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
with the elements from the moving member, and influence the
judgment."[18] The importance of these sensations of inner origin was
shown in many of the experiments in sections VI. to VIII. In the
instance where the finger-tip was drawn over an open and a filled
space, in the filled half the sensations were largely of external
origin, while in the open half they were of internal origin. The
result was that the spaces filled with sensations of internal origin
were always overestimated.
The failure to recognize the importance of these inwardly initiated
sensations is the chief defect in Dresslar's reasoning. He has
endeavored to make our judgments in the illusion in question depend
entirely on the sensations of external origin. He insists also that
the illusion varies according to the variations in quantity of these
external sensations. Now my experiments have shown, I think, very
clearly that it is not the numerical or quantitative extent of the
objective sensations which disturbs the judgment of distance, but the
sensation of inner origin which we set over against these outer
sensations. The piece of plush, because of the disagreeable sensations
which it gives, is judged shorter than the space filled with closely
crowded tacks. Dresslar seems to have overlooked entirely the fact
that the feelings and emotions can be sources of illusions in the
amount of movement, and hence in our judgments of space. The
importance of this element has been pointed out by Münsterberg[19] in
his studies of movement.
[18] Delabarre, E.B., 'Ueber Bewegungsempfindungen,' Inaug.
Dissert., Freiburg, 1891.
[19] Münsterberg, H., 'Beiträge zur Experimentellen Psychol.,'
Freiburg i. B., 1892, Heft 4.
Dresslar says again, "The explanations heretofore given, wholly based
on the differences in the time the eye uses in passing over the two
spaces, must stop short of the real truth." My experiments, however,
as I have already indicated, go to prove quite the contrary. In short,
I do not think we have any means of distinguishing our tactual
judgments of time from our similar judgments of space. When the
subject is asked to measure off equal spaces, he certainly uses time
as means, because when he is asked to measure off equal times he
registers precisely the same illusion that he makes in his judgments
of spatial distances. The fact that objectively equal times were used
by Dresslar in his experiments is no reason for supposing that the
subject also regarded these times as equal. What I have here asserted
of active touch is true also of the resting skin. When a stylus is
drawn over the skin, the subject's answer to the question, How long is
the distance? is subject to precisely the same illusion as his answer
to the question, How long is the time?
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