presented one, first all at the right; then green at the left, red at

the right, yellow above, when presented blue was at the center; then

yellow and green were at the upper left-hand corner, while red came

from behind. The new color ‘slid in over the old.’ It was found easier

to secure the desired color when its position was known beforehand. J.

also used a similar device. He ‘turned towards the places and brought

out the required color and filled the central outline with it.’ He

tried to break up this scheme and got red without going after it but

found himself ‘at a loss to find the colors.’ Later he succeeded so

that the required color simply appeared in the outline of the old

color at the center. K. turned his eyes to corners of the central

outline, then to the center, and found that this aided in developing

the desired color from the corners inward. When difficulty arose, he

experienced muscular tension in body and legs and jaws.

Five of the subjects considered the change from a presented color to

blue the hardest and one found the change to red hardest. Green was

placed second in difficulty by one, and blue second by the one who

found red the hardest. Three reported the change to yellow the easiest

and two the change to red.

The change from red to yellow caused ‘an unpleasant sensation’ in C.

and the new figure ‘had a maroon halo.’

A. in returning from green or blue to yellow passed through a gray;

so, once, in changing from yellow to green, and once, green to red.

With A. blue retinal clouds, which often came, aided changes to blue

and hindered at times changes to other colors. B. had a fusion of

yellow and red in changing from yellow to red. G. had a tendency to

leave uncolored the lower left-hand corner and it ‘was wood-colored’;

G. had a gray image as the result of fusion of retinal clouds with red

memory image. With H. blue always came in as robin’s-egg blue, which

then had to be changed to the standard blue. In one instant the green

memory image seemed to shift into a purple and change to a positive

retinal image which interfered with changes to other colors. J. found

whistling and humming an aid in relaxing an unnatural state of tension

which would hinder the best results. To increase the vividness of the

image he would recall the black background on which the colored

squares had hung. In one experiment K. became ‘desperately tired of

yellow,’ which was the presented color, so that his ‘mind was ready to

jump to any color rather than yellow.’ The returns to yellow were, in

this experiment, slower than the changes from yellow.

The images sometimes changed sizes, being at times smaller, but

usually larger than the object. In one experiment of C. the image was

four times the size of the object, which was a green square with sides

of one inch.

III. MOVEMENTS OF TWO IMAGES IN THE SAME AND IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS.

Table IV. gives the results of experiments in the movements of two

images, the objects presented being colored squares or discs. Time of

perception was five seconds. After the disappearance of after-images,

if there were any, eighteen to twenty-four movements with returns to

original positions were made, occupying five or six minutes. The

colors were saturated blue, green, yellow and red. Four of the

movements were such as separated the two images, and in four the two

moved uniformly. The first four movements were right and left, left

and right, up and down, down and up; the left-hand object followed the

first direction indicated. The right-and-left movements involved the

crossing of the images. The last four were both to right, to left,

up, down. The time was taken with a stop-watch and includes the time

between the director’s word of command and the subject’s report,

‘now.’ It includes, therefore, two reaction times. The subject

reported the instant the colors reached, or appeared at, the suggested

positions.

It is to be noticed that H. was very much slower than any of the

others in making the movements, both out and back; and that K., while

also slower (though much less so than H.) in making the movements

outward, was no slower in making the return movements.

TABLE IV.

MOVEMENTS OF TWO IMAGES.

Twenty movements of each kind for each subject. Averages in seconds.

In Opposite Directions.

Subj. L.-R. Ret. R.-L. Ret. U.-D. Ret. D.-U. Ret.

B. 1.82 2.90 2.10 2.27

0.86 0.87 0.73 0.86

G. 3.02 2.86 2.68 2.63

1.98 2.25 1.63 2.01

H. 9.18 10.30 7.50 7.15

5.16 6.90 5.36 5.21

I. 4.17 3.52 3.40 3.37

1.26 1.47 1.23 1.31

J. 2.17 2.90 2.87 2.27

1.05 1.63 1.02 1.13

K. 5.51 6.43 5.16 4.81

1.43 1.48 1.20 1.23

Ave. 4.32 4.82 3.82 3.75

1.96 2.43 1.87 1.96

Average of all movements involving separation (480), 4.18. Returns, 2.06.

In Same Direction.

Subj. R. Ret. L. Ret. U. Ret. D. Ret.

