The Psychology of Beauty

by Ethel Puffer Howes

<1> T.L. Bolton, Amer. Jour. Of Psychol., vol. vi. The classical historical study of theories of rhythm remains that of Meumann, Phil. Studien, vol. x.

Attention itself is ultimately a motor phenomenon. Thus: the sensory aspect of attention is vividness, and vividness is explained physiologically as a brain-state of readiness for motor discharge;<1> in the case of a visual stimulus, for instance, a state of readiness to carry out movements of adjustment to the object; in short, the motor path is open. Now attention, or vividness, is found to fluctuate periodically, so that in a series of objectively equal stimuli, certain ones, regularly recurring, would be more vividly sensed. This is exemplified in the well-known facts of the fluctuation of the threshold of sensation, of the so-called retinal rivalry, and of the subjective rhythmizing of auditory stimuli, already mentioned. There is a natural rhythm of vividness. Here, therefore, in the very conditions of consciousness itself, we have the conditions of rhythm too. The case of subjective motor rhythm would be still clearer, since vividness is only the psychical side of readiness for motor discharge; in other words, increased readiness for motor discharge occurs periodically, giving motor rhythm.

<1> Munsterberg, Grundzuge d. Psychologie, 1902,. P. 525.

It has been said<1> that this periodicity of the brain-wave cannot furnish the necessary condition for rhythm, inasmuch as it is itself a constant, and could at most be applied to a series which was adapted to its own time. But this objection does not fit the facts. The "brain-wave," or "vividness," or attention period, is not a constant, but attaches itself to the contents of consciousness. In other words, it does not function without material. It is itself conditioned by its occasion. In the case of a regularly repeated stimulus, it is simply adjusted to what is there, and out of the series chooses, as it were, one at regular periods.<2>

<1> J.B. Miner, "Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms," Psychol. Rev., Mon. Suppl., No. 21. <2> Facts, too technical for reproduction here, quoted by R.H. Stetson (Harvard Psychol. Studies, vol. i, 1902) from Cleghorn's and Hofbauer's experiments seem to be in harmony with this view.

Closely connected with these facts, perhaps only a somewhat different aspect of them, is the phenomenon of motor mechanization. Any movement repeated tends to become a circular reaction, as it is called; that is, the end of one repetition serves as a cue for the beginning of the next. Now, in regularly recurring stimuli, giving rise, as will be later shown, to motor reactions, which are differentiated through the natural periodicity of the attention (physiologically the tendency to motor discharge), we have the best condition for this mechanization. In other words, a rhythmical grouping once set up naturally tends to persist. The organism prepares itself for shocks at definite times, and shocks coming at those times are pleasant because they fulfill a need. Moreover, every further stimulus reinforces the original activity; so that rhythmical grouping tends not only to persist, but to grow more distinct,—as, indeed, all the facts of introspection show.

All this, however, is true of the repetition of objectively equal stimuli. It shows how an impulse to rhythm would arise and persist subjectively, but does not of itself explain the pleasure in the experience of objective rhythm. It may be said in general, however, that changes which would occur naturally in an objectively undifferentiated content give direct pleasure when they are artificially introduced,—when, that is, the natural disposition is satisfied. This we have seen to be true in the of color contrast; and it is perhaps even more valid in the realm of motor activity. Whatever in sense stimulation gives the condition for, helps, furthers, enhances the natural function, is felt both as pleasing and as furthering the particular activity in question. Now, the objective stress in rhythm is but emphasis on a stress that would be in any case to some degree subjectively supplied. Rhythm in music, abstracting from all other pleasure-giving factors, is then pleasurable because it is in every sense a favorable stimulation.

In accordance with the principle that complete explanation of psychical facts is possible only through the physiological substrate, we have so far kept rather to that field in dealing with the foundations of our pleasure in rhythm. But further description of the rhythmical experience is most natural in psychological terms. There seems, indeed, on principle no ground for the current antithesis, so much emphasized of late, of "psychical" and "motor" theories of rhythm. Attention and expectation are not "psychical" as opposed to "motor." Granting, as no doubt most psychologists would grant, that attention is the psychical analogue of the physiological tendency to motor discharge, then a motor automatism of which one is fully conscious could be described as expectation and its satisfaction. Indeed, the impossibility of a sharp distinction between ideas of movement and movement sensations confirms this view. When expectation has reference to an experience with a movement element in it, the expectation itself contains movement sensations of the kind in question.<1> To say, then, that rhythm is expectation based on the natural functioning of the attention period, is simply to clothe our physiological explanation in terms of psychological description. The usual motor theory is merely one which neglects the primary disposition to rhythm through attention variations, in favor of the sensations of muscular tension (kinaesthetic sensations) which arise IN rhythm, but do not cause it. To say that the impression of rhythm arises only in kinaesthetic sensations begs the question in the way previously noted. Undoubtedly, the period once established, the rhythmic group is held together, felt as a unit, by means of the coordinated movement sensations; but the main problem, the possibility of this first establishment, is not solved by such a motor theory. In other words, the attention theory is the real motor theory.

<1> C.M. Hitchcock, "The Psychol. Of Expectation," Psychol. Rev., Mon. Suppl., No. 20.

Expectation is the "set" of the attention. Automatism is the set of the motor centres. Now as attention is parallel to the condition of the motor centres, we are able to equate expectation and automatic movement. Rhythm is literally embodied expectation, fulfilled. It is therefore easily to be understood that whatever other emotions connect themselves with satisfied expectation are at their ideal poignance in the case of rhythm.