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
In the last section, I gave an account of some experiments in the
localization of touch sensations which were designed to show how,
under varying pressure, the points in the filled distance are
displaced or fused and disappear entirely from the judgment. Our
earliest experiments, it will be remembered, yielded unmistakable
evidence that short, filled distances were underestimated; while all
of the secondary experiments reported in the last section have pointed
to the conclusion that even these shorter distances will follow the
law of the longer distances and be overestimated under certain
objective conditions, which conditions are also more nearly parallel
with those which we find in the optical illusion. I wish now to give
the results of another and longer set of experiments in the
localization of a manifold of touch sensations as we find them in this
same illusion for filled space, by which I hope to prove a direct
relation between the function of localization and the spatial
functioning proper.
These experiments were made with the same apparatus and method that
were used in the previous study in localization; but instead of two
points of different weights, four points of uniform weight were
employed. This series, therefore, will show from quite another point
of view that the fusion which takes place, even where there is no
difference in the weight, is a very significant factor in judgments of
distance on the skin.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
I need hardly say that here, and in all my other experiments, the
subjects were kept as far as possible in complete ignorance of the
object of the experiment. This and the other recognized laboratory
precautions were carefully observed throughout this work. Four
distances were used, 4, 8, 12 and 16 cm. At frequent intervals
throughout the tests the contact was made with only one of the points
instead of four. In this way there came to light again the interesting
fact which we have already seen in the last section, which is of great
significance for my theory--that the end points are located
differently when given alone than when they are presented
simultaneously with the other points. I give a graphic representation
of the results obtained from a large number of judgments in Figs. 4, 5
and 6. These experiments with filled spaces, like the earlier
experiments, were made on the volar side of the forearm beginning near
the wrist. In each distance four points were used, equally distributed
over the space. The shaded curve, as in the previous figures,
represents the results of the attempts to localize the points when all
four were given simultaneously. In the dotted curves, the end points
were given alone. The height of the curve at any place is determined
by the number of times a point was located immediately underneath that
particular part of the curve. In Fig. 4 the curve which was determined
by the localization of the four points when given simultaneously,
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