PART I
Section A. The following are the collected expressions which many subjects used to describe the feeling for this particular shade of red. It feels as if it would be soft. It suggests warmth. The feeling is one of seriousness, pleasantness, quietness, of free repose,—a full feeling of the sense of safety. It is soothing, rich, full of strength, and inviting. One feels restful, grave, calm, appeased. There is an agreeable longing and a tendency to lose one's self in the color. The feeling is one of comfort, luxury, satisfaction, expansiveness, tranquillity, and quiescence, with no accompanying feeling of weakness by exertion of effort or energy. There is neither marked tension on the one hand, nor collapse on the other. There is a sense rather of easy self-control and command of one's body, but with no aggressive sorrow nor joy element,—a feeling of being attracted, with nothing to suggest any obstacle to the adaptation.
Occasionally to all subjects this color, and, indeed, all colors, seemed "dead," arousing no feeling whatever. Here the color "ought to be pleasant," but is only "for the time potentially not actually actively pleasant." Still more rarely did this red appear to be unpleasant. Some subjects thought that this afforded the greatest amount of sensual pleasure. More than any of the other colors they think it appears to "give you something." It does not so much stimulate as furnish a content itself. It has a direct effect rather than a tendency to make one wish to do something and thus give pleasure from the activity itself. Only one subject failed to find this color pleasant. His early association of it with blood and ghastly scenes could not be overcome. Some others, when a glare or glaze appeared on the red, found in it slight suggestions of stimulation and excitement, but the general decision in the great majority of cases was that the feeling was a sort of emotional massiveness compared with the effects from other colors.
In marked contrast, for the most part, appears the characteristic feeling-tone for our chosen shade of yellow. Almost universally subjects find such words as these descriptive of the feeling here in question. It is cheerful, brisk, pleasant[84] also, bright, gay, light, sprightly, merry, jovial, easy to get, pleasantly irritating, stimulating, stirring, spurring, thrilling, invigorating, and produces agreeable discontent. It is jolly, nice, trim, neat, awakening, full of the sense of motion, soaring, and arouses a feeling of welcome strain, of pleasure in action, of alertness and self-assertion. Here, in contrast for the most part to the red, there is no feeling of sinking into the color. The impulse rather is to be free, to enjoy motor expression, even if of some vague sort. There is a felt necessity to do something, a "joy of overflowing or of exuberance," it is called. There is little present here of what we mean by a suggestion of sensual richness found above in the feeling for red. Here there is less of amount of pleasure, but much more of the general activity element. Some subjects feel the demand for greater saturation, and occasionally it is unpleasant for just this reason apparently. Subjects C and B frequently reported this. They think the feeling would be more "stable" and "grave" and "secure" and "soothing" and one would not feel "unruffled," if it could be "toned down." Most of the subjects, however, think that it belongs to the ultimate elemental feeling for yellow that it should have just this distinguishing characteristic.
It is more difficult to describe the feeling for green. It is almost always agreeable. Two subjects, however, never like it. Sometimes it is somewhat soothing in character, but more often it is exciting. The feeling seems to be between that for red and that for yellow, partaking on the whole of the characters of feeling for the latter rather than the former. For all subjects associations tend to color the feeling-tone for green especially, and hence introspection for the feeling of pure color is doubly difficult. The most prominent partial feeling-tone for it is "irritating."[85] The agreeableness or disagreeableness of this stimulating character is particularly inconstant, varying greatly for the same subject, as well as for different subjects.
The feeling for the blue seems still more to be dependent upon the person. Many like it. Many others dislike it decidedly. When it affords a pleasant feeling, it is described in some such terms as these: The feeling is spiritual, lofty, beautiful, serene. The subject himself feels immoveable. To other subjects it is too rich and intense and painful. To one subject who heartily dislikes it always, it is offensive or revolting, calling up a feeling akin to the emotion one has toward insincerity in general. To none does this feeling seem to have any great amount of sensual significance. Even when it is called "too rich," the incongruity between the richness itself and the ultimate qualitative significance of the blue is spoken of. Even when pleasant, the feeling is of an "airy pleasure," volatile, unstable, and not reliable, nor safe and secure as is the feeling for red. One feels that it is always apt to vanish, vague, intangible, and with little immediate definiteness of meaning. Subjects often desire to call it an intellectual, æsthetic, or ideal sort of feeling.
No color was universally unpleasant. Two subjects found this greenish-yellow almost always mildly pleasant. For most of the subjects, however, it was unpleasant. Here were reported feelings of contraction, of withdrawal, of disgust, of doubt, of hesitation, of stimulation without definiteness, dissatisfaction, slight feeling of nausea, of sea-sickness, of opposition, and the general feeling of offensiveness. The necessary, unpleasant aggressiveness, unrest, or discontent characterizes this feeling. This unpleasant critical attitude where a decision is wanted but not easily gotten, is called often the feeling of uncertainty.
