Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
We must remember, however, that, as we noticed in discussing the
experiments of Group 2, there is complicated with the lengthening
effect of a change the _bare constant error_, which appears even when
the three stimulations are similar in all respects except temporal
location. Compare _WWW_ with _SSS_, and we find that with all five
subjects the constant error is decidedly changed, being even reversed
in direction with three of the subjects.
Now, what determines the direction of the constant error, where there
is no pause between the intervals? Three subjects reported that at
times there seemed to be a slight loss of time after the second
stimulation, owing to the readjustment called for by the change of
attitude referred to above, so that the second interval was begun, not
really at the second stimulation, but a certain period after it. This
fact, if we assume it to be such, and also assume that it is present
to a certain degree in all observations of this kind, explains the
apparent overestimation of the first interval. Opposed to the factor
of _loss of time_ there is the factor of _perspective_, by which an
interval, or part of an interval, seems less in quantity as it recedes
into the past. The joint effect of these two factors determines the
constant error in any case where no pause is introduced between _ST_
and _CT_. It is then perfectly obvious that, as the perspective factor
is decreased by diminishing the intervals compared, the constant error
must receive positive increments, _i.e._, become algebraically
greater; which corresponds exactly with the results obtained by
Vierordt, Kollert, Estel, and Glass, that under ordinary conditions
long standard intervals are comparatively underestimated, and short
ones overestimated.
On the other hand, if with a given interval we vary the loss of time,
we also vary the constant error. We have seen that a change in the
intensity of the stimulations, although the relative intensity of the
three remains constant, produces this variation of the constant error;
and the individual differences of subjects with regard to sensibility,
power of attention and inhibition, and preferences for certain
intensities, lead us to the conclusion that for certain subjects
certain intensities of stimulation make the transition from the
receptive attitude to the reproductive easiest, and, therefore, most
rapid.
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