Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2

by Unknown

Section A. Here simultaneous stimulations of different sense-organs were given, and the situation became at once more complex. For some time only colors and tactual surfaces were employed. Later tones from tuning-forks and noises were added. Forms with different colors as fillings still further complicated the experience. Odors as a rule were unsatisfactory, being so strong as entirely to inhibit all noticeable effects from the other senses.

For all subjects at first the feeling-tone related only to the one object directly attended to. Some effort is required to detect the feeling-tone for these slight stimulations, and while this is being done, the feeling for the other sensation tends to vanish. If, while enjoying the soothing contact with the plush, a chosen color is disclosed in the frame and attended to sufficiently to obtain from it a decided feeling, there is a distinct awareness of the dropping of the feeling for the touch. To some subjects, whatever the combinations used, this almost constantly occurred for perhaps a month. Often again there seemed to result a total "feeling of the situation," when the attention was on neither stimulating object.

Frequently, too, the attempted introspection at this point failed to fix upon any feeling-tone at all definite. The condition was one of confusion and bewilderment. The state of mind when one cannot feel at all definitely seems to correspond closely to that state of mental confusion when thought processes are in a jumble, with no path for the moment leading anywhere. All these difficulties were overcome, partially at any rate, by continued training. It was not as if introspection revealed the fact that there was nothing to be found, and this was frequently reported by the subjects. After some time the touch character could be retained, and its peculiar value for feeling did not disappear when other things came in and contributed an affective element of their own. The old law of the opposition, or mutual exclusiveness, of feelings would thus seem to mean little more than that we, generally speaking, experience one thing at a time. Without a special analytical purpose in view, we do not find many distinct elemental feelings, as we do not, until we psychologize, find elements of cognitive character separable. It has been, and is now, commonly supposed that myriads of ideational elements, partially analyzable at any rate, go to make up what we choose to call a single perception. This experience as a whole is of some affective nature; but, as generally stated, of one unanalyzable sort always. It is true just in the same sense as in the cognitive state, perception. In the sense that every perception is unique, in this sense every affective state is likewise a unit. The evidence I submit, however, is that one may be the subject of analysis into elemental parts just as much as the other. Affection, as Titchener defines it at the beginning of his treatment of feelings, is merely a "tilt of the whole organism." If this is the ultimate statement, then there are no combinations, and no relations of feelings except that of mutual exclusion from the field of awareness. He has taken only one of the above possible attitudes toward affective states. Geiger, in his study of very complex emotions, however, has taken the other attitude, and bases his whole position upon it. This present experimental test furnishes evidence that the latter position is also a legitimate, and perhaps more desirable position, if feeling shall have scientific analytical treatment.

In this investigation, after considerable training, the subjects, with a single exception, were all convinced that both feeling-tones, for tactual and visual impressions, could be present at once. When three or more were given at once, confusion as to the state of feeling was usually so great that valuable introspection was always rendered exceedingly difficult. Impressions from the same field, as, for example, colors presented in chosen forms as enclosures, were most often taken as one object with one feeling-tone. This even was by no means always the case. When it was thus taken, the experience was still reported as more complex than either element alone had produced.

When the feeling-tones for simultaneous stimulations from two different sources came out sufficiently clearly, the kind of feeling was described in some such terms as indicated in Part I, Section A, except that almost invariably the introspection was more difficult. The relations of these various feeling-components of an affective experience are numerous. There is a frequent tendency to read one into the other. The soft soothing feeling coming from plush, if in the particular experience the color be the more prominent partial element, tends often to make the subject enjoy more the color, because there seems to be added to it a soft yielding surface texture. Frequently also, as in the case of red above, the warmth it suggests is intensified.

In cases of feelings of opposite nature occurring together, the stronger generally prevails, finally in most cases effacing all specific tone for the weaker element. An odor, for example, even when always unpleasant, becomes less so when one looks at a pleasant color, when a feeling-tone can, or often even when it cannot, be detected for the color at the time. Again, when a very unpleasant form or tactual impression is being felt, a slightly unpleasant color tends to arouse often in this situation, as if by contrast, a simultaneously pleasant element in the total experience.

