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
early sensations keep coming up in his mind, and when he feels like
calling a sensation two he remembers how the first sensation felt and
sees that this one is not like that, and hence he calls it one. I pass
now to a brief discussion of what these experiments suggest.
It has long been known that two points near together on the skin are
often perceived as one. It has been held that in order to be felt as
two they must be far enough apart to have a spatial character, and
hence the distance necessary for two points to be perceived has been
called the 'space-threshold.' This threshold is usually determined
either by the method of minimal changes or by the method of right and
wrong cases.
If, in determining a threshold by the method of minimal changes--on
the back of the hand, for example, we assume that we can begin the
ascending series and find that two are perceived as one always until
the distance of twenty millimeters is reached, and that in the
descending series two are perceived as two until the distance of ten
millimeters is reached, we might then say that the threshold is
somewhere between ten and twenty millimeters. But if the results were
always the same and always as simple as this, still we could not say
that there is any probability in regard to the answer which would be
received if two contacts 12, 15, or 18 millimeters apart were given by
themselves. All we should know is that if they form part of an
ascending series the answer will be 'one,' if part of a descending
series 'two.'
The method of right and wrong cases is also subject to serious
objections. There is no lower limit, for no matter how close together
two points are they are often called two. If there is any upper limit
at all, it is so great that it is entirely useless. It might be argued
that by this method a distance could be found at which a given
percentage of answers would be correct. This is quite true, but of
what value is it? It enables one to obtain what one arbitrarily calls
a threshold, but it can go no further than that. When the experiment
changes the conditions change. The space may remain the same, but it
is only one of the elements which assist in forming the judgment, and
its importance is very much overestimated when it is made the basis
for determining the threshold.
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