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
The breaking up of such series into subgroups may not be an explicitly
conscious process, while yet its presence is indispensable in giving
rhythmical form to the material. One indication of such
undiscriminated rhythmical modification is the need of making or
avoiding pauses between adjacent rhythmical groups according as the
number of their constituents varies. Thus, in rhythms having units of
five, seven, and nine beats such a pause was imperative to preserve
the rhythmical form, and the attempt to eliminate it was followed by
confusion in the series; while in the case of rhythms having units of
six, eight, and ten beats such a pause was inadmissible. This is the
consistent report of the subjects engaged in the present
investigation; it is corroborated by the results of a quantitative
comparison of the intervals presented by the various series of
reactions. The values of the intervals separating adjacent groups for
a series of such higher rhythms are given in Table XX. as proportions
of those following the initial, accented reaction.
TABLE XX.
Rhythm. Initial Interval. Final Interval
Five-Beat, 1.000 1.386
Six " 1.000 0.919
Seven " 1.000 1.422
Eight " 1.000 1.000
Nine " 1.000 1.732
Ten " 1.000 1.014
The alternate rhythms of this series fall into two distinct groups in
virtue of the sharply contrasted values of their final intervals or
group pauses. The increased length of this interval in the
odd-numbered rhythms is unquestionably due to a subdivision of the
so-called unit into two parts, the first of which is formally
complete, while the latter is syncopated. In the case of five-beat
rhythms, this subdivision is into threes, the first three of the five
beats which compose the so-called unit forming the primary subgroup,
while the final two beats, together with a pause functionally
equivalent to an additional beat and interval, make up the second, the
system being such as is expressed in the following notation:
| .q. q q; >q. q % |. The pause at the close of the group is
indispensable, because on its presence depends the maintenance of
equivalence between the successive three-groups. On the other hand,
the introduction of a similar pause at the close of a six-beat group
is inadmissible, because the subdivision is into three-beat groups,
each of which is complete, so that the addition of a final pause would
utterly unbalance the first and second members of the composite group,
which would then be represented by the following notation:
| >q. q q; .q. q q % |; that is, a three-group would alternate with a
four-group, the elements of which present the same simple time
relations, and the rhythm, in consequence, would be destroyed. The
same conditions require or prevent the introduction of a final pause
in the case of the remaining rhythm forms.
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