The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
Adding certain lines to others has the same distorting effect. In
what is known as Zöllner's pattern (Fig. 60), the long parallels tip
towards each other the moment we draw the short slanting lines over
them yet their retinal images are the same they always were. A similar
distortion of parallels appears in Fig 61.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.]
[Illustration: FIG. 63.]
Drawing a square inside the circle (Fig. 62) gives to the outline of
the latter an indented appearance where the square's corners touch
it. Drawing the radii inside of one of the right angles in the same
figure makes it seem larger than the other. In Fig. 63, the retinal
image of the space between the extreme dots is in all three lines the
same, yet it seems much larger the moment it is filled up with other
dots.
In the stereoscope certain pairs of lines which look single under
ordinary circumstances immediately seem double when we add certain
other lines to them.[224]
_Ambiguous Import of Eye-movements_.
These facts show the indeterminateness of the space-import of various
_retinal impressions_. Take now the _eye's movements_, and we find a
similar vacillation. When we follow a moving object with our gaze, the
motion is 'voluntary'; when our eyes oscillate to and fro after we have
made ourselves dizzy by spinning around, it is 'reflex'; and when the
eyeball is pushed with the finger, it is 'passive.' Now, in all three
of these cases we get a feeling from the movement as it effects itself.
But the objective perceptions to which the feeling assists us are by no
means the same. In the first case we may see a stationary field of view
with one moving object in it; in the second, the total field swimming
more or less steadily in one direction; in the third, a sudden jump or
twist of the same total field.
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