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

not much value. (5) F. 80, V. 134, taken with reference both

to frame and to the other picture—must not be symmetrical nor

too far out.

SUBJECT D.

F. V.

(1) (2) (3)

40 100 47 38

60 75 60 68

80 104 78 80

100 148, -12 104 120

120 159 166 160

140 182 152, 84, 78 168

160 193 184, -75 180

180 200 - 95, 190 190

Note.—F. 100, V.-12; F. 140, V.-52; F. 160, V. -75: they

must be close together when on the same side.

F. V.

(1) (2)¹

Subject M. 40 55 50

60 56 74

80 64 84

100 86 102

120 93 111

140 124 130

160 134 146

180 144 178

¹Second pair (Court).

Note.—(1) Quite impossible to take both together; necessary

to keep turning from one to the other to get perception of

depth together with both.

The subjects agree in remarking on the lack of interest of the closed

tunnel, and the attractive power of the open tunnel, and notes which

emphasize this accompany choices where the open tunnel is put

uniformly nearer. (Cf. H, F. 180, V. 50; F. 80, V. 13; G, (2),

(3), (4), (5); A, (3), and F. 140.) As a glance at the results shows

that the open tunnel is placed on the whole nearer the center, we may

conclude that these choices represent a mechanical balance, in which

the open tunnel, or depth in the third dimension, is ‘heavier.’

But another point of view asserts itself constantly in the results of

S, and scatteringly in those of the others. Analyzing at first only

the results of S, we find that up to F. 140, with one exception, he

places the open tunnel much farther out than the other; and from F.

140 on, nearer. He says, F. 120, V. 185, ‘After this there is too

large a black space’; that is, in bringing the open tunnel in, he is

evidently filling space. But why does he put the open tunnel so far

out? It seems that he is governed by the desire for ease in the

apperception of the two objects. In his note for F. 80, V. 180, this

point of view comes out clearly. He thinks of the objects as being

apperceived side by side with the space about each (which apparently

takes on the character of its object), and then he seems to balance

these two fields. Cf. F. 60, V. 195: ‘The closed tunnel allows the

eyes to wander, and so it needs a bigger field on each side.’

Evidently there is an implication here of the idea of balance. Cf.

also F. 120: ‘The black tunnel harmonizes with the black to the right,

and seems to correspond in distance and depth,’ while the closed

tunnel ‘hangs together with the black on the left.’ In brief, the view

of F. seems to be that the closed tunnel is less interesting, and

partly because it ‘allows the eyes to wander,’ partly as compensation

for the greater heaviness of the open tunnel, it takes with it a

larger space than the open tunnel. It is on the whole better to put

them apart, because it is more difficult to apperceive them when close

together, and so the open tunnel in the earlier choices must, of

course, go farther from the center. When these points conflict with

the necessity of filling space, the open tunnel comes nearer the

center. In general, the notes which emphasize the difficulty of

apperceiving the two pictures as flat and deep together accompany

choices where the tunnel is put uniformly farther out, or

symmetrically. Cf. G, (1), (5); A, (1); M, F. 40, etc.

Thus we may continue to separate the two points of view, that of

mechanical balance and that of another kind of balance, which we have

known heretofore as ‘space-filling,’ made possible by the power of the

center to give ‘weight,’ but which seems to be now more explicitly

recognized as a balancing of ‘fields.’ At this point we need repeat

only, however, that the suggestion of depth in the third dimension

seems to confer ‘weight,’ ‘heaviness,’ ‘balancing power’ on its

object.

Before making a general survey of the results of this chapter, it is

necessary to consider a type of choice which has been up to this

point consistently neglected—that in which the variable has been

placed on the same side of the center as the fixed object. On the

theory of balance, either in its simple mechanical form or in its

various disguises, this choice would at first seem to be inexplicable.

And yet the subjects usually took special pleasure in this choice,

when they made it at all. These minus choices are confined to three or

four subjects and to two or three experiments. Exp. I. (a) and (b)

show the largest number. We have:

EXP. I. (a) F. (80×10); V. (160×10).

F. V.

120 - 44,

160 -150, -105, -88

200 -94, -46, -110

(b) F. (160×10); V. (80×10).

F. V.

120 -70, -80

160 -114

200 -155, -146, -148

It will be noticed that, with two exceptions, none of the positions

chosen are nearer than 70 mm. to the center, and that most of them are

much farther away. The two lines seem to be more pleasing when they

are pretty close together on the same side. S, in I. (b) F. 120,

V.-70, notes: ‘If V. is nearer O, there is a tendency to imagine a

figure by the connection of the ends of the two lines, which is

disagreeable. ‘The only other minus choices were in Exp. VII., by

S,, H, and D. S, F. 120, V.-35, says: ‘Now they can be close

together,’ and H, F. 140, 160 and 180, V. -1, -32, -71, notes the

same. So also D, F. 100, V. -12; F. 140, V. -52; F. 160, V. -75; F.

