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
Again, it is incorrect, even in the case of those bands seen behind
the open sector, to call the bands 'images of the rod,' for images of
the rod would be of the color of the rod, whereas, as our authors
themselves say (_ibid._, p. 201), the bands 'are of a color similar to
that present in greater proportion' on the disc. Moreover the 'images
of the rod' are of the most diverse widths. In fact, we shall find
that the width of the rod is but one of several factors which
determine the width of its 'images,' the bands.
Prejudiced by the same error is the following statement (_ibid._, p.
208): "With the majority color darker than the minority color the
bands are darker than the resulting mixture, and lighter when the
majority color is the lighter." If this is to be true, one must read
for 'the bands,' 'the narrower bands.'
Another observation found in this article must be criticised. It is
asserted that difference of shade between the two sectors of the disc,
as well as difference of color, is essential to the illusion. To
support this, four cases are given: two in which the sectors were so
similar in luminosity as to bring out the illusion but faintly; two in
which like luminosities yielded no illusion at all. The present writer
agrees that if the two sectors are closely similar in luminosity, the
illusion is fainter. He also selected a red and a green so near each
other in brightness that when a rod 4 mm. broad (which is the largest
rod that Jastrow and Moorehouse mention having used) was passed by
hand before the disc, no trace of a band could be seen. The pendulum,
however, bearing a shield considerably wider than 4 mm. (say of 15
degrees) and moving before the very same red and green shades, mixed
in the same proportions, yielded the illusion with the utmost
clearness. Colors of like luminosities yield the illusion less
strikingly, nevertheless they yield it.
Again (_op. cit._, p. 205), these authors say: "It has been already
observed that the distance between the bands diminishes as the
rotation rate and the rate of movement of the rod increases." But what
had been said before is (_ibid._, p. 203) that 'the bands are
separated by smaller and smaller spaces as the rate of movement of the
rod becomes slower and slower'; and this is equivalent to saying that
the distance between the bands diminishes as the rate of movement of
the rod decreases. The statements are contradictory. But there is no
doubt as to which is the wrong one--it is the first. What these
authors have called 'distance between the bands' has here been shown
to be itself a band. Now, no point about this illusion can be more
readily observed than that the widths of both kinds of band vary
directly with the speed of the rod, inversely, however (as Jastrow and
Moorehouse have noted), with the speed of the disc.
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