As might be expected, those of my subjects to whom rhythm was not a
conscious factor of the experience of repetition could not understand
exactly what was meant by the distinction between _rest-phase_ and
_emphasis_ of rhythm. In all the preceding cases where the temporal
type gave the introspection I have described, the spatial subjects
grouped the single lines, in Fig. 2, about the heavier pair as centre,
and moved from the centre of one such group to the next. The experience
then consisted of a succession of adjacent symmetrical groups,
connected by movement from centre to centre. When asked if there was no
pleasure in finding equal distances between their centres, _i. e._, any
temporal element whatever, they all denied feeling any. They could not
detect that they _felt_ the distances between their centres as equal,
although they _knew_ them to be. They spent so much attention on the
group that all feeling of the distance between its centre and the last
was lost before going on to the next.
These two marked types of apperception of an alternating series seem
varieties of _emphasis_, rather than of actual experience. It was
evident that those in the spatial type must have some recollection of
the amount of distance passed over between the various groups to feel
the whole series as connected in any way; while those of the temporal
type could not be wholly absorbed with the separate lines of the series
as they traversed it, but were distinctly conscious of the space
relations of those in the side of the field that they had just passed
or were coming to.
[Illustration: Fig. 3]
Next, I tried to see what were the different factors which made up the
value of the minor spaces. By varying both their size and filling, and
doing the same to the major element, I could judge the relative value
of these changes on the two, and their effect on the whole series.
The test was made in the following manner. The series as it stood
consisted of a double line alternating with a single one.
With every temporal subject the double line was conceived to be the
repeated thing, and the space between considered as an alternate,
with a repeated line of its own, to be sure, but not felt in the
same way as the other. With the spatial type, the single line was
merely the limiting edge of the symmetrical figure, with a double
line in the centre. One subject varied back and forth in his method
of apperception, and considered the richness and variety of these
different apperceptions as one of the chief sources of the pleasure
therein.
_Variation of alternating spaces:_ The minor spaces were varied by
hanging two strings in one, and one in the other, and subject asked how
such a change affected his feeling for them. The change was marked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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