These experiments have all pointed to the fact that our pleasure
in repeated space forms is an immediate experience. We do not look
over the series and merely recognize that regular repetitions occur,
but there is an immediate _feeling_ of repetition, analogous to our
feeling of auditory rhythm. This feeling does not always accompany
a recognition that certain repetitions occur, but is a distinct
experience in itself dependent upon certain conditions in the series.
The series excites a certain response in the observer, which, if it
corresponds with his rhythmic organization, is pleasant, and if not, is
otherwise.
With a certain class of subjects this rhythmic response is very
noticeable, and they feel it as a conscious part of the experience.
With others, the symmetrical properties of the series are the more
prominent, and they detect no rhythmic response until the necessary
objective conditions for such a rhythm are violated. Then they feel it
as keenly as the other type.
In a series of units, there is a rhythmic discharge of energy on each,
the fixed temporal intervals being regulated by the alternating space.
When the units are too near together, or when the alternating spaces
vary irregularly in size, this rhythm is disturbed. If the alternating
spaces vary regularly in size, a richer rhythm is introduced, which
increases the pleasure up to a certain point when more variation makes
it too complicated, and confusion results. When one element alternates
with another, the one on which more energy is expended for any reason
becomes the principal unit. The other has less significance as to
its content than as to its size, for on this depends the regularity
of the rhythm. Variations in the content of alternating figures must
be cautious not to disturb, by the extra attention necessary to take
them in, the rhythm of the whole. Variation in the principal unit may
take place almost without limit, provided there is an equal amount
of interest in each, thus making a rhythm of equal discharges. There
must be an alternation of _two_, _i. e._ of discharge of attention and
rest. However rich the rhythm is made by greater and lesser accents
or groupings, the rhythm must fall eventually into a discharge of
attention, and a rest-period. In the temporal type of subject, to whom
the actual _motion_ across the series is a necessary factor of the
pleasure, this discharge and rest-period of _attention_ is exactly
inverse to the _motion_ across the alternate and rest upon the unit.
That is, on the principal unit is the discharge of the attention, but
the rest-period of the motion across; while the alternate unit supplies
the field which is travelled over, but requires but little attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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