Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, Hugo Münsterberg [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗
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not much value. (5) F. 80, V. 134, taken with reference both
to frame and to the other picture—must not be symmetrical nor
too far out.
SUBJECT D.
F. V.
(1) (2) (3)
40 100 47 38
60 75 60 68
80 104 78 80
100 148, -12 104 120
120 159 166 160
140 182 152, 84, 78 168
160 193 184, -75 180
180 200 - 95, 190 190
Note.—F. 100, V.-12; F. 140, V.-52; F. 160, V. -75: they
must be close together when on the same side.
F. V.
(1) (2)¹
Subject M. 40 55 50
60 56 74
80 64 84
100 86 102
120 93 111
140 124 130
160 134 146
180 144 178
¹Second pair (Court).
Note.—(1) Quite impossible to take both together; necessary
to keep turning from one to the other to get perception of
depth together with both.
The subjects agree in remarking on the lack of interest of the closed
tunnel, and the attractive power of the open tunnel, and notes which
emphasize this accompany choices where the open tunnel is put
uniformly nearer. (Cf. H, F. 180, V. 50; F. 80, V. 13; G, (2),
(3), (4), (5); A, (3), and F. 140.) As a glance at the results shows
that the open tunnel is placed on the whole nearer the center, we may
conclude that these choices represent a mechanical balance, in which
the open tunnel, or depth in the third dimension, is ‘heavier.’
But another point of view asserts itself constantly in the results of
S, and scatteringly in those of the others. Analyzing at first only
the results of S, we find that up to F. 140, with one exception, he
places the open tunnel much farther out than the other; and from F.
140 on, nearer. He says, F. 120, V. 185, ‘After this there is too
large a black space’; that is, in bringing the open tunnel in, he is
evidently filling space. But why does he put the open tunnel so far
out? It seems that he is governed by the desire for ease in the
apperception of the two objects. In his note for F. 80, V. 180, this
point of view comes out clearly. He thinks of the objects as being
apperceived side by side with the space about each (which apparently
takes on the character of its object), and then he seems to balance
these two fields. Cf. F. 60, V. 195: ‘The closed tunnel allows the
eyes to wander, and so it needs a bigger field on each side.’
Evidently there is an implication here of the idea of balance. Cf.
also F. 120: ‘The black tunnel harmonizes with the black to the right,
and seems to correspond in distance and depth,’ while the closed
tunnel ‘hangs together with the black on the left.’ In brief, the view
of F. seems to be that the closed tunnel is less interesting, and
partly because it ‘allows the eyes to wander,’ partly as compensation
for the greater heaviness of the open tunnel, it takes with it a
larger space than the open tunnel. It is on the whole better to put
them apart, because it is more difficult to apperceive them when close
together, and so the open tunnel in the earlier choices must, of
course, go farther from the center. When these points conflict with
the necessity of filling space, the open tunnel comes nearer the
center. In general, the notes which emphasize the difficulty of
apperceiving the two pictures as flat and deep together accompany
choices where the tunnel is put uniformly farther out, or
symmetrically. Cf. G, (1), (5); A, (1); M, F. 40, etc.
Thus we may continue to separate the two points of view, that of
mechanical balance and that of another kind of balance, which we have
known heretofore as ‘space-filling,’ made possible by the power of the
center to give ‘weight,’ but which seems to be now more explicitly
recognized as a balancing of ‘fields.’ At this point we need repeat
only, however, that the suggestion of depth in the third dimension
seems to confer ‘weight,’ ‘heaviness,’ ‘balancing power’ on its
object.
Before making a general survey of the results of this chapter, it is
necessary to consider a type of choice which has been up to this
point consistently neglected—that in which the variable has been
placed on the same side of the center as the fixed object. On the
theory of balance, either in its simple mechanical form or in its
various disguises, this choice would at first seem to be inexplicable.
And yet the subjects usually took special pleasure in this choice,
when they made it at all. These minus choices are confined to three or
four subjects and to two or three experiments. Exp. I. (a) and (b)
show the largest number. We have:
EXP. I. (a) F. (80×10); V. (160×10).
F. V.
120 - 44,
160 -150, -105, -88
200 -94, -46, -110
(b) F. (160×10); V. (80×10).
F. V.
120 -70, -80
160 -114
200 -155, -146, -148
It will be noticed that, with two exceptions, none of the positions
chosen are nearer than 70 mm. to the center, and that most of them are
much farther away. The two lines seem to be more pleasing when they
are pretty close together on the same side. S, in I. (b) F. 120,
V.-70, notes: ‘If V. is nearer O, there is a tendency to imagine a
figure by the connection of the ends of the two lines, which is
disagreeable. ‘The only other minus choices were in Exp. VII., by
S,, H, and D. S, F. 120, V.-35, says: ‘Now they can be close
together,’ and H, F. 140, 160 and 180, V. -1, -32, -71, notes the
same. So also D, F. 100, V. -12; F. 140, V. -52; F. 160, V. -75; F.