In no sense is this investigation a study of the psychology of color; the only purpose here is to find certain clearly defined feelings for slight stimulations, in order to find in what way they relate themselves to other similarly simple feelings from a different source of stimulation.
In a similar manner, then, the investigation was conducted in the analysis and description of feeling-tones for tactual impressions.
For plush there was a feeling of pleasure, ease, safety, and content. The mood was one of a general enjoyment of sinking one's self into the situation, an agreeable self-surrender. Here also is a feeling of unbending one's self, of general expansiveness, of relaxation. One is soothed, enjoys a suggestion of freedom from disturbance, of a "regularity" of the experience, feels at the same time strength in the suggested repose, responds to pleasant reverberating thrills by the falling off from the accustomed muscular tonicity, and hence has a decided feeling of satisfaction. To some subjects the feeling aroused by the hard, polished, glazed tin surface, possessing no "yielding" character, corresponded more nearly to the feeling for the yellow color than for the red. To all red "went best" with the plush. No tactual feelings offered such distinguishable elements for analysis, nor were they as definitely described as the visual or olfactory or auditory impressions. The sensational elements were in many cases more pronounced. The feeling for the plush, however, much like that for the red color, suggests a "settling down to," or a "dropping forward toward," rather than an aggressive "taking in" of the feeling-material.
The feeling-tone with sensations from sandpaper is grating, irritating, stirring, stimulating. The feeling is one of contraction, of withdrawal, of uneasiness. One is full of "collapsing chills," of minute little pains, and there is a decided call for an opposite kind of behavior. The sense of weakness, of waste of power and energy, of being penetrated, of strained expectation, of unwelcome tension, and of slight "wasteful excitement" results. To some subjects, notably subject E, at times the whole feeling of stimulation as such predominated, and the total effect produced was agreeable, as it "satisfied a felt need of waking up." Here again one subject, subject B, throughout the whole period of two years, failed to find any element of pleasure in any tactual sensation that was pronounced or prolonged sufficiently to furnish material for introspection.
As regards simple tones from tuning-forks the subjects find little to say. All are pleasant, as a rule, and almost universally, low tones are most pleasant, richer in content, greater in amount of "general appeal," more soothing, and pleasantly stimulating. The feeling of the easy attitude called for contributes to the whole feeling. High tones, calling for more activity on the part of the subject, more strain, and greater stimulation, coupled with some rather unprepared-for irritating elements, are less pleasant, and also more limited in their general appeal to the whole organism. The noises variously produced were at first unpleasant, and the only assignable reason seemed to be that their suddenness came as a shock. If expected or continued they too became pleasant very often.
Feelings for forms seem to relate even more definitely to the activity element. The pleasure for the most part is described as being far less sensual, if indeed, so at all. Small upright ovals, 1½ × 1 in., are most pleasant, because somehow they are "more suggestive of definiteness." Circles one inch in diameter are next in order of value as to their feeling-tones. Horizontal ovals are less pleasant still, though for most subjects not unpleasant. Upright ovals are best, as the kind of action apparently called for by the aroused feeling is most agreeable and suitable to the subject's natural upright position of body. An explanation of this general result of introspection, as well as the preference for the particular size chosen almost without exception, is attempted in another part of this report, where are given in more detail the various kinds of bodily accompaniments. The feelings for those ovals have also the characters of stimulation, mild excitement, and a feeling of easy freedom in a pleasing kind of activity. Tension is always present as an agreeable element when reported at all. This element is coupled with the "feeling of assurance of certainty" which the whole situation calls for. It often seems clearly to suggest that one do something. Circles tend more to suggest inner stability and completeness. They stand on their own axes. Here there is a sense of satisfaction, complacency, and sufficiency. The feeling here of a call for immediate activity on the part of the subject is weak and indefinite, when not altogether absent. The subjects do not use for this experience such expressions as excitement, tension, irritation, quick contraction, or the impulse to self-assertion. Horizontal ovals are least pleasant, it seems to me, for obvious reasons. Here such noted elements as "felt unnaturalness," "difficulty of adapting one's self," "wrong direction of activity," which alone and in themselves would be unpleasant, are nevertheless more than counterbalanced by other and pleasing elements, such as symmetry, definiteness, partial stability, and other agreeable features. Often these latter features are not pronounced, and then the judgment is, that the total feeling is unpleasant.
