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
Most of the subjects imaginatively placed the image to be suppressed
behind the screen, in a drawer, in their closed hands, pushed it
forward into the remote distance, sliced up, burned up, or pulverized
and so destroyed it. B. and D. 'thought it away' directly, without
mechanism or device, or got rid of it 'by a pure act of will.'
Superposition was tried, frequently with success, but at times the
under image shone through. When the objects were colored discs one
superposed on the other, the subject spread over the whole surface the
color of the image to be retained, but at times this resulted in there
being two shades of the upper color, and a yellow above a red changed
to an orange. When red was above yellow, the red appeared more highly
illuminated. Associations with objects of the color of the retained
image were found helpful but tended to modify the original color. Such
associations also, at times, by secondary associations brought back
the suppressed image. For example, when thinking of buttercups to
enforce a yellow image, the picture of grass surrounding the flowers
brought back the suppressed green image. Concentration of the
attention on the image to be retained and an ignoring of the other
was, on the whole, the method usually and successfully followed. This
concentration was helped by imagining the image marked off into minute
squares which were carefully counted. Numerous other devices of a
similar character were used. Objects having many details and those
lending themselves readily to suggestions of action (as a china
animal) were the most helpful in enabling the subject to concentrate
his attention on their image to the exclusion of another. Some
subjects conceived themselves as tracing with a pencil the outline and
details of the retained image. Frequently, when the two images were
originally near each other and one alone was being held by close
scrutiny of its parts, when this scrutiny reached the part of the
image which was nearest the position of the suppressed image, the
suppressed image returned. The original association between the two
images was often broken up by change of the position or shape of the
one to be suppressed. But devices soon became 'worn out' and new ones
had to be resorted to.
Motor impulses played a large part in the process of suppression, such
as head and eye movement away from the image to be suppressed,
contraction of the muscles of the forehead and scalp, occasional
'setting' of the teeth, pressure together of the hands when they were
supposed to be holding the image and of the knees under like
circumstances. The eye traced outline and details and the more
actively it could be so employed the more successful was the
suppression. The sensations of accommodation and of focusing
previously referred to were repeated in this series. Enunciation also
was very common.
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