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

K. 3.15 2.75 2.95 2.30 2.79

1.62 1.57 1.12 1.25 1.39

Ave. 2.72 2.61 2.64 2.78 2.69

1.90 1.92 1.52 1.78 1.79

Ave. down, 2.78

Ave. of other movements, 2.66

Grand average, 2.24

NUMERICAL.

As each movement may be compared with three other movements, and as

there were five subjects and four variations in the conditions, there

are sixty opportunities of comparing the time required to move the

image in the direction in which the object was moved with the time

taken to move it in the other directions. In 45 instances the time was

less, in 3 the same, and in 12 greater.

These twelve instances occurred with two subjects, three (to left)

occurring with K. and nine (three each right, up, down) occurring with

H. The cause was the same in all twelve instances, both H. and K.

reporting that (in these cases) they had great difficulty in obtaining

a reasonably vivid and distinct image when directed to move the image

in the direction in which the object had been moved. The attempt to

move the image resulted in a vague image spread continuously over the

entire area that had been covered by the moving object, and the effort

to obtain the image at the desired position only was serious and took

an appreciably longer time than usual. It is to be noted, also, that

the time usually taken by H. is uniformly very much greater than the

time taken by the other subjects. Yet, even with these instances

included, the average time of all movements of the image in the

direction in which the object had been moved is less than the average

time of the other movements, the former being 2.41 seconds, the

latter, 2.59 seconds.

TABLE VIII.

MOVEMENTS OF A SINGLE IMAGE.

I., OBJECT PREVIOUSLY MOVED; II., OBJECT NOT MOVED.

Average Time Given in Seconds.

Subjects: B. G. H.

I II I II I II

To right, 0.57 1.30 0.55 1.46 6.95 7.15

Return, 0.35 0.58 0.27 0.92 5.40 4.51

To left, 0.60 1.06 0.45 1.15 5.95 6.42

Return, 0.40 0.73 0.35 0.89 4.10 4.41

Up, 0.42 1.05 0.45 0.99 6.85 5.96

Return, 0.42 0.46 0.25 0.76 5.30 4.36

Down, 0.57 1.10 0.47 0.82 8.77 5.85

Return, 0.42 0.45 0.27 0.06 5.55 4.40

General 0.54 1.13 0.48 1.10 7.13 6.34

Averages, 0.40 0.55 0.28 0.66 5.09 4.42

Subjects: I. K.

I II I II

To right, 2.05 1.28 2.35 4.80

Return, 1.15 0.67 1.17 2.40

To left, 1.30 1.34 2.57 4.63

Retur, 1.22 0.62 1.60 2.73

Up, 1.85 1.62 1.42 3.29

Return, 0.87 0.86 1.27 1.90

Down, 1.80 1.36 2.30 3.27

Return, 1.42 0.72 1.25 1.56

General 1.75 1.40 2.16 4.00

Averages, 1.16 0.72 1.32 2.15

If the record of H. is omitted from Table VII., a, c, and d, and

that of K. from VII., b (as these are the records of the twelve

exceptions), the former average becomes 1.44 seconds, the latter 1.86

seconds.

The following table affords the means of comparing the time taken in

moving the image in the direction in which the object had been moved

with the time taken in moving the image in the same direction when

there had been no movement of the object. The averages are obtained

from the records of Tables VII. and I.

We have here twenty comparisons each of movements away from the

original positions and movements back to the original positions:

In the first case, 15 took less time under I., 5 took more

time under I.

The 5 cases of more time occurred with two subjects (H., 3 and

I., 2).

In the second case, 12 took less time under I., 8 took more

time under I.

The 8 cases of more time occurred with three subjects (G., 1;

H., 3; I., 4).

If we omit H.‘s record and take the general averages for each subject,

we find the following advantages in time in form of movements where

the object had been moved;

B., 0.59 seconds.

G., 0.52 “

K., 1.84 “

But I., 0.35 seconds in favor of movements when the object had not

been moved.

Combining these results, we have 0.74 sec. as the average gain in time

for these four subjects.

SUBJECTIVE.

With one exception (G.), the subjects found Movements I., movements in

the direction in which the object had been moved, easier than

Movements II. In Movements II. the eye seemed to construct and compel

the motion, which was not the case with Movements I., in which the eye

followed the motion. The distance to which the image went in Movements

I. seemed predetermined, and these movements seemed exact copies of

the original movement of the object, being purely reminiscent and

reproducing its irregularities when there were any. Also, the image

was usually seen in transitu both out and back, which was never the

case with Movements II. Eye movement and enunciation were much less

frequent and the image was more vivid and distinct in Movements I.

*

STUDIES IN ÆSTHETIC PROCESSES.

*

Transcriber’s Note:

Rhythmic measures in the first 2 articles of this section are

transcribed as follows:

| delineates measure

q quarter note

q. dotted quarter note

e eighth note

% quarter rest

Major accent of the measure is indicated by a >, either above

or in front of the beat. Minor accent of the measure is

indicated by ., used in the same way.

> .

| q q q q | or | >q q .q q | represent the same rhythmic pattern.

