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
From this beginning one might have expected to find in the paper of
Jastrow and Moorehouse a complete explanation of the illusion. On
other points, however, these authors are less explicit. The changes in
width of the bands corresponding to different sizes of the sectors and
different rates of movement for the rod and disc, are not explained,
nor yet, what is more important, the color-phenomena. In particular
the fact needs to be explained, that the moving rod analyzes the
apparently homogeneous color of the disc; or, as Jastrow and
Moorehouse state it (_op. cit._, p. 202): "If two rotating discs were
presented to us, the one pure white in color, and the other of ideally
perfect spectral colors in proper proportion, so as to give a
precisely similar white, we could not distinguish between the two; but
by simply passing a rod in front of them and observing in the one case
but not in the other the parallel rows of colored bands, we could at
once pronounce the former to be composite, and the latter simple. In
the indefinitely brief moment during which the rod interrupts the
vision of the disc, the eye obtains an impression sufficient to
analyze to some extent into its elements this rapid mixture of
stimuli." The very question is as to _how_ the eye obtains the
'impression sufficient to analyze' the mixture.
It may be shown at this point that the mistake of these authors lies
in their recognition of but one set of bands, namely (_ibid._, p.
201), 'bands of a color similar to that present in greater proportion'
on the disc. But, on the other hand, it is to be emphasized that those
bands are separated from one another, not by the fused color of the
disc, as one should infer from the article, but by _other bands_,
which are, for their part, of a color similar to that present in
_lesser_ proportion. Thus, bands of the two colors alternate; and
either color of band is with equal ease to be distinguished from the
fused color of the main portion of the disc.
Why our authors make this mistake is also clear. They first studied
the illusion with the smaller sector of the disc open, and the rod
moving behind it; and since in this case the bands are separated by
strips not of the minority but of the fused color, and are of about
the width of the rod itself, these authors came to recognize bands of
but one sort, and to call these 'images of the rod.' But now, with the
rod moving in front of the disc, there appear bands of two colors
alternately disposed, and neither of these colors is the fused color
of the disc. Rather are these two colors approximately the majority
and minority colors of the disc as seen at rest. Thus, the recognition
of but one set of bands and the conclusion (_ibid._, p. 208) that 'the
bands originate during the vision of the minority color,' are wholly
erroneous. The bands originate as well during the vision of the
majority color, and, as will later be shown, the process is
continuous.
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