Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory - Hugo Münsterberg (best life changing books txt) 📗
- Author: Hugo Münsterberg
- Performer: -
Book online «Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory - Hugo Münsterberg (best life changing books txt) 📗». Author Hugo Münsterberg
within modes very near the minimum. Glancing for a moment at the
individual averages, we see that none coincides with the total
(although D is very near), and that out of eighteen, only four (D
twice, G twice) come within five millimeters of the general average,
while eight (B, C, J twice each, F, H) lie between ten and
fifteen millimeters away. The two total averages (although near the
golden section), are thus chiefly conspicuous in showing those regions
of the line that were avoided as not beautiful. Within a range of
ninety millimeters, divided into eighteen sections of five millimeters
each, there are ten such sections (50 mm.) each of which represents
the maximum of some one subject. The range of maximum judgments is
thus about one third the whole line. From such wide limits it is, I
think, a methodological error to pick out some single point, and
maintain that any explanation whatever of the divisions there made
interprets adequately our pleasure in unequal division. Can, above
all, the golden section, which in only two cases (D, G) falls
within the maximum mode; in five (A, C, F, J twice) entirely
outside all modes, and in no single instance within the maximum on
both sides the center—can this seriously play the role of æsthetic
norm?
I may state here, briefly, the results of several sets of judgments on
lines of the same length as the first but wider, and on other lines of
the same width but shorter. There were not enough judgments in either
case to make an exact comparison of averages valuable, but in three
successively shorter lines, only one subject out of eight varied in a
constant direction, making his divisions, as the line grew shorter,
absolutely nearer the ends. He himself felt, in fact, that he kept
about the same absolute position on the line, regardless of the
successive shortenings, made by covering up the ends. This I found to
be practically true, and it accounts for the increasing variation
toward the ends. Further, with all the subjects but one, two out of
three pairs of averages (one pair for each length of line) bore the
same relative positions to the center as in the normal line. That is,
if the average was nearer the center on the left than on the right,
then the same held true for the smaller lines. Not only this. With one
exception, the positions of the averages of the various subjects, when
considered relatively to one another, stood the same in the shorter
lines, in two cases out of three. In short, not only did the pair of
averages of each subject on each of the shorter lines retain the same
relative positions as in the normal line, but the zone of preference
of any subject bore the same relation to that of any other. Such
approximations are near enough, perhaps, to warrant the statement that
the absolute length of line makes no appreciable difference in the
æsthetic judgment. In the wider lines the agreement of the judgments
with those of the normal line was, as might be expected, still closer.
In these tests only six subjects were used. As in the former case,
however, E was here the exception, his averages being appreciably
nearer the center than in the original line. But his judgments of this
line, taken during the same period, were so much on the central tack
that a comparison of them with those of the wider lines shows very
close similarity. The following table will show how E‘s judgments
varied constantly towards the center:
AVERAGE.
L. R.
1. Twenty-one judgments (11 on L. and 10 on R.) during
experimentation on I¹, I², etc., but not on same days. 64 65
2. Twenty at different times, but immediately beforejudging on I¹, I², etc. 69 71
3. Eighteen similar judgments, but immediately afterjudging on I¹, I², etc. 72 71
4. Twelve taken after all experimentation with I¹,
I², etc., had ceased. 71 69
The measurements are always from the ends of the line. It looks as if
the judgments in (3) were pushed further to the center by being
immediately preceded by those on the shorter and the wider lines, but
those in (1) and (2) differ markedly, and yet were under no such
influences.
From the work on the simple line, with its variations in width and
length, these conclusions seem to me of interest. (1) The records
offer no one division that can be validly taken to represent ‘the most
pleasing proportion’ and from which interpretation may issue. (2) With
one exception (E) the subjects, while differing widely from one
another in elasticity of judgment, confined themselves severally to
pretty constant regions of choice, which hold, relatively, for
different lengths and widths of line. (3) Towards the extremities
judgments seldom stray beyond a point that would divide the line into
fourths, but they approach the center very closely. Most of the
subjects, however, found a slight remove from the center
disagreeable. (4) Introspectively the subjects were ordinarily aware
of a range within which judgments might give equal pleasure, although
a slight disturbance of any particular judgment would usually be
recognized as a departure from the point of maximum pleasingness. This
feeling of potential elasticity of judgment, combined with that of
certainty in regard to any particular instance, demands—when the
other results are also kept in mind—an interpretative theory to take
account of every judgment, and forbids it to seize on an average as
the basis of explanation for judgments that persist in maintaining
their æsthetic autonomy.
