Psychology: an elementary text-bookEbbinghaus, Hermann
Science
Psychology: an elementary text-book
Ebbinghaus, Hermann
Psychology
Sensations and their images are closely related mental states. They are
of the same kind. As a third class of elementary mental states the
feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness are customarily added. But
it would probably be more correct to say that these feelings are mental
states of an altogether different kind, in comparison with which the
distinction between sensations and images disappears. Pleasantness and
unpleasantness never occur apart from sensation or imagery, whereas the
latter states of consciousness may be free from any pleasantness or
unpleasantness. The pleasantness which I experience is always the
pleasantness of something--of the taste of a peach, or of my good
health, or of a message received. However, we must not conceive this
dependence of pleasantness and unpleasantness as similar to the
dependence of color or pitch or spatial extent or duration on the thing
to which these belong as its qualities. Color, pitch, and these other
qualities are essentially determined by objective conditions, the
physical properties of the thing in question. But pleasantness or
unpleasantness is only to a slight extent, if at all, determined by
objective conditions. Honey tastes very much the same whenever we eat
it. A tune sounds very much the same whenever we hear it. But these
sensory experiences are, in consequence of subjective conditions, now
highly pleasant, now almost indifferent, now decidedly unpleasant.
The same colors and straight lines may be combined into a beautiful
design or into an ugly one, the same descriptions of scenery and events
into an attractive or a tedious book. A feeling which is already in
existence may prevent the growth of an opposite feeling. On a rainy day
we are likely to feel as if everything in the world were gray; on a
sunny spring day as if everything were rosy. The grief-stricken or
desperate person experiences a given situation with other feelings than
the person full of joy or hope. A particularly strong factor in our
life of feeling is the frequency of recurrence of a situation. The most
beautiful music suffers from being played at every concert and on every
street, the most delicious dish from being put on the table every day.
On the other hand, a bitter medicine gradually loses its unpleasantness,
an unpleasant situation becomes indifferent to a person whose profession
compels him to face it frequently. As the unchanging is at a
disadvantage in our life of perception, so is the recurrent in our life
of feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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