After we had investigated the different methods of apperceiving groups of repeated lines, and compared the effects of different groupings, and studied the feeling of one unit alternating with another, another question arose.
These questions had all referred to the alternation of two units; either a unit with an empty space, or with a space of different filling. How did the apperception differ when three repeated units alternated with each other? To test this, three spaces were taken equally wide (110 mm.) and equally distant from each other (150 mm.), but with three different designs within them. These designs were of the same general character and importance although different, and repeated themselves regularly.
The subjects were asked as before to describe their reaction on the series. Not one of all the number was able to feel the repetition of the three units; what pleasure they got from the series (if indeed they got any) was from other sources. The general type of answer was formulated more fully by L. He saw 1, then looked for 2 and found it different, but could have included it in the series if it were not for 3. That being still different sent 1 and 2 out of mind, so that he could not feel any repetition of 1 when he met it again. He felt a certain sense of repetition in that the spacing and general motifs were the same, but there was no pleasure in that. What pleasure he got was wholly intellectual, not immediate, except for a slight pleasure in their uniformity of position. In him the rhythmic feeling had always been of the strongest, but he found in this experience none whatever. It was simply impossible to keep the three units going at once. Another temporal subject tried to group 2 and 3 as one element, with one as an alternate, thus reducing it to a rhythm of twos. This process was labored, but otherwise no enjoyment was possible. The spatial subjects derived what pleasure they could, either from the units separately, with no regard to their repetition, or from some method of grouping, by which their difference could be overlooked. One expressed his pleasure solely in terms of contrast of the white strings against a black ground. Any immediate feeling for the repetition was impossible for either type. It will be noticed that the feeling of the repetition is quite different from the knowing it is there. They were all perfectly conscious that 1 was repeated again after 3, but could not feel it, while repeated simply after 2, they could feel it.
Next, the series was varied again. The size of the blocks, instead of being alike, was varied three ways, while the designs remained similar.
The interspaces were 150 mm. in every case, but 1 was 150 mm. wide; 2 = 110 mm.; 3 = 70 mm. All the spatial subjects found Fig. 22 worse than Fig. 21. The irregularity and general disorder was more pronounced. Although the rhythm had never consciously given them pleasure, and, when not violated, was never noticed, still the threefold difference in size violates some feeling which they can only express in rhythmic terms. Some tried to group the three units into a larger group, but this being unsymmetrical displeased them. Others picked out the most satisfactorily proportioned unit and ignored the others, but any possible apperception was irritating. The temporal subjects found it equally poor. They felt the continual dissatisfaction of having their expectation, that the adjacent unit should be the same, disappointed. They all said that they could carry the feeling of repetition over one dissimilar unit (i. e., in an alternating series of two different units), but that the third difference completely upset the scheme. When only the filling varied as in Fig. 21, it could be partially ignored, but difference in size could not be ignored, and only the equal distances apart kept them from being a heap. They could not feel the evenness of the empty interspaces, however. They were not consciously present in the experience at all, they merely knew they must be even. There was no feeling-tone whatever to the empty alternates.
Only one subject preferred Fig. 22 to Fig. 21, and the reason was obvious. 1, 2, and 3 appeared as the same unit where variation in size was apperceived as due to perspective. Thus, instead of appearing as three units repeated, they were one set which progressed by means of "pulsations" or regular intervals of perspective. This gave an added richness to the rhythm, and was very pleasant. As three separate units of different size, there was no meaning in the series whatever.
It is evident from these introspections that, although the likes and dislikes may vary, the principles on which they are based have much in common.