*

THE STRUCTURE OF SIMPLE RHYTHM FORMS.

BY ROBERT MACDOUGALL.

I. PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF EXPERIMENTATION.

The investigation of the problems presented by the psychological

phenomena of rhythm has of late years occupied much attention and been

pushed in a variety of different directions. Some researches have been

concerned with an analysis of rhythm as an immediate subjective

experience, involving factors of perception, reaction, memory,

feeling, and the like; others have had to do with the specific

objective conditions under which this experience arises, and the

effect of changes in the relations of these factors; still others have

sought to coördinate the rhythm experience with more general laws of

activity in the organism, as the condition of most effective action,

and to affiliate its complex phenomena upon simpler laws of

physiological activity and repose; while a fourth group has undertaken

a description of that historical process which has resulted in the

establishment of artistic rhythm-types, and has sought to formulate

the laws of their construction.[1]

[1] Description: (1) Of the psychological factors of the rhythm

experience: Angell and Pierce, Ettlinger, Hauptmann, Mentz,

Meumann, Stumpf, Wundt, et al. (2) Of its objective conditions

and products: Binet et Courtier, Bolton, Ebhardt, Hurst and

McKay, Meumann, Schumann, Sievers, et al. (3) Of its

physiological accompaniments: Bolton, Brücke, Dogiel,

Hausegger, Mach, Mentz, Ribot, Sherrington, Scripture, Smith,

et al. (4) Of its historical evolution: Bücher, Moritz,

Scherer, et al.

This differentiation has already made such progress as to constitute

the general topic a field within which specialization is called for,

instead of an attempt to treat the phenomenon as a whole. It is the

purpose of this paper to describe a set of experiments having to do

with the second of these problems, the constitution of objective

rhythm forms. In the determination of such forms it is, of course,

impossible to avoid the employment of terms descriptive of the

immediate experience of rhythm as a psychological process, or to

overlook the constant connection which exists between the two groups

of facts. The rhythm form is not objectively definable as a stable

type of stimulation existing in and for itself; the discrimination of

true and false relations among its elements depends on the immediate

report of the consciousness in which it appears. The artistic form is

such only in virtue of its arousing in the observer that peculiar

quality of feeling expressed in calling the series of sensory stimuli

rhythmically pleasing, or equivalent, or perfect. In no other way than

as thus dependent on the appeal which their impression makes to the

æsthetic consciousness can we conceive of the development and

establishment of fixed forms of combination and sequence among those

types of sensory stimulation which arouse in us the pleasurable

experience of rhythm. The artistic rhythm form cannot be defined as

constituted of periods which are ‘chronometrically proportionate,’ or

mathematically simple. It is not such in virtue of any physical

relations which may obtain among its constituents, though it may be

dependent on such conditions in consequence of the subordination to

physical laws of the organic activities of the human individual. The

view must be subjectively objective throughout.

The need for simplicity and exactness has led to the very general

employment of material as barely sensorial as could be devised for the

carrying on of experiments upon rhythm. Rich tones and complex

combinations of them are to be avoided, for these qualities are

themselves immediate sources of pleasure, and the introduction of them

into the material of experimentation inevitably confuses the analysis

which the observer is called upon to make of his experience and of the

sources of his pleasure in it. Still more objectionable than the

presence of such complex musical tones in an investigation of rhythm

is the introduction of the symbols of rational speech in concrete

poetical forms. This element can be only a hindrance to the perception

of pure rhythmical relations, in virtue of the immediate interest

which the images called up by the verbal signs possess, and further,

in view of the fact that the connections of significant thought impose

upon the purely rhythmical formulation of the series of stimulations

an unrelated and antagonistic principle of grouping, namely, the

logical relations which the various members of the series bear to one

another.

The demand for a simplification of the material which supports the

rhythm experience, for the purpose of obtaining a more exact control

over the conditions of experimentation, has been met by the invention

of a variety of devices whereby the sequences of music, song and

poetical speech have been replaced by elementary conventional symbols

as the vehicle of the rhythmical impression or expression. On the one

side there has commonly been substituted for musical tones and

rhythmical speech the most simple, sharply limited and controllable

sounds possible, namely, those due to the action of a telephone

receiver, to the vibrations of a tuning-fork placed before the

aperture of a resonator, or to the strokes of metallic hammers falling

on their anvils. On the other side, the form of the reproduced rhythm

has been clarified by the substitution of the finger for the voice in

a series of simple motor reactions beaten out on a more or less

resonant medium; by the use—when the voice is employed—of

conventional verbal symbols instead of the elements of significant

speech; and—where actual verse has been spoken—by a treatment of the

words in formal staccato scansion, or by the beating of time

throughout the utterance. The last of these methods is a halting

between two courses which casts doubt on the results as characteristic

of either type of activity. There is no question that the rhythmic

forms of recitative poetry differ vastly from those of instrumental

music and chanted speech. The measures of spoken verse are elastic and

full of changefulness, while those of music and the chant maintain a

very decided constancy of relations. The latter present determinable

types of grouping and succession, while it is questionable whether the

forms of relationship in spoken verse can ever be considered apart

from the emotion of the