Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, Hugo Münsterberg [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

or more rhyming

syllables is identical; often the whole phrase is repeated for each

rhyming verse. A few experiments in singing a rhyme to simple

intervals show that when the identical interval is used the two

syllables rhyme well, but if the interval be in the opposite

direction, or in another chord, the rhyme is very uncertain. It seems

that in music we usually have ‘feelings of expectation’ (i.e.,

tensions of some sort, central or peripheral), which are adequate to

unite the phrases into larger unities. These tensions are so definite

and vivid that they quite obscure and swallow up the related

condition of rhyme expectation. These experiments on the modification

of the rhyme by the various pitch and accent factors are not at all

exhaustive or conclusive. An extended series of experiments is needed.

The study of sound records for pitch is peculiarly tedious, but it

should reveal some interesting relations between rhyme and speech

melody.

 

III. THE SPEAKING OF A RHYTHMIC SERIES.

 

I. Methods of Making Speech Records.

 

The study of spoken rhythm is of primary importance. Observations on

what the subject really does are always open to the objections that

subjective factors play a large part, and that the observer’s

perception of a rhythm is after all his perception of the rhythm,

not the subject’s. The voice is an important indicator of the

activities which generate the rhythms of verse and music, and some

objective method of measuring the sounds made is essential to a study

of the rhythm production.

 

Methods of recording and studying the tones of the voice are as

numerous as they are unsatisfactory. In the main the work has been

done for purposes of phonetics, and but few of the methods are applied

in the psychological laboratory.

 

Marage[13] has an excellent summary of the methods with practical

comments on their applicability. Rousselot[14] (Histoire des

applications de phonétique expérimentale, 401-417: objets et

appareils, 1-10 et 669-700) gives a careful history of the methods

from the phonetic point of view. Scripture[15] gives a convenient

English summary of the processes.

 

[13] Marage: l’Année psychologique, 1898, V., p. 226.

 

[14] Rousselot: La Parole, 1899.

 

[15] Scripture, E.W.: Studies from the Yale Psych. Lab.,

1899, VII., p. I.

 

A few methods have been devised which avoid the difficulties incident

to the use of a diaphragm, but they are not applicable to the

measurement of rhythm material. The instruments which might be used

for recording spoken rhythms are all modifications of two well-known

forms of apparatus, the phonautograph and the phonograph. The

phonograph record is incised in wax, and presents special difficulties

for study. Boeke, however, has studied the wax record under a

microscope, with special arrangements for illumination. The work is

quite too tedious to permit of its use for material of any length,

though it is fairly satisfactory when applied to single vowels. In

order to enlarge the record, and at the same time to obtain the curves

in the plane of the record surface, Hermann devised an attachment to

the phonograph (cf. Marage, loc. citat.) by which the movements of the

stylus of the phonograph are magnified by a beam of light and recorded

on photographic paper. The measurements of entire words by this method

would be as tedious as by Boeke’s.

 

E.W. Scripture has chosen another type of talking machine from which

to obtain transcribed records. The permanent record of the gramophone

(which makes a record in the plane of the surface, like the

phonautograph) is carefully centered, and a lever attached to a stylus

which follows the furrow of the record transcribes the curve on the

kymographic drum as the plate is slowly revolved. The method has the

advantage of using a record which may be reproduced (i.e. the

original gramophone record may be reproduced), and of giving fairly

large and well defined curves for study. It is too laborious to be

applied to extended research on speech rhythms, and has besides

several objections. The investigator is dependent on the manufacturer

for his material, which is necessarily limited, and cannot meet the

needs of various stages of an investigation. He knows nothing of the

conditions under which the record was produced, as to rate, on which

time relations depend, as to tone of voice, or as to muscular

accompaniments. There are also opportunities for error in the long

lever used in the transcription; small errors are necessarily

magnified in the final curve, and the reading for intensity (amplitude

of the curve) is especially open to such error.

 

The stylus of such a recording apparatus as is used by the gramophone

manufacturers, is subject to certain variations, which may modify the

linear measurements (which determine time relations). The recording

point is necessarily flexible; when such a flexible point is pressed

against the recording surface it is dragged back slightly from its

original position by friction with this surface. When the point is

writing a curve the conditions are changed, and it sways forward to

nearly its original position. This elongates the initial part of the

sound curve. This fact is of little importance in the study of a

single vowel, for the earlier part of the curve may be disregarded,

but if the entire record is to be measured it is a source of error.

Hensen[16] first turned the phonautograph to account for the study of

speech. He used a diaphragm of goldbeater’s skin, of conical shape,

with a stylus acting over a fulcrum and writing on a thinly smoked

glass plate. The apparatus was later improved by Pipping, who used a

diamond in place of the steel point. The diamond scratched the record

directly on the glass. The Hensen-Pipping apparatus has the advantage

of taking records directly in the plane of the surface, but it does

not make a record which can be reproduced; in case of doubt as to the

exact thing represented by the curve, there is no means of referring

to the original sounds; and it involves working with a microscope.