180, V. -95. It is evident from this insistence on the closeness
together of the objects, and this desire to form no figure, that the
two are taken as one, and set off against the blackness on the other
side. It seems as if this were not taken as empty space, but acquired
a meaning of its own. The association with pictures in which the empty
space is occupied by a deep vista or an expanse of sky is almost
irresistible. The case of Exp. VII. seems a little different. S, at
least, separates the two fields as usual, but for him also the black
space is living, ‘corresponds in distance and depth.’ It is at least
certain that there is no subjective feeling of emptiness or of
unoccupied energies on the empty side. And it would seem that some
influence from the objects sweeps across the central field and
vitalizes it. The most natural view would seem to be that the ease of
apperception of the two objects together, and the tendency of the eye
movement to begin on the occupied side, and to sweep across to the
unoccupied, which we think of as deep, combine to give a feeling of
pleasure and of balance.
*
We have now reached a point from which a backward glance can be cast
upon the territory traversed. Experiment with the isolated elements in
pictorial composition has shown that pleasing arrangements of these
elements can be interpreted by the formula of mechanical balance. This
principle was obtained by opposing two lines whose relative value
(corresponding to ‘weight’ in balance) was known; and it was found
that their relative positions corresponded to the relation of the arms
of a balance. Further opposition of lines, of which one was already
determined in ‘weight,’ showed the same variations and suggested
certain valuations of the undetermined lines on the basis of this
common term of weight. Thus, the line suggesting movement out from the
center fitted the formula if taken as ‘heavy’ and vice versa, the
line suggesting movement in, if taken as ‘light.’ Similarly, objects
of interest and objects suggesting movement in the third dimension
were ‘heavy’ in the same interpretation. But this interpretation, in
its baldest form, fitted only a majority of the pleasing arrangements;
the minority, in which the consistent carrying out of the lever
principle would have left a large unoccupied space in the center,
exactly reversed it, bringing the ‘light’ element to the center and
the ‘heavy’ to the outer edge. Later experiments showed that this
choice implied a power in the ‘lighter’ objects, owing to their
central position, to cover or infuse with vitality the empty space
about them, so that the principle of balance seemed to maintain itself
in one form or another.
All this does not go beyond the proof that all pleasing space
arrangements can be described in terms of mechanical balance. But
what is this mechanical balance? A metaphor, no matter how
consistently carried out, explains nothing. The fact that a small
object far from the center is usually opposed by a large object near
the center tells us nothing of the real forces involved. Physical
balance can be explained by principles of mechanics, but no one will
maintain that the visual representation of a long line weighs more
than that of a short one. Moreover, the elements in the balance seem
utterly heterogeneous. The movement suggested by an idea—the picture
of a man running—has been treated as if equivalent to the movement
actually made by the eye in following a long line; the intrinsic
interest—that is, the ideal interest—of an object insignificant in
form has been equated to the attractive power of a perspective which
has, presumably, a merely physiological effect on the visual
mechanism. What justification can be given either of this
heterogeneous collection of elements or of the more or less arbitrary
and external metaphor by which they have been interpreted?
I believe that the required justification of both points of view is
given in the reduction of all elements to their lowest term—as
objects for the expenditure of attention. A large object and an
interesting object are ‘heavy’ for the same reason, because they call
out the attention; a deep perspective, because the eye rests in
it;—why, is another question. And expenditure of effort is
expenditure of attention; thus, if an object on the outskirts of the
field of vision requires a wide sweep of the eye to take it in, it
demands the expenditure of attention, and so is felt as ‘heavy.’ It
may be said that involuntary attention is given to the object of
intrinsic interest, while the uninteresting object far on the
outskirts needs a voluntary effort to perceive it, and that the two
attitudes cannot be treated as identical. To this it may be answered
that an object on the outskirts of a field of view so definitely
limited calls out of itself a reflex movement of the eye toward it, as
truly spontaneous as the impulse toward the object of intrinsic
interest. But what is ‘the expenditure of attention’ in physiological
terms? It is nothing more than the measure of the motor impulses
directed to the object of attention. And whether the motor impulse
appears as the tendency to fixate an object or as the tendency to
follow out the suggestions of motion in the object, they reduce to
the same physiological basis. It may here be objected that our motor
impulses are, nevertheless, still heterogeneous, inasmuch as some are
toward the object of interest, and some along the line of
movement. But it must be said, first, that these are not felt in the
body, but transferred as values of weight to points
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