Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory. — John Shaqi
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
If now the eye does not stop midway, and the image is not localized in
the center, the appearance is like either 2, 4, or 5, and is localized
over the final fixation-point. 2 is in all probability the case of the
eye moving very much faster than the pendulum, so that if the movement
is from left to right, the right-hand side of the image is the part
first exposed (by the uncovering of the left-hand side of _T_), which
is carried ahead by the too swift eye-movement and projected in
perception on the right of the later portion. 3 is the case of the eye
moving at very nearly but not quite the rate of the pendulum. The
image which should appear 2 cm. wide (like the opening _i_) appears
about 3 cm. wide. The middle band is regularly straw-yellow, extremely
seldom reddish, and if we could be sure that the eye moves more slowly
than the pendulum, so that the succession of the stimuli is even
slower than in the control, and the red phase is surely given, this
appearance (3) would be good evidence of anæsthesia during which the
reddish-orange phase elapses. It is more likely, however, that the eye
is moving faster than the pendulum, but whether or not so
inconsiderably faster as still to let the disappearance of the reddish
phase be significant of anæsthesia, is not certain until one shall
have made some possible but tedious measurements of the apparent width
of the after-image. Both here and in the following case the _feeling
of succession_, noticeable between the two phases when the eye is at
rest, has _disappeared with the sensation of redness_.
The cases in which 5 is seen are, however, indisputably significant.
The image is apparently of just the height and width of _i_, and there
is not the slightest trace of the reddish-orange phase. The image
flashes out over the final fixation-point, green and straw-yellow,
just as the end-circles of the dumb-bell appeared without their
handle. The rate of succession of the stimuli, green--red--green, on
the retina, is identical with that rate which showed the two phases to
the resting eye: for the pendulum is here moving at the very same
rate, and the eye is moving exactly with the pendulum, as is shown by
the absence of any horizontal elongation of the image seen. The
trained subject seldom sees any other images than 4 and 5, and these
with about equal frequency, although either is often seen in ten or
fifteen consecutive trials. As in the cases of the falsely localized
images and of the handleless dumb-bell, movements of both eyes, as
well as of the head but not the eyes, yield the same phenomena. It is
interesting again to compare the appearance under reflex movement. If
at any time during the experiments the eye is allowed to follow the
pendulum reflexly, the image is at once and invariably seen to pass
through its two phases as it swings past the nine-centimeter opening.
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