Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 eBook


A. represented the line of vision as going to each of the two images, which seemed connected by a line, thus making a triangle, and then pictured himself as standing off and seeing himself looking at the images.  When the two objects were solid and the images were to be crossed, B. carried one image above or below the other, but when the objects were colored surfaces he conceived them as pure colors so that there was no sense of impenetrability to interfere with their crossing and they glided by each other.  In the up-and-down movements he moved one at a time.  C. and D. had to construct some support for the images.  In most of the experiments H. first moved the images to a greater distance away, somewhat higher up and a little farther apart.  In this new position the images appeared smaller and the suggested movements were made more easily.  Sometimes in crossing two colored images he observed a partial mixture of the colors.  J. found that a sharp movement of the head in the required direction aided materially in moving the images, and when the objects were colored surfaces fastened to the same card he found it necessary either to conceive the card as of rubber or to picture it as cut in two before he could make the movements of the images.

With A., B., C. and D. there were instances of unwilled movements of the images, in the experiments where the movements were not timed.  These were much more frequent with D. than with the others, and to check them required prolonged effort.  The more common movements of this sort were rotation of the image, change of its position, separation of its parts (if detachable in the object) and change of shape.  E. had a return of the two images of a preceding experiment which persisted in staying a few seconds and which were as vivid as the two legitimate occupants of the mental field.

The images were duplicated five times on different days with A., and once each with C., F. and K.

A.’s cases were these.  The ‘wraith’ of a small box whose image was out at the right, appeared above the other image off at the left and it was turned with a corner to the front.  Again, at the central position each image was duplicated, the true pair being of full size, bright and distinct, the false pair small, dim and on a more distant plane, i.e., behind the others.  One of the extra images persisted against all effort to banish it, for fifty-five seconds.  Again, when twelve inches apart each image was similarly duplicated.  In the fourth instance the images were at the center of the field.  In the fifth, the right image, eight inches from the center, was duplicated, the extra image being still farther away and above.  This second image was very dark, dim and vague in outline, and came and went slowly.  The right image of C., when seven feet from the center, had a dim double above it.  F. had moved the right-hand image (a violet disc) close to the left when a blue disc also appeared above it.  Though repeating the word ‘violet’ he had imaged the violet disc as blue.  K. was holding the two images a foot and a half apart when an extra pair appeared at the center.  Both pairs persisted for sixty seconds and then the outer pair vanished, and the inner, the false pair, grew brighter.

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