Likewise as regards so-called bad forms, no single statement is unqualifiedly true of any considerable number of subjects. The decided feeling of irregularity, the "bulging-out" or the undesirable "pushing-in" of the figure, the feeling of weakness in one's own body corresponding, the feeling of instability which one tends himself to imitate in various ways, the total effect of lack of poise, all tend to make these figures on the whole unpleasant. But one cannot even here count upon the constancy of the subjects' feelings. At times, due perhaps to undercurrents of association processes of which even the subject himself is not clearly aware, the figure suddenly looms up as quite definitely pleasing, and full of vague suggestiveness and hidden richness of content. These varying characters of the feelings for forms come out interestingly later in the study of them when they are presented as frames for the above described colors.
Section B. The bodily processes noted by the subjects are numerous, and here also, just as with the amount of feeling above, the personal differences are striking. Some subjects detect a great many forms of organic commotion, others rarely find anything that can be said to be descriptive or explanatory of the feeling-state. To all of them at first this looking for bodily accompaniments destroyed the feeling itself. Only after considerable training was it possible for them to find any physiological processes that seemed at all significant. As a general statement the evidence would all tend to suggest that feelings for color are most readily and directly referred to the head, face, throat, and particularly to the forehead and to the eye-muscles. When, however, the feelings are particularly strong, they tend to pervade the whole organism. Red thus often brings about the suggestion of general bodily comfort, and yellow, when very strong, arouses the impulses calling for "spreading-out, aggressive movements," referred to arms, shoulders, and chest. Tones have in general the same reference to the head. Odors are always more organic, affecting more directly the respiration, muscles of the abdomen, and the more internal apparatus generally. Tactual impressions refer to the trunk rather than to the face, hand, arms, or legs. Forms seem to call forth imitative movements, and the actual or incipient motor impulses refer to the action of the eyes in motion, the position of the head, of the whole body, of the shoulders particularly, of the shaping of the cheeks, lips, etc., and of the similarly imitative actions in the hands and arms. The following is a list collected from the reported bodily references given for the feelings described in Part I, Section A.
(1) Free full respiration and free activity of all voluntary muscles; or, for other feelings, the checking of respiration and often the lack of impulse to move at all, with no suggestion, however, in most cases, of lassitude.
(2) Chest expansion and general relief pervading the whole body. The expansion or contraction is further modified by the degree of regularity and by the rate of the movements involved, as also by the ease or difficulty in the performance. So also, in the cases of feeling whose tone exists but is doubtful in character, the bodily situation seems to mean "lack of movement or change in any definite direction." The feeling-tone and its vividness are interdependent and reported as closely connected.
(3) A cringing all over and a "holding up of all activities."
(4) Abdomen contraction, chest and shoulders drawn in, hands clenched, and jaws set.
(5) A feeling at once in different parts of the body of both process of contraction and expansion.
(6) An incipient feeling of nausea in the digestive tract.
(7) A tendency to incline the head forward or backward, or to keep it rigid, or to turn it aside.
(8) For touch, waves, reverberations, pleasant penetrating thrills in the chest and abdomen especially, less frequently in the limbs, occur. Sometimes these suggest expansion of the whole frame; sometimes, even when also pleasant, the tendency to contraction and tension is noticeable, but in these latter cases the contraction seems to be rather definitely the calling into action of those general innervated muscles which refer to the bodily situation of one when he intends to go toward the pleasantly stimulating object.
(9) For unpleasant touch the reference or localization of the bodily response is, when reported definitely at all, generally in the back, described as chills not thrills, contractions always, contractions also which often suggest shivers of withdrawal. These feelings also are referred to the situation of the trunk of the body, and are felt to originate in the small of the back, and in the back of the shoulders. For two subjects there occur twitchings in the tendons of the hips and thighs, and movements of the knee-cap.
(10) The pervasive bodily collapse, which seems to accompany feelings characterized as depressing, altogether unlike the soothing feeling of unwearied repose given by certain soft rich colors or by low deep full tones or smooth yielding surfaces, is another form of organic response which is often spoken of.
(11) The direction of the stimulus with respect to the normal position of the body also seems to have something to do with the regularity of the response, and with the general forward or backward tendency. Tactual surfaces applied or tones sounded behind the subject do seem to make the bodily adjustment more confused, and less pleasant. All that subjects could say was that the position was felt as abnormal and correspondingly less pleasing.
(12) In many unpleasant feelings, where there was no specific localization possible, the "stiffening tendency of hardening one's self to a necessary experience" was frequently reported. In the case of other states of undifferentiated pleasure a "consenting bending forward of the whole body" was often detected.
(13) Many stimulations seem to demand that one draw one's self erect, square the shoulders, and "assume the attitude of alertness."
(14) Certain colors for almost every subject independently hint at sea-sickness. Others, as noted above, report the incipient suggestion of nausea in the digestive tract. Indeed, abdominal references are frequently reported by most of the subjects. The abdominal muscles become "eased up," or again there is a "sucking-in of the belly."
