EXPERIMENT IV

An oblong figure, all its parts objectively of the same intensity, had its ends slightly darkened. When this was done the curvature had increased from twelve sixteenths to fourteen sixteenths of an inch.

The pendulum was stopped, and a very slight difference was perceived between the ends and the centre of the figure. This difference in intensity was greater than in the dot experiment, when the image had been darkened enough in the centre to make it appear vertical, because in this case, when the ends were darkened the centre would still be reënforced by irradiation from a considerable space which intervened between the shading and the centre.

EXPERIMENT V

The centre of the oblong figure was considerably darkened so as to counteract the effect of induction. By properly varying the amount of shading, one may make the front of the figure appear less convex, vertical, or even concave. This shows perfectly the effect of differences in intensity upon the curvature of the figure, but does not show so neatly as the similar experiments performed with the dots, the influence of the presence or absence of irradiation upon the intensity of the centre of the figure and so upon the curvature.

The illustration shows a case where the centre was too much darkened.

The two ends were comparatively free from shading. In each end-part irradiation took place. The points lying toward the centres of these ends received reënforcement, both from points lying toward the centre of the figure and from the extreme ends, and so the centres of the ends of the image were considerably brighter than either the extreme ends of the figure itself, or the sides of the end-parts toward the heavily shaded centre of the figure. Accordingly each end appeared convex for a short distance. The whole figure, however, being considerably brighter at the two ends than at the centre, on account of the heavy shading, the ends appeared in consciousness first and the centre afterwards, so that the figure as a whole seemed concave.

EXPERIMENT VI

An oblong figure was shaded rather heavily at one end, gradually becoming lighter toward the other, while about a third of the figure was free from shading. The shaded end always seemed to lag behind. The extreme front of the figure was at a point a little distance from the other end, before the shaded portion began. So that the front of the whole figure appeared, not like a segment of a circle, but like part of an oval with the bulge toward the brighter end.