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
(_c_) _Rate._--The appearance of the impression of rhythm is
intimately dependent on special conditions of duration in the
intervals separating the successive elements of the series. There
appears in this connection a definite superior limit to the absolute
rate at which the elements may succeed one another, beyond which the
rapidity cannot be increased without either (_a_) destroying
altogether the perception of rhythm in the series or (_b_)
transforming the structure of the rhythmical sequence by the
substitution of composite groups for the single elements of the
original series as units of rhythmic construction; and a less clearly
marked inferior limit, below which the series of stimulations fails
wholly to arouse the impression of rhythm. But the limits imposed by
these conditions, again, are coördinated with certain other variables.
The values of the thresholds are dependent, in the first place, on the
presence or absence of objective accentuation. If such accents be
present in the series, the position of the limits is still a function
of the intensive preponderance of the accented over the unaccented
elements of the group. Further, it is related to the active or passive
attitude of the æsthetic subject on whom the rhythmical impression is
made, and there appear also important individual variations in the
values of the limits.
When the succession falls below a certain rate no impression of rhythm
arises. The successive elements appear isolated; each is apprehended
as a single impression, and the perception of intensive and temporal
relations is gotten by the ordinary process of discrimination involved
when any past experience is compared with a present one. In the
apprehension of rhythm the case is altogether different. There is no
such comparison of a present with a past experience; the whole group
of elements constituting the rhythmic unit is present to consciousness
as a single experience; the first of its elements has never fallen out
of consciousness before the final member appears, and the awareness of
intensive differences and temporal segregation is as immediate a fact
of sensory apprehension as is the perception of the musical qualities
of the sounds themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account