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
I dwell on this illusion at a length which may seem out of proportion
to its importance. My object has been to show how widely different are
the objective conditions here from what they are in the optical
illusion which has so often been called the analogue of this.
James[14] has said of this tactual illusion: 'This seems to bring
things back to the unanalyzable laws, by reason of which our feeling
of size is determined differently in the skin and in the retina even
when the objective conditions are the same.' I think that my
experiments have shown that the objective conditions are not the same;
that they differ in that most essential of all factors, namely, the
time element. Something very nearly the analogue of the optical
illusion is secured when we take very short open and filled tactual
spaces, and move over them very rapidly. Here the illusion exists in
the same direction as it does for sight, as has already been stated.
On the other hand, a phenomenon more nearly parallel to the tactual
illusion, as reported in the experiments of James and Dresslar, is
found if we take long optical distances, and traverse the open and
filled spaces continuously, without having both parts of the line
entirely in the field of view at any one moment. I made a few
experiments with the optical illusion in this form. The filled and
open spaces were viewed by the subject through a slot which was
passed over them. These experiments all pointed in the direction of an
underestimation of a filled space. Everywhere in this illusion, then,
where the objective conditions were at all similar for sight and
touch, the resulting illusion exists in the same direction for both
senses.
[14] James, William, 'Principles of Psychology,' New York, II.,
p. 250.
Throughout the previous experiments with the illusion for active touch
we saw the direct influence of the factor of time. I have yet one set
of experiments to report, which seems to me to prove beyond the
possibility of a doubt the correctness of my position. These
experiments were made with the apparatus shown in Fig. 10. The
subjects proceeded precisely as before. The finger-tip was passed over
the filled space, and then out over the open space, until an
equivalent distance was measured off. But while the subject was
drawing his fingers over the spaces, the block _A_ was moved in either
direction by means of the lever _B_. The subjects were all the while
kept ignorant of the fact that the block was being moved. They all
expressed great surprise on being told, after the experiments were
over, that the block had been moved under the finger-tip through such
long distances without their being able to detect it. The block always
remained stationary as the finger passed over one space, but was moved
either with or against the finger as it passed over the other space.
TABLE XII.
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