Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 757 pages of information about Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1.

Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 757 pages of information about Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1.

If now the eye does not stop midway, and the image is not localized in the center, the appearance is like either 2, 4, or 5, and is localized over the final fixation-point. 2 is in all probability the case of the eye moving very much faster than the pendulum, so that if the movement is from left to right, the right-hand side of the image is the part first exposed (by the uncovering of the left-hand side of T), which is carried ahead by the too swift eye-movement and projected in perception on the right of the later portion. 3 is the case of the eye moving at very nearly but not quite the rate of the pendulum.  The image which should appear 2 cm. wide (like the opening i) appears about 3 cm. wide.  The middle band is regularly straw-yellow, extremely seldom reddish, and if we could be sure that the eye moves more slowly than the pendulum, so that the succession of the stimuli is even slower than in the control, and the red phase is surely given, this appearance (3) would be good evidence of anaesthesia during which the reddish-orange phase elapses.  It is more likely, however, that the eye is moving faster than the pendulum, but whether or not so inconsiderably faster as still to let the disappearance of the reddish phase be significant of anaesthesia, is not certain until one shall have made some possible but tedious measurements of the apparent width of the after-image.  Both here and in the following case the feeling of succession, noticeable between the two phases when the eye is at rest, has disappeared with the sensation of redness.

The cases in which 5 is seen are, however, indisputably significant.  The image is apparently of just the height and width of i, and there is not the slightest trace of the reddish-orange phase.  The image flashes out over the final fixation-point, green and straw-yellow, just as the end-circles of the dumb-bell appeared without their handle.  The rate of succession of the stimuli, green—­red—­green, on the retina, is identical with that rate which showed the two phases to the resting eye:  for the pendulum is here moving at the very same rate, and the eye is moving exactly with the pendulum, as is shown by the absence of any horizontal elongation of the image seen.  The trained subject seldom sees any other images than 4 and 5, and these with about equal frequency, although either is often seen in ten or fifteen consecutive trials.  As in the cases of the falsely localized images and of the handleless dumb-bell, movements of both eyes, as well as of the head but not the eyes, yield the same phenomena.  It is interesting again to compare the appearance under reflex movement.  If at any time during the experiments the eye is allowed to follow the pendulum reflexly, the image is at once and invariably seen to pass through its two phases as it swings past the nine-centimeter opening.

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Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.