Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 / Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.

by Unknown

The possible variations of absolute rate and of relative intervals within the series were vastly more numerous than the practical conditions of experimentation called for. In two directions the adaptability of the mechanism was found to be restricted. The durations of the sounds could not be varied as were the intervals between them, and all questions concerning the results of such changes were therefore put aside; and, secondly, the hammers and anvils, though fashioned from the same stuff and turned to identical shapes and weights, could not be made to ring qualitatively alike; and these differences, though slight, were sufficiently great to become the basis of discrimination between successive sounds and of the recognition upon their recurrence of particular hammer-strokes, thereby constituting new points of unification for the series of sounds. When the objective differences of intensity were marked, these minor qualitative variations were unregarded; but when the stresses introduced were weak, as in a series composed of 3/8-, 2/8-, 2/8-inch hammer-falls, they became sufficiently great to confuse or transform the apparent grouping of the rhythmical series; for a qualitative difference between two sounds, though imperceptible when comparison is made after a single occurrence of each, may readily become the subconscious basis for a unification of the pair into a rhythmical group when several repetitions of them take place.

In such an investigation as this the qualification of the subject-observer should be an important consideration. The susceptibility to pleasurable and painful affection by rhythmical and arrhythmical relations among successive sensory stimuli varies within wide limits from individual to individual. It is of equal importance to know how far consonance exists between the experiences of a variety of individuals. If the objective conditions of the rhythm experience differ significantly from person to person it is useless to seek for rhythm forms, or to speak of the laws of rhythmical sequence. Consensus of opinion among a variety of participators is the only foundation upon which one can base the determination of objective forms of any practical value. It is as necessary to have many subjects as to have good ones. In the investigation here reported on, work extended over the two academic years of 1898-1900. Fourteen persons in all took part, whose ages ranged from twenty-three to thirty-nine years. Of these, five were musically trained, four of whom were also possessed of good rhythmic perception; of the remaining nine, seven were good or fair subjects, two rather poor. All of these had had previous training in experimental science and nine were experienced subjects in psychological work.

II. THE ELEMENTARY CONDITIONS OF THE APPEARANCE OF THE RHYTHM IMPRESSION.

The objective conditions necessary to the arousal of an impression of rhythm are three in number: (a) Recurrence; (b) Accentuation; (c) Rate.

(a) Recurrence.—The element of repetition is essential; the impression of rhythm never arises from the presentation of a single rhythmical unit, however proportioned or perfect. It does appear adequately and at once with the first recurrence of that unit. If the rhythm be a complex one, involving the coördination of primary groups in larger unities, the full apprehension of its form will, of course, arise only when the largest synthetic group which it contains has been completed; but an impression of rhythm, though not of the form finally involved, will have appeared with the first repetition of the simplest rhythmical unit which enters into the composition. It is conceivable that the presentation of a single, unrepeated rhythmical unit, especially if well-defined and familiar, should originate a rhythmical impression; but in such a case the sensory material which supports the impression of rhythm is not contained in the objective series but only suggested by it. The familiar group of sounds initiates a rhythmic process which depends for its existence on the continued repetition, in the form of some subjective accentuation, of the unit originally presented.

The rhythmical form, in all such cases, is adequately and perfectly apprehended through a single expression of the sequence.[3] It lacks nothing for its completion; repetition can add no more to it, and is, indeed, in strict terms, inconceivable; for by its very recurrence it is differentiated from the initial presentation, and combines organically with the latter to produce a more highly synthetic form. And however often this process be repeated, each repetition of the original sequence will have become an element functionally unique and locally unalterable in the last and highest synthesis which the whole series presents.

Rhythmical forms are not in themselves rhythms; they must initiate the factor of movement in order that the impression of rhythm shall arise. Rhythmical forms are constantly occurring in our perceptional experience. Wherever a group of homogeneous elements, so related as to exhibit intensive subordination, is presented under certain temporal conditions, potential rhythm forms appear. It is a mere accident whether they are or are not apprehended as actual rhythm forms. If the sequence be repeated—though but once—during the continuance of a single attention attitude, its rhythmical quality will ordinarily be perceived, the rhythmic movement will be started. If the sequence be not thus repeated, the presentation is unlikely to arouse the process and initiate the experience of rhythm, but it is quite capable of so doing. The form of the rhythm is thus wholly independent of the movement, on which the actual impression of rhythm in every case depends; and it may be presented apart from any experience of rhythm.

There is properly no repetition of identical sequences in rhythm. Practically no rhythm to which the æsthetic subject gives expression, or which he apprehends in a series of stimulations, is constituted of the unvaried repetition of a single elementary form, the measures,

for example. Variation, subordination, synthesis, are present in every rhythmical sequence. The regular succession is interrupted by variant groups; points of initiation in the form of redundant syllables, points of finality in the form of syncopated measures, are introduced periodically, making the rhythm form a complex one, the full set of relations involved being represented only by the complete succession of elements contained between any one such point of initiation and its return.