I shall now proceed to the interpretative part of the paper. Bilateral
symmetry has long been recognized as a primary principle in æsthetic
composition. We inveterately seek to arrange the elements of a figure
so as to secure, horizontally, on either side of a central point of
reference, an objective equivalence of lines and masses. At one
extreme this may be the rigid mathematical symmetry of geometrically
similar halves; at the other, an intricate system of compensations in
which size on one side is balanced by distance on the other,
elaboration of design by mass, and so on. Physiologically speaking,
there is here a corresponding equality of muscular innervations, a
setting free of bilaterally equal organic energies. Introspection will
localize the basis of these in seemingly equal eye movements, in a
strain of the head from side to side, as one half the field is
regarded, or the other, and in the tendency of one half the body
towards a massed horizontal movement, which is nevertheless held in
check by a similar impulse, on the part of the other half, in the
opposite direction, so that equilibrium results. The psychic
accompaniment is a feeling of balance; the mind is æsthetically
satisfied, at rest. And through whatever bewildering variety of
elements in the figure, it is this simple bilateral equivalence that
brings us to æsthetic rest. If, however, the symmetry is not good, if
we find a gap in design where we expected a filling, the accustomed
equilibrium of the organism does not result; psychically there is lack
of balance, and the object is æsthetically painful. We seem to have,
then, in symmetry, three aspects. First, the objective quantitative
equality of sides; second, a corresponding equivalence of bilaterally
disposed organic energies, brought into equilibrium because acting in
opposite directions; third, a feeling of balance, which is, in
symmetry, our æsthetic satisfaction.
It would be possible, as I have intimated, to arrange a series of
symmetrical figures in which the first would show simple geometrical
reduplication of one side by the other, obvious at a glance; and the
last, such a qualitative variety of compensating elements that only
painstaking experimentation could make apparent what elements balanced
others. The second, through its more subtle exemplification of the
rule of quantitative equivalence, might be called a higher order of
symmetry. Suppose now that we find given, objects which, æsthetically
pleasing, nevertheless present, on one side of a point of reference,
or center of division, elements that actually have none corresponding
to them on the other; where there is not, in short, objective
bilateral equivalence, however subtly manifested, but, rather, a
complete lack of compensation, a striking asymmetry. The simplest,
most convincing case of this is the horizontal straight line,
unequally divided. Must we, because of the lack of objective equality
of sides, also say that the bilaterally equivalent muscular
innervations are likewise lacking, and that our pleasure consequently
does not arise from the feeling of balance? A new aspect of
psychophysical æsthetics thus presents itself. Must we invoke a new
principle for horizontal unequal division, or is it but a subtly
disguised variation of the more familiar symmetry? And in vertical
unequal division, what principle governs? A further paper will deal
with vertical division. The present paper, as I have said, offers a
theory for the horizontal.
To this end, there were introduced, along with the simple line figures
already described, more varied ones, designed to suggest
interpretation. One whole class of figures was tried and discarded
because the variations, being introduced at the ends of the simple
line, suggested at once the up-and-down balance of the lever about the
division point as a fulcrum, and became, therefore, instances of
simple symmetry. The parallel between such figures and the simple line
failed, also, in the lack of homogeneity on either side the division
point in the former, so that the figure did not appear to center at,
or issue from the point of division, but rather to terminate or
concentrate in the end variations. A class of figures that obviated
both these difficulties was finally adopted and adhered to throughout
the work. As exposed, the figures were as long as the simple line, but
of varying widths. On one side, by means of horizontal parallels, the
horizontality of the original line was emphasized, while on the other
there were introduced various patterns (fillings). Each figure was
movable to the right or the left, behind a stationary opening 160 mm.
in length, so that one side might be shortened to any desired degree
and the other at the same time lengthened, the total length remaining
constant. In this way the division point (the junction of the two
sides) could be made to occupy any position on the figure. The figures
were also reversible, in order to present the variety-filling on the
right or the left.
If it were found that such a filling in one figure varied from one in
another so that it obviously presented more than the other of some
clearly distinguishable element, and yielded divisions in which it
occupied constantly a shorter space than the other, then we could,
theoretically, shorten the divisions at will by adding to the filling
in the one respect. If this were true it would be evident that what we
demand is an equivalence of fillings—a shorter length being made
equivalent to the longer horizontal parallels by the addition of more
of the element in which the two short fillings essentially differ. It
would then be a fair inference that the different lengths allotted by
the various subjects to the short division of the simple line result
from varying degrees of substitution of the element, reduced to its
simplest terms, in which our filling varied. Unequal division would
thus be an instance of bilateral symmetry.
The thought is plausible. For, in regarding the short part of the line
with the long still in vision, one would be likely, from the æsthetic
tendency to introduce symmetry into the arrangement of objects, to be
irritated by the discrepant inequality of the two lengths, and, in
order
Comments (0)