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
It will be observed that no uniform motion could be secured by simply
manipulating the lever with the hand. But uniformity of motion was not
necessary for the results at which I aimed here. Dresslar has laid
great stress on the desirability of having uniform motion in his
similar experiments. But this, it seems to me, is precisely what is
not wanted. With my apparatus, I was able to give widely different
rates of speed to the block as it passed under the finger-tip. By
giving a slow rate for the filled space and a much more rapid rate for
the open space, I found again that the subject relied hardly at all on
the touch sensations that came from the finger-tip, but almost
entirely on the consciousness of the amount of time consumed in
passing over the spaces. The judgments were made as in the previous
experiments with this apparatus. When the subject reached the point in
the open space which he judged equal to the filled space, he slightly
depressed his finger and stopped the moving block. In this way, the
subject was deprived of any assistance from arm-movements in his
judgments, and was obliged to rely on the tactual impressions received
at the finger-tip, or on his time sense. That these tactual sensations
played here also a very minor part in the judgment of the distance was
shown by the fact that these sensations could be doubled or trebled by
doubling or trebling the amount of space traversed, without
perceptibly changing the judgment, provided the rate of speed was
increased proportionately. Spaces that required the same amount of
time in traversing were judged equal.
In all these experiments the filled space was presented first. When
the open space was presented first, the results for four out of five
subjects were just reversed. For short distances the filled space was
underestimated, for long distances the filled space was overestimated.
A very plausible explanation for these anomalous results is again to
be found in the influence of the time factor. The open space seemed
longer while it was being traversed, but rapidly foreshortened after
it was left for the filled space. While on the other hand, if the
judgment was pronounced while the subject was still in the midst of
the filled space, it seemed shorter than it really was. The
combination of these two illusions is plainly again responsible for
the underestimation of the short filled spaces. The same double
illusion may be taken to explain the opposite tendency for the longer
distances.
IX.
The one generalization that I have thus far drawn from the
investigation--namely, that the optical illusions are not reversed in
passing from the field of touch, and that we therefore have a safe
warrant for the conclusion that sight and touch do function alike--has
contained no implicit or expressed assertion as to the origin of our
notion of space. I have now reached the point where I must venture an
explanation of the illusion itself.
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