H. (1) Av. time: 9. Sees them in pairs.
(2) 1 sec. Just as pleasant as before.
(3) Eyes fixed: 4.6. Pleasure in unity of whole series with centre
of fixation emphasized. Only felt pleasure anyhow when the eyes
had stopped moving, so now it comes all the sooner.
From these introspections it is obvious that there are two distinct
ways of apperceiving repetition: One in which the rhythmic element
is pronounced, so that when the time necessary for such a rhythm is
shortened, or by fixating the eyes the motor response is hindered, the
pleasure in the repetition is either altered or destroyed altogether.
The other type takes a repeated series in the sense of a unified
presentation and wants it all at once in a symmetrical whole. The
rhythmic factor is present in both, as is shown by the fact that the
quality of the pleasure was changed in every case when the time of
exposure was shortened. But in the latter type of subject the pleasure
felt in the presentation of the whole at once, and the feeling of
symmetry around a middle point, are more intense than a rhythmic
apperception. These two kinds of apperception remain fairly constant
throughout the experiments, and for convenience' sake we shall call
them spatial and temporal types. With the former, the value of the
experience consists especially in having a central fixation-point from
which the repeated elements fade away equally on the sides, making a
symmetrical whole. With the temporal type, the pleasure is felt by
means of the rhythmical passage from one element of the series to the
other. In passing from point to point the rest of the field still
remains in indirect vision, so to the distinctly temporal a distinctly
spatial factor is also present. For this reason the temporal type of
apperception is the richer of the two, and a description of it comes
more nearly to the essence of repetition as such.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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