 

[16] Hensen: Hermann’s Handbuch d. Physiol., 1879, Bd. I., Th.

II., S. 187.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 3. Diagrammatic section of recording apparatus.

a, diaphragm; s, stylus; g, guide; p, section of plate.]

 

The apparatus which was used in the following experiments consisted

essentially of two recording devices—an ordinary phonograph, and a

recorder of the Hensen type writing on a rotary glass disc (see Fig.

5, Plate X.). Of the phonograph nothing need be said. The Hensen

recorder, seen in cross section in Fig. 3, was of the simplest type. A

diaphragm box of the sort formerly used in the phonograph was modified

for the purpose. The diaphragm was of glass, thin rubber, or

goldbeater’s skin. The stylus was attached perpendicularly to the

surface of the diaphragm at its center. The stylus consisted of a

piece of light brass wire bent into a right angle; the longer arm was

perpendicular to the diaphragm; the shorter arm was tipped with a

very fine steel point, which pointed downward and wrote on the disc;

the point was inclined a trifle to the disc, in order that it might

‘trail,’ and write smoothly on the moving disc. The stylus had no

fulcrum or joint, but recorded directly the vibrations of the

diaphragm. In early experiments, the diaphragm and stylus were used

without any other attachment.

 

But a flexible point writing on smoked glass is a source of error.

When the disc revolves under the stylus, the flexibility of the

diaphragm and of the stylus permit it to be dragged forward slightly

by the friction of the moving surface. When the diaphragm is set

vibrating the conditions are altered, and the stylus springs back to

nearly its original position. The apparent effect is an elongation of

the earlier part of the curve written, and a corresponding compression

of the last verse written. This error is easily tested by starting the

disc, and without vibrating the diaphragm stopping the disc; the

stylus is now in its forward position; speak into the apparatus and

vibrate the diaphragm, and the stylus will run backward to its

original position, giving an effect in the line like a (Fig. 4). If

the error is eliminated, the stylus will remain in position

throughout, and the trial record will give a sharp line across the

track of the stylus as in b.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

 

This source of error was avoided by fixing a polished steel rod or

‘guide’ at right angles to the vertical part of the stylus, just in

front of the stylus; the stylus trailed against this rod, and could

not spring out of position. The friction of the rod did not modify the

record, and the rod gave much greater certainty to the details of the

sound curve, by fixing the position of the vibrating point. This rod

or guide is shown in Fig. 3 (g).

 

The disc was driven directly from the phonograph by a very simple

method. A fine chain was fixed to the shaft carrying the disc, and

wrapped around a pulley on the shaft. The chain was unwound by the

forward movement of the recording apparatus of the phonograph against

the constant tension of a spring. When the phonograph apparatus was

brought back to the beginning of a record which had been made, the

spring wound up the chain, and the disc revolved back to its original

position.

 

A T from the speaking-tube near the diaphragm box was connected by a

rubber tube with the phonograph recorder, so that the voice of the

speaker was recorded both on the smoked glass plate and on the

phonograph cylinder. The advantages of such a double record are that

the possible error of a transcription process is eliminated, and yet

there is an original record to which it is possible to refer, and by

which the record measured may be checked.

 

An important feature in the method was the rate at which the disc

revolved. The disc turned so slowly that the vibrations, instead of

being spread out as a harmonic curve, were closely crowded together.

This had two great advantages; the measurements were not so laborious,

and the intensity changes were much more definitely seen than in the

elongated form of record. Each syllable had an intensity form, as a

‘box,’ ‘spindle,’ ‘double spindle,’ ‘truncated cone,’ ‘cone,’ etc.

(cf. p. 446).

 

The disc was run, as a rule, at a rate of about one revolution in two

minutes. The rate could be varied to suit the purposes of the

experimenter, and it was perfectly possible to procure the usual form

of record when desired. As a result of the low rate, the records were

exceedingly condensed. The records of the 300 stanzas measured are on

two glass discs of about 25 cm. diameter, and as much more could still

be recorded on them.

 

The diaphragm and the speaking tube were the great sources of error.

For measurements of time values the particular component of the tone

to which the diaphragm happens to vibrate is not important, but the

record of intensities depends on the fidelity with which the diaphragm

responds to a given component, preferably the fundamental, of the

tone. The speaking tube has a resonance of its own which can be but

partly eliminated. For the records here recorded either glass or

goldbeater’s skin was used as a diaphragm. Goldbeater’s skin has the

advantage of being very sensitive, and it must be used if the subject

has not a resonant voice. It has the great disadvantage of being

extremely variable. It is very sensitive to moisture, even when kept

as loose as possible, and cannot be depended on to give the same

results from day to day. The records marked Hu., Ha. and G. were

usually taken with a glass