6. The problem may arise of the reliability of impressions of habitual
pressure. Weber made the earliest experiments, later verified by
Fechner, showing that the sensation of weight differs a great deal on
different portions of the skin. The most sensitive are the forehead, the
temples, the eyelids, the inside of the forearm. The most insensitive
are the lips, the trunk and the finger-nails. If piles of six silver
dollars are laid on various parts of the body, and then removed, one at
a time, the differences are variously felt. In order to notice a removal
the following number must be taken away:
One dollar from the top of the finger,
One dollar from the sole of the foot,
Two dollars from the flat of the hand,
Two dollars from the shoulder blade,
Three dollars from the heel,
Four dollars from the back of the head,
Four dollars from the breast,
Five dollars from the middle of the back,
Five dollars from the abdomen.
Further examinations have revealed nothing new. Successful experiments
to determine differences between men and women, educated and uneducated,
in the acuteness of the sense of pressure, have not been made. The facts
they involve may be of use in cases of assault, choking, etc.
Topic 2. PERCEPTION AND CONCEPTION.
Section 44.
What lawyers have to consider in the transition from purely sensory
impressions to intellectual conceptions of these impressions, is the
possibility of later reproducing any observed object or event. Many
so-called scientific distinctions have, under the impulse of scientific
psychology, lost their status. Modern psychology does not see
sharply-drawn boundaries between perception and memory, and suggests
that the proper solution of the problem of perception is the solution of
the problem of knowledge.[189]
With regard to the relation of consciousness to perception we will make
the distinctions made by Fischer.[190] There are two spheres or regions
of consciousness: the region of sensation, and of external perception.
The former involves the inner structure of the organism, the latter
passes from the organism into the objective world. Consciousness has a
sphere of action in which it deals with the external world by means of
the motor nerves and muscles, and a sphere of perception which is the
business of the senses.
External perception involves three principal functions: apprehension,
differentiation, and combination. Perception in the narrower sense of
the term is the simple sensory conscious apprehension of some present
object stimulating our eyes. We discover by means of it what the object
is, its relation to ourselves and other things, its distance from us,
its name, etc.
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