180, V. -95. It is evident from this insistence on the closeness

together of the objects, and this desire to form no figure, that the

two are taken as one, and set off against the blackness on the other

side. It seems as if this were not taken as empty space, but acquired

a meaning of its own. The association with pictures in which the empty

space is occupied by a deep vista or an expanse of sky is almost

irresistible. The case of Exp. VII. seems a little different. S, at

least, separates the two fields as usual, but for him also the black

space is living, ‘corresponds in distance and depth.’ It is at least

certain that there is no subjective feeling of emptiness or of

unoccupied energies on the empty side. And it would seem that some

influence from the objects sweeps across the central field and

vitalizes it. The most natural view would seem to be that the ease of

apperception of the two objects together, and the tendency of the eye

movement to begin on the occupied side, and to sweep across to the

unoccupied, which we think of as deep, combine to give a feeling of

pleasure and of balance.

*

We have now reached a point from which a backward glance can be cast

upon the territory traversed. Experiment with the isolated elements in

pictorial composition has shown that pleasing arrangements of these

elements can be interpreted by the formula of mechanical balance. This

principle was obtained by opposing two lines whose relative value

(corresponding to ‘weight’ in balance) was known; and it was found

that their relative positions corresponded to the relation of the arms

of a balance. Further opposition of lines, of which one was already

determined in ‘weight,’ showed the same variations and suggested

certain valuations of the undetermined lines on the basis of this

common term of weight. Thus, the line suggesting movement out from the

center fitted the formula if taken as ‘heavy’ and vice versa, the

line suggesting movement in, if taken as ‘light.’ Similarly, objects

of interest and objects suggesting movement in the third dimension

were ‘heavy’ in the same interpretation. But this interpretation, in

its baldest form, fitted only a majority of the pleasing arrangements;

the minority, in which the consistent carrying out of the lever

principle would have left a large unoccupied space in the center,

exactly reversed it, bringing the ‘light’ element to the center and

the ‘heavy’ to the outer edge. Later experiments showed that this

choice implied a power in the ‘lighter’ objects, owing to their

central position, to cover or infuse with vitality the empty space

about them, so that the principle of balance seemed to maintain itself

in one form or another.

All this does not go beyond the proof that all pleasing space

arrangements can be described in terms of mechanical balance. But

what is this mechanical balance? A metaphor, no matter how

consistently carried out, explains nothing. The fact that a small

object far from the center is usually opposed by a large object near

the center tells us nothing of the real forces involved. Physical

balance can be explained by principles of mechanics, but no one will

maintain that the visual representation of a long line weighs more

than that of a short one. Moreover, the elements in the balance seem

utterly heterogeneous. The movement suggested by an idea—the picture

of a man running—has been treated as if equivalent to the movement

actually made by the eye in following a long line; the intrinsic

interest—that is, the ideal interest—of an object insignificant in

form has been equated to the attractive power of a perspective which

has, presumably, a merely physiological effect on the visual

mechanism. What justification can be given either of this

heterogeneous collection of elements or of the more or less arbitrary

and external metaphor by which they have been interpreted?

I believe that the required justification of both points of view is

given in the reduction of all elements to their lowest term—as

objects for the expenditure of attention. A large object and an

interesting object are ‘heavy’ for the same reason, because they call

out the attention; a deep perspective, because the eye rests in

it;—why, is another question. And expenditure of effort is

expenditure of attention; thus, if an object on the outskirts of the

field of vision requires a wide sweep of the eye to take it in, it

demands the expenditure of attention, and so is felt as ‘heavy.’ It

may be said that involuntary attention is given to the object of

intrinsic interest, while the uninteresting object far on the

outskirts needs a voluntary effort to perceive it, and that the two

attitudes cannot be treated as identical. To this it may be answered

that an object on the outskirts of a field of view so definitely

limited calls out of itself a reflex movement of the eye toward it, as

truly spontaneous as the impulse toward the object of intrinsic

interest. But what is ‘the expenditure of attention’ in physiological

terms? It is nothing more than the measure of the motor impulses

directed to the object of attention. And whether the motor impulse

appears as the tendency to fixate an object or as the tendency to

follow out the suggestions of motion in the object, they reduce to

the same physiological basis. It may here be objected that our motor

impulses are, nevertheless, still heterogeneous, inasmuch as some are

toward the object of interest, and some along the line of

movement. But it must be said, first, that these are not felt in the

body, but transferred as values of weight to points