. Lectures on the elementary psychology of feeling and attention. tevensinversion of the complication experiment.^ Thearrangement is very simple. We take a bellmetronome, and a cardboard arc whose radiusis the length of the metronome divisions of 5° are laid off upon the cir-cumference, and the arc — with the zero-pointof the scale corresponding to the position ofequilibrium of the pendulum — is impaled uponthe eye which serves to lock the lid of the metro-nome. The white cardboard thus forms abackground, in front of which the pendulumoscillates. A piece of red paper, cut to the
. Lectures on the elementary psychology of feeling and attention. tevensinversion of the complication experiment.^ Thearrangement is very simple. We take a bellmetronome, and a cardboard arc whose radiusis the length of the metronome divisions of 5° are laid off upon the cir-cumference, and the arc — with the zero-pointof the scale corresponding to the position ofequilibrium of the pendulum — is impaled uponthe eye which serves to lock the lid of the metro-nome. The white cardboard thus forms abackground, in front of which the pendulumoscillates. A piece of red paper, cut to theshape of an arrow-head, is spitted upon the endof the pendulum. The metronome is set to the PRIOR ENTRY 253 rate of, say, 72 in the one minute, and the bellrings at every complete oscillation. The posi-tion of objective coincidence of bell-stroke andarrow-head may be found, approximately, byslowly moving the pendulum with the handuntil the bell sounds; in our instrument, itcomes at about 22^. The experiment is thenperformed in two ways. First, the observer. Fig. 6. Simple Complication Pendulum. attends to the moving pointer; the sound of thebell is secondary, — it floats, so to say, uponthe main current of visual change. Under theseconditions, the pointer carries the bell out; anaverage determination of subjective coincidenceis 30°. Secondly, the observer attends to thebell; the movement of the pendulum is nowsecondary, — the expected bell-strokes stand 254 THE LAWS OF ATTENTION: II out upon an indifferent shifting field. Underthese conditions the temporal displacement ofthe sound is negative, not positive; the point ofsubjective coincidence lies, on the average, be-tween 10° and 15°. It is very clear that thestimulus for which we are predisposed has theadvantage over its rival. I call this observation the inversion of thecomplication experiment, because in it the direc-tion of attention is prescribed, whereas, in thecomplication experiment proper, there is noprelim
Size: 1668px × 1498px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectsensesandsensation
