The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
(a) With Helmholtz, _color-perception_ is equally with space-perception
an intellectual affair. The so-called simultaneous color-contrast, by
which one color modifies another alongside of which it is said, is
explained by him as an unconscious inference. In Chapter XVII we
discussed the color-contrast problem; the principles which applied to
its solution will prove also applicable to part of the present problem.
In my opinion, Hering has definitively proved that, when one color is
laid beside another, it modifies the sensation of the latter, not by
virtue of any mere mental suggestion, as Helmholtz would have it, but
by actually exciting a new nerve-process, to which the modified feeling
of color immediately corresponds. The explanation is physiological,
not psychological. The transformation of the original color by the
inducing color is due to the disappearance of the physiological
conditions under which the first color was produced, and to the
induction, under the new conditions, of a genuine new sensation, with
which the 'suggestions of experience' have naught to do.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.]
That processes in the visual apparatus propagate themselves laterally,
if one may so express it, is also shown by the _phenomena of contrast
which occur after looking upon motions_ of various kinds. Here are a
few examples. If, over the rail of a moving vessel, we look at the
water rushing along the side, and then transfer our gaze to the deck,
a band of planks will appear to us, moving in the opposite direction
to that in which, a moment previously, we had been seeing the water
move, whilst on either side of this band another band of planks will
move as the water did. Looking at a waterfall, or at the road from out
of a car-window in a moving tram, produces the same illusion, which may
be easily verified in the laboratory by a simple piece of apparatus.
A board with a window five or six inches wide and of any convenient
length is supported upright on two feet. On the back side of the board,
above and below the window, are two rollers, one of which is provided
with a crank. An endless band of any figured stuff is passed over these
rollers (one of which can be so adjusted on its bearings as to keep the
stuff always taut and not liable to slip), and the surface of the front
board is also covered with stuff or paper of a nature to catch the
eye. Turning the crank now sets the central band in continuous motion,
whilst the margins of the field remain really at rest, but after a
while appear moving in the contrary way. Stopping the crank results in
an illusory appearance of motion in reverse directions all over the
field.
A disk with an Archimedean spiral drawn upon it, whirled round on an
ordinary rotating machine, produces still more startling effects.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.]
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