The next variation was in the position of alternate figures. With
a three-group as the major element of the repetition and a pair of
strings in the alternate space, the size of the two minor spaces
was altered, thus making the distance between the three-group and
adjacent pair shorter than between that and the next three-group. This
immediately threw out the feeling for the old series and made a new
one. The new series thus formed varied with the different subjects,
although no particular difference was noticed between spatial and
temporal types. They all disliked the new arrangement, in whichever
of a variety of ways it was apperceived. (It will be noted the actual
distance between the three-groups was not varied, but the size of the
spaces each side of the minor figure, _i. e._, the minor figure was
shifted from its central position.) One typical spatial subject took
it in either of three ways: (1) He grouped the three-group and pair
nearest together, into the repeated element of the new series; (2)
he ignored the pair and regarded it as a repetition of three-groups;
or (3) ignored the difference in the division of the alternates, and
regarded them as alike. The artificiality of the latter methods of
taking the series is evident. What pleasure survived after such a
strain was very slight, and was moreover not of the series as given,
but as imagined differently, which was not a valid judgment. Most of
the subjects grouped both figures into one, and, finding the unity thus
made ugly and unsymmetrical, derived no pleasure from it. One tried to
keep both elements in separate series and have them go along together,
equally distant from those of their own kind, although not from each
other. This was, however, very fatiguing and unsatisfactory. Those
who grouped the different figures said they did so because they could
not help it, not because they liked it, and said it was impossible
to regard the alternate figure as such, if varied from its central
position. If they were all varied together, they were grouped, with
the major unit, into a new one. If varied irregularly the series was
spoiled--no rhythm whatever remained. It became a heap.
Next, I tried varying the size of the alternate spaces, keeping the
filling in its central position.
[Illustration: Fig. 7]
Here also it was universally regrouped. They found it more difficult
to feel the rhythm of the three-groups as separate elements than when
the minor spaces had remained uniform in size, but different in the
position of the filling. The alternate space, then, which had at first
seemed the unimportant part of the rhythm and for which no subject
could assign any conscious value whatever, was evidently a potent
factor of the experience, and when varied either in size or filling
(especially the former) it not only changed the feeling-tone, but
shifted the entire scheme of the rhythm, or broke it up altogether.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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