The majority of my students had a stronger impression from the varying objects than from those which were in a certain sense equal. Yet this tendency appeared in very different degrees and for about a fourth of the participants the opposite tendency prevailed. They received a stronger impression from the uniform ideas. I had coupled with these experimental tests a series of questions, and had asked every subject to express with fullest possible self-analysis his practical attitude to monotony in life. Every one had to give an account whether in the small habits of life he liked variety or uniform repetition. He was asked especially as to his preferences for or against uniformity in the daily meals, daily walks, and so on. Furthermore he had to report how far he is inclined to stick to one kind of work or to alternate his work, how far he welcomes the idea that vocational work may bring repetition, and so on. And finally I tried to bring the results of these self-observations into relation with the results of those experiments. It was here that the opposite of the hypothesis which I had presupposed suggested itself to me with surprising force. I found that just the ones who perceive the repetition least hate it most, and that those who have a strong perception of the uniform impressions and who overestimate their number are the ones who on the whole welcome repetition in life. As soon as I had reached this first experimental result, I began to see how it might harmonize with known psychological facts. Some years ago a Hungarian psychologist[37] showed by interesting experiments that if a series of figures is exposed to the eye for a short fraction of a second, equal digits are seen only once, and he came to the conclusion that equal impressions in such a series inhibit each other. In the Harvard laboratory we varied these experiments by eliminating the spatial separation of those numbers. In our experiments the digits did not stand side by side, but followed one another very quickly in the same place.[38] Similar experiments we made with colors and so on. Here, too, we found that quickly succeeding equal or very similar impressions have a tendency to inhibit each other or to fuse with each other. Where such an inhibition occurs, we probably ought to suppose that the perception of the first impression exhausts the psychical disposition for this particular mental experience. The psychophysical apparatus becomes for a moment unable to arouse the same impression once more.