For many subjects frequently there results what I shall call a "Total Mood." This, as to its feeling-character, can be merely different from, more than, less than, or the same as either component or of both together. To some the feeling is proportionate to the degree of concentration of attention, and in all such cases rarely does the whole complex situation afford a feeling equal to that given by either component alone, the extra stimulation for the time being simply a disturbing factor. To others the shifting of the focus of attention from one to another of the external objects of interest, or from one feeling-element to the other, is not at all disturbing, "any more than is any general state of satisfied self-contemplation." This kind of experience is often and distinctly reported, not as the enjoyment of two where the discernible elements persist wholly unrelated, but rather an enjoyment (or disagreeable experience as the case may be), simply from two sources of stimulation, a total mood with similar or harmonious constituents. The red color and the tactual feeling for plush afford this. Similarly the unpleasant color above combines with certain odors or with the sandpaper. Yellow, however, does not as a rule produce a feeling that peaceably "falls in with" the tactual impression brought about by the plush. Low tones tend to combine thus with the red color or with the softest plush in the same kind of Total Mood. The feeling-tones usually for pleasant high tones are described as "falling in with" the feeling for yellow when the feeling exists as described above, and as nearer to that of the feeling for the green color than for the particular deep shade of red. What may be termed the "Congruity or Incongruity of Feeling-Tones" is perhaps a good name to designate feeling-tone relations. It implies neither mutual exclusiveness nor total fusion, and some such term is necessary.

The various phenomena of fusion, summation, partial reënforcement, merely simultaneous, independent coexistence, partial and total inhibition, of one by the other occur. The feeling-tone for yellow tends most readily to fuse with the feeling-tone for high tones and upright ovals. This is not so marked for the green, but more so for all other colors than for the red. Red harmonizes and tends to fuse, for most subjects, with the feeling-tones for soft plush, low tones, and circular forms. This harmonizing, however, is not all that contributes to the amount of feeling in these complex cases. Subjects often prefer the low tones with yellow, even though there is less harmony. So also upright ovals are in themselves generally so much more pleasant than the circles that red is preferred thus presented, though its feeling-character is more akin to that suggested by the circles. These are cases where the intensity itself of the feeling-tone is preferred, even though what is felt to be an harmonious combination is lessened.

When the situation admits of a complete fusion, the one resulting feeling is almost always greater. When summation of unpleasant stimuli occurs, the singleness of the attention process is not a prominent feature of the experience. Rather each unpleasant element exists throughout, each in turn intensifying the whole undertone of feeling, but also remaining a feeling-tone of a particular kind. Partial reënforcement is descriptive of that state when both feeling-tones contribute to a feeling of the same kind, yet do retain some individual characteristics which stand out for themselves. The general state of pleasantness, for example, is increased by both elements contributed by a low tone and the yellow color, yet one retains its soothing and the other its exciting character. Again, the feeling-tone for green may occur when its relation, on the other hand, to a pleasantly sounding tuning-fork is not at all noticed. Subjects find in such cases always more effort required to note both the feeling-tones, and there is probably some diminution in quantity of feeling for each of the simultaneous elements. Other subjects have preferred to call this partial inhibition. Cases of total inhibition have been noted above, and are by far the most frequent, as would naturally be expected. When sandpaper is being applied, and no repose is felt in the body, a color, suddenly presented, for a moment pleases the eye, but quickly loses all feeling-character, and can only be "intellectually perceived."

Again, the way in which subjects will take certain combinations seems to depend entirely upon the person. Beautiful colors, presented in disagreeable forms, bring about for some a feeling altogether worse than does an unpleasant color in the same form. To others there is always the tendency to enjoy the color and to "reconstruct" the form, or stress in it those elements only which do suggest symmetry and definiteness. All feel, when two or more elements contribute to the feeling-experience, that a total mood generally serves as the undertone for them. When there is a clear strife between the two, they both can exist as equal partial tones with an undertone of unpleasantness in the failure to coördinate them. There are still other cases where the total result cannot well be called a fusion or summation. For example, when an unpleasant color in an unpleasant form, or for Subject D, a pleasant color in an unpleasant form, is presented, the feeling for the whole is often out of all proportion to the value of each alone, or of what might be expected from the simple summation. The uncommon revulsion here was frequently so striking that the subjects would afterwards laugh heartily over the strength with which it first appeared.