Our instrumentarium is, of course, in first line, the collection of
apparatus bought and constructed through the fourteen years of work.
Yet with the new expansion of the institute a considerable number of
psychological, physical, and physiological well-tested instruments has
been added. Especially in the departments of kymographic, chronoscopic,
and optical apparatus the equipment presents a satisfactory
completeness; its total value may be estimated to represent about
twelve thousand dollars. Yet the place of the laboratory which we
appreciate most highly is not the instrument-room but the workshop,
in which every new experimental idea can find at once its technical
shape and form. Whether those experimental ideas will be original and
productive, whether their elaboration will be helpful for the progress
of our young science, in short, whether the work in the new laboratory
will fulfil the hopes with which we entered it, may be better decided
as soon as a few further volumes of the Harvard Psychological Studies
shall have followed the present one, which is still from cover to cover
a product of Harvard's pre-Emerson-Hall period.
OPTICAL STUDIES
STEREOSCOPIC VISION AND THE DIFFERENCE OF RETINAL IMAGES
BY G. V. HAMILTON
The question which the Laboratory proposed to me for experimental
enquiry was one which demanded a definite reply of yes or no. The
positive answer seemed a necessary consequence of the traditional
psycho-physiological theories, while a certain practical consideration
seemed to suggest the negative solution. The question which seems
to have been overlooked so far was this: According to the theory of
stereoscopic vision two points of light which are seen by each of the
two eyes under the same angle appear to lie in the same plane; as soon
as the angle for the right eye is larger than that for the left, that
is, as soon as the two stimulated retinal points in the right eye are
more distant than the two retinal points stimulated in the left eye,
the right light-point seems to be farther away than the left one. If we
relate them to planes vertical on the ideal binocular fixation-line,
the right point lies in a more distant plane. This principle, which, of
course, controls all arrangements for stereoscopic effect, is deduced
from experiences in which the fixation-line is vertical to the line
that connects the nodal points of the two eyes; the plane in which
the equally distant points lie is then parallel to the forehead. If,
on the other hand, the eyes are turned to the side, that is, if the
ideal fixation-line forms an acute angle with the line connecting
the eyeballs, the two fixated light-points, which lie in a plane
perpendicular to the fixation-line, cannot be seen by the two eyes
under the same angle. Any object on my right side is somewhat nearer
to my right eye than to my left, and therefore must throw a larger
image on my right retina. The two light-points of a plane vertical
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account