For tactual impressions of approximately equal value soft plush,
velvet, and two kinds of sandpaper were used, and for tones high and
low tuning-forks. All the above-named forms were used in connection
with the chosen colors. The subjects differed considerably as to the
_amount_ of feeling that could be obtained from such material. The
variation of kinds and of intensity in the same subject was sometimes
noticeable from day to day, but not great. It is hardly necessary to
give detailed quotations from each subject. The following summary of
the results of the experimental work, however, contains nothing that
was not frequently reported by a majority of the subjects. This, then,
does not represent at all what was once or occasionally reported by
individual subjects, but what after training seemed to be reliable and
definite and constant feeling-states.
PART I
_Section A._ The following are the collected expressions which many
subjects used to describe the feeling for this _particular shade of
red_. It feels as if it would be soft. It suggests warmth. The feeling
is one of seriousness, pleasantness, quietness, of free repose,--a
full feeling of the sense of safety. It is soothing, rich, full of
strength, and inviting. One feels restful, grave, calm, appeased. There
is an agreeable longing and a tendency to lose one's self in the color.
The feeling is one of comfort, luxury, satisfaction, expansiveness,
tranquillity, and quiescence, with no accompanying feeling of weakness
by exertion of effort or energy. There is neither marked tension on the
one hand, nor collapse on the other. There is a sense rather of easy
self-control and command of one's body, but with no aggressive sorrow
nor joy element,--a feeling of being attracted, with nothing to suggest
any obstacle to the adaptation.
Occasionally to all subjects this color, and, indeed, all colors,
seemed "dead," arousing no feeling whatever. Here the color "ought
to be pleasant," but is only "for the time potentially not actually
actively pleasant." Still more rarely did this red appear to be
unpleasant. Some subjects thought that this afforded the greatest
_amount of sensual pleasure_. More than any of the other colors they
think it appears to "give you something." It does not so much stimulate
as furnish a content itself. It has a direct effect rather than a
tendency to make one wish to do something and thus give pleasure
from the activity itself. Only one subject failed to find this color
pleasant. His early association of it with blood and ghastly scenes
could not be overcome. Some others, when a glare or glaze appeared on
the red, found in it slight suggestions of stimulation and excitement,
but the general decision in the great majority of cases was that the
feeling was a sort of emotional massiveness compared with the effects
from other colors.
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