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
But the system of bands is at rest for only a particular rate of the
rod. As the latter rotates yet faster, the system of bands now
commences to rotate slowly forward (with the disc and rod), then more
and more rapidly (the velocity of the rod still increasing), until it
finally disintegrates and the bands vanish into the confused flicker
of shadows with which the phenomenon commenced.
[Illustration: PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. MONOGRAPH SUPPLEMENT, 17. PLATE VII.
Fig. 11.
Fig. 12. Fig. 13.]
This cycle now plays itself off in the reverse order if the speed of
the rod is allowed gradually to decrease. The bands appear first
moving forward, then more slowly till they come to rest, then moving
backward until finally they relapse into confusion.
But let the rate of the rod be not decreased but always steadily
increased. The bands will reappear, this time three of each color with
six transition-bands. As before, the system at first rotates backward,
then lies still, and then moves forward until it is dissolved. As the
rod moves still faster, another system appears, two bands of each
color forming a diameter and the two diameters lying at right angles.
This system goes through the same cycle of movements. When the
increased velocity of the rod destroys this system, another appears
having one band of each color, the two lying on opposite sides of the
center. The system goes through the same phases and is likewise
dissolved. Now, at this point the rod will be found to be rotating at
the same speed as the disc itself.
The explanation of the phenomenon is simple. The bands are not
produced by a single interruption of the vision of a sector by a rod,
but each band is made up of successive superpositions on the retina of
many such single-interruption bands. The overlapping of bands has been
already described (cf. Fig. 10 and pp. 196-198); superposition depends
of course on the same principle.
At the moment when a system of four bands of either color is seen at
rest, the rod is moving just one fifth as rapidly as the disc; so
that, while the rod goes once around, either sector, say the green
one, will have passed behind it exactly four times, and at points
which lie 90° apart. Thus, four red bands are produced which lie at
right angles to one another. But the disc is revolving at least 24
times in a second, the rod therefore at least 4.8 times, so that
within the interval of time during which successive stimuli still
contribute to the characteristic effect the rod will have revolved
several times, and with each revolution four red bands at right angles
to one another will have been formed. And if the rod is moving
_exactly_ one fifth as fast as the disc, each new band will be
generated at exactly that position on the disc where was the
corresponding band of the preceding four. The system of bands thus
appear motionless on the disc.
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