Fig. 7.
The maximum is reached in No. 1a, where the angle has the arrowhead form and each angle points to the other. It should be remarked that the diagram is somewhat misleading in respect to the distance of the figures, which in this as in the other experiments was 25 cm. The figures therefore were far enough away from each other to be perceived and imaged in individual distinctness. But the 'energy' of the lines, especially where the lines united to form an acute angle, was often sufficient to overcome the effect of this separation, and either to bring the figures nearer together or to unite them into a single object. The notes are very decisive in this regard. A few of them may be cited: "The angles tended to join points." "The figures showed a tendency to move in the direction of the apex." "The angles (2a) united to form a cross." "When both figures (4b) were in mind I felt disagreeable strains in the eyeballs; one figure led me to the right and the other to the left." The effect of the last-named figures (4a) seemed to be different from that of 1a and 2a, though the apex of each angle was turned to that of the other in each of the three cases. "The two angles," says another subject, speaking of 4a, "appeared antagonistic to each other." It will be observed that they are less acute than the other angles referred to, and the confluent lines of each figure are far less distinctly directed towards the corresponding lines of the opposing figure, so that the attention, so far as it is determined in direction by the lines, would be less likely to be carried over from the one image to the other.
On the other hand, when the angles were turned away from each other the legs of the angles in the two figures compared were brought into closer relation, so that in 2b, for instance, the average is even higher than in 2a. Similarly the average in 3b, an obtuse angle, is higher than in 3a. The notes show that in such cases the contrasted angles tended to close up and coalesce into a single figure with a continuous boundary. "The ends (2b) came together and formed a diamond." "When the angles were turned away from each other the lines had an occasional tendency to close up." "There was a tendency to unite the two images (4a) into a triangle." "The two figures seemed to tug each other, and the images were in fact a little closer than the objects (4a)." "The images (4a) formed a triangle." So with regard to the figures in 5a. "When both were in the field there seemed to be a pulling of the left over to the right, though no apparent displacement." "The two figures formed a square."
The lowest average—and it is much lower than any other average in the table—is that of 5b, in which the contrasted objects have neither angles nor incomplete lines directed to any common point between the objects. In view of the notes, the tabulated record of these two figures (5b) is very significant, and strikingly confirms, by its negative testimony, what 1a and 2b have to teach us by their positive testimony. The averages are, in the three cases just cited: 1a, 35.11 seconds; 2b,33.11 seconds; 5b, 15 seconds per minute.
On the whole, then, the power of the line to arrest, direct, and keep the attention, through the greater energy and definiteness of the processes which it excites, and thereby to increase the chances of the recurrence and persistence of its idea in consciousness, is confirmed by the results of this series. The greatest directive force seems to lie in the sharply acute angle. Two such angles, pointing one towards the other, tend very strongly to carry the attention across the gap which separates them. (And it should be borne in mind that the distance between the objects exposed was 25 cm.) But the power of two incomplete lines, similarly situated, is not greatly inferior.
It thus appears that the attention process is in part, at least, a motor process, which in this case follows the direction of the lines, acquiring thereby a momentum which is not at once arrested by a break in the line, but is readily diverted by a change in the direction of the line. If the lines are so situated that the attention process excited by the one set is carried away from the other set, the one set inhibits the other. If, on the other hand, the lines in the one set are so situated that they can readily take up the overrunning or unarrested processes excited by the other set, the two figures support each other by becoming in fact one figure. The great importance of the motor elements of the attention process in ideation, and thus in the persistence of the idea, is evident in either phase of the experiment.
RECAPITULATION.
| Seconds | Seconds. | ||||||
| 1 | Figures | alike: | Left | 30.8 | Right | 31.9 | |
| 2 | " | unlike: | Simple | 27.10 | Complex | 34.62 | |
| 3 | " | " | Small | 24.54 | Large | 33.30 | |
| 4 | " | " | Gray | 25.61 | White | 29.53 | |
| 5 | " | " | Plain | 23.92 | Marked | 37.48 | |
| 7 | " | " | (colored) | 5 seconds | 27.75 | 10 second | 29.15 |
| 8 | " | " | (gray) | 5 seconds | 25.42 | 10 seconds | 32.12 |
| 9 | " | " | 1st exposure | 12.64 | 2d exposure | 36.45 | |
| 10 | " | " | Vertical line | 34.94 | Hor. line | 34.49 | |
| 11 | " | " | Full-faced | 28.10 | Outline | 41.08 | |
| 12 | " | " | Figure | 29.26 | Int. lines | 39.32 | |
| 13 | " | " | Figure | 34.03 | Vert. lines | 36.40 | |
| 14 | " | " | Stationary | 28.88 | Moved | 37.39 | |
| 15 | " | " | Gray | 30.90 | Colored | 37.81 | |
| 16 | (See Table XVI.) | ||||||
If we put these results into the form of propositions, we find: