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
As in the experiment with the dumb-bell, we have also here three
cases: the control, the case of the eye moving, and again a control.
Case 1. _T_ swings with the pendulum. _I_ is placed in the front
groove, and the eye looks straight forward without moving. The
pendulum falls from 9.5° at one side, and the illumination is so
adjusted that the phase in which the band is reddish-orange, is
_unmistakably_ perceived before that in which it is straw-yellow. The
appearance must be 3 followed by 5 (Fig. 8).
Case 2. _T_ is fixed in the background, _I_ on the pendulum, and the
phenomena are observed with the eye moving.
Case 3. A repetition of case 1, to make sure that no different
adaptation or fatigue condition of the eye has come in to modify the
appearance of the two successive phases as at first seen.
The possible appearances to the moving eye are closely analogous to
those in the dumb-bell experiment. If the eye moves too soon or too
late, so that it is at rest during the exposure, the image is like _T_
itself (Fig. 8) but somewhat fainter and localized midway between the
points _P_ and _P'_. If the eye moves reflexly at the rate of the
pendulum, the image is of the shape _i_ and shows the two phases (3
followed by 5). It is localized in the middle and appears to move
across the nine-centimeter opening.
A difficulty is met here which was not found in the case of the
dumb-bell. The eye is very liable to come to a full stop on one of the
colored surfaces, and then to move quickly on again to the final
fixation-point. And this happens contrary to the intention of the
subject, and indeed usually without his knowledge. This stopping is
undoubtedly a reflex process, in which the cerebellar mechanism which
tends to hold the fixation on any bright object, asserts itself over
the voluntary movement and arrests the eye on the not moving red or
green surface as the exposure takes place. A comparable phenomenon was
found sometimes in the experiment with the dumb-bell, where an
eye-movement commenced as voluntary would end as a reflex following of
the pendulum. In the present experiment, until the subject is well
trained, the stopping of the eye must be watched by a second person
who looks directly at the eye-ball of the subject during each
movement. The appearances are very varied when the eye stops, but the
typical one is shown in Fig. 8:1. The red strip _AB_ is seldom longer
and often shorter than in the figure. That part of it which is
superposed on the green seldom shows the orange phase, being almost
always of a pure straw-yellow. The localization of these images is
variable. All observations made during movements in which the eye
stops, are of course to be excluded.
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