(15) The feeling of "being natural," of regularity, a universally popular feeling, is described as a pleasant relief from all tensions and habitual inhibitions, or a dropping of one's characteristic muscular tonicity.
(16) Other stimulations still, particularly certain delicate odors, for men, subjects C and E for example, seem to suggest what they call the "childish play impulse." They are called "simple, foolish, childish pleasures," ignored in ordinary life. They are slightly pleasantly irritating, and merely make one wish to do something. It is pure bodily restlessness, a general kinæsthetic enjoyment. Three subjects, especially, find here the frequent twitchings in the calves of the legs, in the knee-cap, and the more decided innervations which contract the tendons of the thighs and hips.
(17) Subject I frequently detected sensations of contraction in the tensor tympani connected with the pleasure derived from high tones. Others referred feelings for tones partly to the regions of the ears.
(18) The kinds of facial references are numerous. General contraction or expansion around the eyes, forehead, temples, sometimes to the whole head, and quite frequently it seemed as if the feeling referred to the very inside of the eyeball, to the iris and accommodation movements.
(19) Subjects A, D, F, and K noted specific incipient tendencies to smile, to smooth the brow, and to "unbend the face" as characteristic descriptions of certain oft-repeated experiences.
(20) Introspections from subjects F and G quite constantly revealed articulatory impulses vividly accompanying the feelings for many colors and forms.
(21) A scowl and puckering of the lips was descriptive of the attitude taken toward some unpleasant situations.
(22) A contraction or relaxation of the throat-muscles and of the vocal chords generally was not infrequently noticed. The tendency to swallow is spoken of. The throat is felt often to be "concave" when certain bad feelings are sufficiently pronounced. A contraction in the mucous membrane, with teeth on edge, such as one would experience in eating something sour, is frequent. A twitching of the ears, squinting of the eyebrows, and a "heavy feeling" through the neck and chest occur often, or again a pressing hard of the tongue against the roof of the mouth.
(23) Forms suggested a shrinking in the volume of the face, sometimes of the crown of the head, and even of the whole head.
(24) Upright or horizontal ovals especially provoked the impulse to imitate the figure itself, either with the lips or with the hands and arms. When the feeling was particularly strong, all these impulses often occurred together and appeared mutually to reënforce, or to intensify each other.
(25) Horizontal ovals gave one the feeling of being "flattened out," coupled with an impulse to adjustment altogether unlike the sprightly, alert, airy feeling aroused by the "trim," upright figures.
(26) Occasionally when the irregular shapes were presented directly after a subject had been enjoying one of the perfect figures, that side of his face or body corresponding to the distorted portion of the figure was felt to be in an abnormal and unpleasant position. This "caving-in" or "bulging-out" sensation, which accompanies the unpleasant feeling, happens when the whole muscular system at the time for the subject seems inert or externally controlled.
All these sensations of bodily processes, taken from the introspective descriptions given by the subjects, are distinctly reported by them as very faint. They by no means detect them in every experience, nor do they always seem to the subject himself to mean the whole of the feeling as experienced. Neither did any one subject find all the concomitant processes recorded above. Subject H failed throughout the whole period to detect anything whatsoever, except slight tendencies to frown, smooth the brow, or to open wide the eyes. This subject was unable to detect any special differences in his feelings, either in variety or in amount. For him neither soft red nor brilliant yellow was either exciting or soothing. They were and always remained for him more or less vaguely pleasant, and this description for him was both ultimate and exhaustive.
Subject B could get no kind of pleasant feeling from any tactual surface, while to Subject E even the coarsest sandpaper usually afforded pleasant stimulation. As spoken of above, articulatory impulses were characteristic of the motor tendencies of Subjects D and G. To Subject A the experiences seemed richest and fullest, and the corresponding bodily processes were likewise more pronounced and varied. In the great majority of the experiments, especially during the period of training, the feeling itself vanished when the subjects attempted to analyze the bodily processes. It was chiefly, however, a matter of training, and this more and more ceased to be a disturbing element.
Some subjects preferred often to speak of circulatory, or at least, decidedly internal and usually involuntary changes in addition to, and sometimes without, the controlled muscular actions. The mood of the time affects the amount of feeling, and occasionally, but far less frequently, the quality. The moral significance of the feelings was most prominent when the subject felt most interested in the experiment, as may be noted above in their descriptions of the feelings for red and yellow. What may be termed the "regularity element" would seem generally to serve as the test especially for the pleasant-unpleasant character of the feeling-tone. The feeling of expansiveness never accompanied unpleasant feelings. Feelings of contraction, on the other hand, very often occurred when the feelings were not at all disagreeable. In such cases there was a significance attached to the direction or meaning of the adjustment.