Subject B could get no kind of pleasant feeling from any tactual
surface, while to Subject E even the coarsest sandpaper usually
afforded pleasant stimulation. As spoken of above, articulatory
impulses were characteristic of the motor tendencies of Subjects D
and G. To Subject A the experiences seemed richest and fullest, and
the corresponding bodily processes were likewise more pronounced and
varied. In the great majority of the experiments, especially during
the period of training, the feeling itself vanished when the subjects
attempted to analyze the bodily processes. It was chiefly, however, a
matter of training, and this more and more ceased to be a disturbing
element.
Some subjects preferred often to speak of circulatory, or at least,
decidedly internal and usually involuntary changes in addition to, and
sometimes without, the controlled muscular actions. The mood of the
time affects the amount of feeling, and occasionally, but far less
frequently, the quality. The moral significance of the feelings was
most prominent when the subject felt most interested in the experiment,
as may be noted above in their descriptions of the feelings for red
and yellow. What may be termed the "_regularity element_" would seem
generally to serve as the test especially for the pleasant-unpleasant
character of the feeling-tone. The feeling of expansiveness never
accompanied unpleasant feelings. Feelings of contraction, on the
other hand, very often occurred when the feelings were not at all
disagreeable. In such cases there was a significance attached to the
direction or meaning of the adjustment.
PART II
_Section A._ Here simultaneous stimulations of different sense-organs
were given, and the situation became at once more complex. For some
time only colors and tactual surfaces were employed. Later tones from
tuning-forks and noises were added. Forms with different colors as
fillings still further complicated the experience. Odors as a rule were
unsatisfactory, being so strong as entirely to inhibit all noticeable
effects from the other senses.
For all subjects at first the feeling-tone related only to the one
object directly attended to. Some effort is required to detect the
feeling-tone for these slight stimulations, and while this is being
done, the feeling for the other sensation tends to vanish. If, while
enjoying the soothing contact with the plush, a chosen color is
disclosed in the frame and attended to sufficiently to obtain from it
a decided feeling, there is a distinct awareness of the dropping of
the feeling for the touch. To some subjects, whatever the combinations
used, this almost constantly occurred for perhaps a month. Often again
there seemed to result a total "feeling of the situation," when the
attention was on neither stimulating object.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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