The responses were as follows: Five said it did more violence to the
series to have the alternate varied than the major unit; it was more
confusing. Three preferred it, giving as their reason that it made
the elements more different from each other than before, hence more
easily distinguished. The preponderance of evidence was, therefore,
that, although any variation from symmetry in a unit was likely to
be detrimental to the repetition, it was more likely to be tolerable
in the major unit than in the alternate space. In either case it was
demanded that the two units be distinctly different, and it depended
on the individual subject, whether in this experiment the variation
of one unit or the other brought out this distinction more obviously.
Aside from this consideration, however, it appeared that the alternate
spaces as such required equilibrium more than the principal unit.
Also, variation of symmetry in the major unit, while it made it more
prominent in the way of _eccentricity_, also made the symmetrical minor
unit more prominent in the way of _interest_. As one subject expressed
it, "Since the others vary, the attention requires something which does
_not_ vary, and forces prominence on the minor unit, because it remains
symmetrical"; and "The minor unit is too small to merit such prominence
as it gets by lack of symmetry. It is distorted, and has not enough
content to bear it."
These introspections from temporal and spatial subject alike, all point
to the fact of a certain _value_ attached to the alternating units in
a series. (1) The units must not be too much alike in _interest_, or
they rival each other. (2) They must not have more prominence given
them as regards the whole than they have interest to sustain. (3) There
must be a congruity between the two elements so that one shall not be
noticeable in one way, and one in another, thus carrying the attention
in two different directions.
One more thing was suggested by this experiment: (4) The subjects who
had invariably _grouped_ their different elements in other series found
it very difficult to do so in this, or wholly impossible. None of them
did so when taking the series naturally, but moved on from one to the
next just as the rhythmic type did. They felt "forced to move on," "no
place to rest," while one in whom the rhythmic feeling was weakest was
much fatigued by this movement, and insisted on having something stable
to rest upon if he was to gain any pleasure at all.
Next the series was varied by making both units unsymmetrical; first
with the balance tipping the same, and second in opposite ways.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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