Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2

by Unknown

(9) Variations are pleasant in the principal unit repeated, but not in the alternating figure unless very slight indeed, or affecting only secondary parts of the figure, not the main lines.

(10) Not the time actually spent on a unit makes it more or less prominent, but the feeling of more or less "energy" expended on it.

Ends: In an alternating repetition, must the series end on a light or heavy beat? That is, must the major or minor unit be on the end?

To test this a series of strings was hung in which a group of three alternated with a single string.

The subjects were asked to look at it with the three-groups on the end, and with the single string. In every case the three-group ending was emphatically declared the best. What reasons were given were much the same, although most of them could give no explanation at all. S. said the minor space on the end left him "hanging in mid-air, it needs the heavy beat to land me again." Others said it was "ragged" unless the three-group ended the series. R. said anything interesting would do on the end, as well as the larger-sized unit, it simply needed something of sufficient interest to stop the rhythmic process and keep one from going on.

It was impossible to describe the experience except in rhythmic terms, and those in whom this sense was not strong could give no account whatever for the difference in their feeling for end.

It will be remembered that some experiments were previously described relating to the difference in apperception of a group of lines equally distant from one another, and a group averaged at equal distances each side of a middle point, but unequally from each, to emphasize the bilateral symmetry. Two such series were now taken to find if there were any difference necessary in appropriate endings. Since the two types of groups differed so much in apperception, did that difference so extend to the whole series that a different space was needed at the end to finish them off?

The method of experiment was the following: Two series of repeated groups were hung (100 mm. wide and 100 mm. between) with the design of the groups varied as described. At the end of each a strip of cardboard was hung, which the subject was asked to move so that it bounded the amount of space at the end, necessary to finish the series adequately.