An oblong figure, all its parts objectively of the same intensity,
had its ends slightly darkened. When this was done the curvature had
increased from twelve sixteenths to fourteen sixteenths of an inch.
The pendulum was stopped, and a very slight difference was perceived
between the ends and the centre of the figure. This difference in
intensity was greater than in the dot experiment, when the image had
been darkened enough in the centre to make it appear vertical, because
in this case, when the ends were darkened the centre would still be
reënforced by irradiation from a considerable space which intervened
between the shading and the centre.
EXPERIMENT V
The centre of the oblong figure was considerably darkened so as to
counteract the effect of induction. By properly varying the amount
of shading, one may make the front of the figure appear less convex,
vertical, or even concave. This shows perfectly the effect of
differences in intensity upon the curvature of the figure, but does not
show so neatly as the similar experiments performed with the dots, the
influence of the presence or absence of irradiation upon the intensity
of the centre of the figure and so upon the curvature.
The illustration shows a case where the centre was too much darkened.
[Illustration]
The two ends were comparatively free from shading. In each end-part
irradiation took place. The points lying toward the centres of these
ends received reënforcement, both from points lying toward the centre
of the figure and from the extreme ends, and so the centres of the ends
of the image were considerably brighter than either the extreme ends
of the figure itself, or the sides of the end-parts toward the heavily
shaded centre of the figure. Accordingly each end appeared convex for a
short distance. The whole figure, however, being considerably brighter
at the two ends than at the centre, on account of the heavy shading,
the ends appeared in consciousness first and the centre afterwards, so
that the figure as a whole seemed concave.
EXPERIMENT VI
An oblong figure was shaded rather heavily at one end, gradually
becoming lighter toward the other, while about a third of the figure
was free from shading. The shaded end always seemed to lag behind. The
extreme front of the figure was at a point a little distance from the
other end, before the shaded portion began. So that the front of the
whole figure appeared, not like a segment of a circle, but like part of
an oval with the bulge toward the brighter end.
Beyond the ends of all these images faint clouds of light were seen, as
has been mentioned before, extending outward and backward, gradually
decreasing in intensity, until lost in the surrounding blackness of the
background.
Charpentier's bands, sometimes more and sometimes less in number, were
observable in all of my figures and with all colors. Very often they
appeared to be parallel to the forefront of the image, or even of a
slightly greater degree of curvature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2 — John Shaqi
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