Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2

by Unknown

(2) Relatively unstable association.

It will be remembered that in the case of nearly every factor studied under Relative Number, we found three classes of observers,—those favoring one group, those favoring the other group, and a so-called "no-tendency" class. The bases of classification were, first, the relative constancy in the character of the error, and, secondly, its direction. In this third or "no-tendency" class were really lumped off two kinds of observers, not separated at the time because our special interest did not demand it. Along with those that gave large errors in both directions was a much smaller class that gave a relatively large proportion of correct judgments; but could never claim any one observer all the time. In the new classification of Proposition c this mixed composition is recognized by dividing it between (1) (a) and (2). The prime condition of correct judgment is asserted to be one in principle with that of the illusion,—namely, vividness, but in this case vividness of relevant factors. Our original "tendency" classes both fall under (1) (b).

Proposition c is merely an attempt to apply the principles of association and vividness to an organization of our results. The types in question have no hard-and-fast connection with any particular observer; they rather represent a kind of ideal fixation of opposite tendencies playing through all.

3. The Time-Error.

So far the time-error has been left without interpretation. The chief facts to be considered were: (a) Divergence of error and general trend in favor of last. (b) Individual inconsistencies. (c) Occasional absence.

We are in a position now to invoke at once the principle of vividness to account for the existence of the error and the vividness of recency to account for the predominant tendency to favor the last of the two groups exposed. In this respect this error may be classed with the effect of red. That is to say, a factor or complex, directly through its vividness and not indirectly through its association with the numerous or the few, draws the judgment after it. Here the content of the group is the effective thing, not the character of the vacancies.

But the observers do not all agree in the direction of the time-error nor are they always consistent. Here we shall get help from a proposition offered in the discussion of the distribution-error in which it is asserted that the group seems the more numerous in which the vacancies are less developed under observation. We have already noted a decided tendency to depend in judging upon the vacancies. Let us suppose that the two groups presented in succession differ with respect to the success of the observer in developing these vacancies. If this be true, that difference may well depend upon the occurrence of maximal attention during the exposure of but one of the groups. The tendency of the majority to overestimate the second group suggests that the attention is likely to be at a maximum when the experiment begins. If, on the other hand, it ripen later, or if the observer seek to rescue the second group from relative unclearness, then we should have the first group overestimated. The time-error would disappear for those that could attend alike to both. Clearly enough this account is decidedly hypothetical.

4. The Space-Error.

Our attempt to reduce this error to one of time in some form was proven a failure. The facts brought out indicate that at the bottom is some subjective factor thus far not isolated. This factor is not a preference going directly with right- or left-handedness because on the surface at least it runs in the observers independent of such asymmetry. A single bit of available introspection would seem, however, to point to some relation of that sort; for one observer, who favored the left, felt that a group on that side gained an importance that was somehow due to the greater absolute value of a weight in the left than in the right hand. Even if this be decisive for him it will still be inapplicable to errors in the opposite direction unless we assume that with variations in bodily energy the emphasis is cast now in one, now in the other, direction, after the analogy of those two types of man to be found in our social experience, for whom respectively mountains are molehills and molehills mountains. Such successive differences in type in a single individual would then find an intelligible account in the shifting tides of that bodily energy. It is to be noted that the observer just quoted once, but only once, made a decisive reversal of his error from left to right.

It may occur to some one that the use of two observers sitting side by side may have given them a preference for one position of the groups. In the first place care was taken that both groups should be as readily seen from one point of view as from the other. Secondly and chiefly, there is no regularity among the observers in this respect.