B. 1.31 1.22 1.30 1.11

0.72 0.67 0.72 0.85

G. 2.66 2.35 3.01 2.53

2.00 1.86 2.22 1.86

H. 8.45 7.91 5.66 7.66

6.53 5.95 5.96 6.11

I. 2.57 2.27 2.13 2.05

0.97 1.26 1.00 1.13

J. 1.11 1.16 1.08 11.5

0.68 0.90 0.73 0.71

K. 3.97 3.91 3.60 4.07

1.35 1.50 1.75 1.71

Ave. 3.33 3.14 2.79 3.10

2.04 2.02 2.04 2.06

Average of all movements together (480), 3.09. Returns, 2.04.

NUMERICAL.

There were nineteen hundred and twenty movements in all, including the

returns to the original positions.

In the order of difficulty as shown by the time taken, the movements

stand as follows, the numbers being the averages in seconds for one

hundred and twenty movements of each kind:

1. Right and left (i.e., crossing), 4.82 sec.

2. Left and right, 4.32 “

3. Up and down, 3.82 “

4. Down and up, 3.75 “

5. Both right, 3.33 “

6. Both left, 3.14 “

7. Both down, 3.10 “

8. Both up, 3.04 “

SUBJECTIVE.

In the experiments in which the time was recorded, there was no

disappearance of either image except where movements were made

successively. In these cases frequently the image which was awaiting

its turn vanished until the first image was placed, a time varying

from a quarter of a second to three or four seconds. Occasionally the

image already placed would vanish, while the other was en route; the

subject’s attention in both these cases being centered exclusively on

the image he desired to move. This was especially the case when the

distances to which the images were moved were great, as to the ends of

the room or to ceiling and floor. In other experiments, where, after

the movements took place, the images were held for a short time, there

were disappearances of one image or the other ranging from one quarter

of a second to fifteen seconds, most of the absences, however, being

under five seconds. The absences were more numerous in the latter half

of the five minutes covered by the experiment. Occasionally a noise in

the adjoining room or in the street made the images disappear.

The greater ease of vertical as compared with horizontal movements

recalls an observation of Ladd,[3] in which the idioretinal light was

willed into the shape of a cross. Ladd says: “The vertical bar of the

cross seems much easier to produce and to hold steadily in the field.”

This present observation is also in accord with that described above

in the case of movements of a single image.

[3] Ladd, G.T.: ‘Direct Control of the Retinal Field,’ PSYCH.

REV., 1894, L, pp. 351-355.

On several occasions G. reported that the crossing movement was the

easiest, and that the return to the original places was not easier

than the other movements. In one experiment he reported the field at

the center cloudy, so that it was a relief to get away from it. G.‘s

time records on these occasions did not support his feeling with

regard to the return to the original places, but they show that the

crossing movements were, in two or three instances, quicker than the

‘left-and-right’ movement, and the impression of promptness thus made

persisted to the end of the experiment. The four movements in which

both images moved uniformly were easier than the four in which

movements in different directions were involved.

All the subjects were frequently conscious of eye movements, and more

frequently conscious of a tendency to eye movement, which was,

however, inhibited. That the strain in the eyes was practically

constant during all the movements away from the original places, seems

evident from the unanimous reports of a sense of relaxing and relief

in the eyes, attending the movement of returning to the original

places. The distance to which the images were moved was a powerful

factor in producing this sense of strain. When the two images were

moved and held but a few inches apart there was no sense of strain and

no conscious alternation of attention. Practice increased greatly the

distance at which the images could be held apart without conscious

alternation of attention, but the strain of holding them apart and of

inhibiting eye movement increased with the distance.

In the movements for which the time was recorded the distances varied,

according to the subject, from six to eighteen inches, and varied at

times with each subject. In the experiments without time record, A.,

B., C., E., F. and H. reported that they were able to move the images

apart to ceiling and to floor, or to the opposite ends of the room,

and to hold them there both in consciousness at the same time without

either alternation of attention or eye movement, a tendency to which

was felt but was inhibited. I. held them two feet apart without

fluctuation of attention. A. reported: “I tend to turn my body to left

or to right when I move the images in either of these directions.” C.,

H. and I. said: “The eyes diverge when one image moves slowly to the

right and one to the left.” D. found a slight movement of the eyes

which could be detected by the fingers placed lightly on the lids,

when the attention was alternating between the images. K. had

convergence and divergence of the eyes for crossing and separation

respectively and he was accustomed to run his eye over the outline of

the image. Strain in the scalp muscles was reported by A., B., E., F.

and G. The up-and-down movements were universally characterized by a

feeling