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
Certain questions as to the applicability of the material here
interpreted to the point in question, and as to its relation to the
objective conditions of experimentation, must be met at the outset.
The first of these is as to the actual uniformity of the metronome
series. Objective determination of its temporal regularity is
unnecessary (in so far as such a determination looks toward an
explanation of the form of tapping by reference to inequality in the
metronomic intervals). That the rhythmical phases which appear in the
accompaniment are not due to inequality in the stimulation intervals,
is shown by the reversal of relations between the metronome and its
accompaniment which occur in the midst of a continuous series of taps.
To speak roughly, a break occurs every twentieth beat. I do not refer
to minor irregularities occurring within the single group but not
affecting the form of the rhythmical accompaniment. The latter
appeared with surprising rarity, but when found were included in the
continuous calculation of averages. But in every score or so of beats
a stroke out of series would be interpolated, giving the form
| 1 >2 [1] 2 >1 |; the accompaniment being coördinated during the
second portion of the whole series with opposite phases of the
metronome from those with which its elements were connected in the
earlier part. Moreover, the dependence of this grouping of the sounds
on subjective attitudes may readily be made to appear. When attention
is turned keenly on the process its phases of rhythmical
differentiation decline; when the accompaniment becomes mechanical
they mount in value. When the observer tries to mark the ticking as
accurately as possible, not only does the index of his motor reactions
become more constant, but the sounds of the instrument likewise appear
more uniform. The observers report also that at one and the same time
they are aware of the regularity of the metronome and the rhythmical
nature of their tapping, while yet the conviction remains that the
accompaniment has been in time with the beats. Furthermore, if the
phases of ticking in the metronome were temporarily unlike, the motor
accompaniment by a series of observers, if accurate, should reproduce
the time-values of the process, and if inaccurate, should present only
an increase of the mean variation, without altering the characteristic
relations of the two phases. On the other hand, if the series be
uniform and subjectively rhythmized by the hearer, there should be
expected definite perversions of the objective relations, presenting a
series of increasing departures from the original in proportion as the
tendency to rhythmize varied from individual to individual.
On the other hand, a rhythm is already presented in the sounds of the
metronome, occasioned by the qualitative differentiation of the
members of each pair of ticks, a variation which it was impossible to
eliminate and which must be borne in mind in estimating the following
results.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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