[175] Vierteljahrsch. für wiss. Philos., ii. 377.
[176] Exner tries to show that the structure of the faceted eye of articulates adapts it for perceiving motions almost exclusively.
[177] Schneider tries to explain why a sensory surface is so much more excited when its impression moves. It has long since been noticed how much more acute is discrimination of successive than of simultaneous differences. But in the case of a moving impression, say on the retina, we have a summation of both sorts of difference; whereof the natural effect must be to produce the most perfect discrimination of all.
Fig. 53.
In the left-hand figure let the dark spot B move, for example, from right to left. At the outset there is the simultaneous contrast of black and white in B and A. When the motion has occurred so that the right-hand figure is produced, the same contrast remains, the black and the white having changed places. But in addition to it there is a double successive contrast, first in A, which, a moment ago white, has now become black; and second in B, which, a moment ago black, has now become white. If we make each single feeling of contrast = 1 (a supposition far too favorable to the state of rest), the sum of contrasts in the case of motion will be 3, as against 1 in the state of rest. That is, our attention will be called by a treble force to the difference of color, provided the color begin to move.—(Cf. also Fleischl, Physiologische Optische Notizen, 2te Mittheilung, Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 1882.)
[178] Brown, Bain, J. S. Mill, and in a modified manner Wundt, Helmholtz, Sully, etc.
[179] M. Ch. Dunan, in his forcibly written essay 'l'Espace Visuel et l'Espace Tactile' in the Revue Philosophique for 1888, endeavors to prove that surfaces alone give no perception of extent, by citing the way in which the blind go to work to gain an idea of an object's shape. If surfaces were the percipient organ, he says, "both the seeing and the blind ought to gain an exact idea of the size (and shape) of an object by merely laying their hand flat upon it (provided of course that it were smaller than the hand), and this because of their direct appreciation of the amount of tactile surface affected, and with no recourse to the muscular sense.... But the fact is that a person born blind never proceeds in this way to measure objective surfaces. The only means which he has of getting at the size of a body is that of running his finger along the lines by which it is bounded. For instance, if you put into the hands of one born blind a book whose dimensions are unknown to him, he will begin by resting it against his chest so as to hold it horizontal; then, bringing his two hands together at the middle of the edge opposite to the one against his body, he will draw them asunder till they reach the ends of the edge in question; and then, and not till then, will he be able to say what the length of the object is" (vol. xxv. p. 148). I think that anyone who will try to appreciate the size and shape of an object by simply 'laying his hand flat upon it' will find that the great obstacle is that he feels the contours so imperfectly. The moment, however, the hands move, the contours are emphatically and distinctly felt. All perception of shape and size is perception of contours, and first of all these must be made sharp. Motion does this; and the impulse to move our organs in perception is primarily due to the craving which we feel to get our surface-sensations sharp. When it comes to the naming and measuring of objects in terms of some common standard we shall see presently how movements help also; but no more in this case than the other do they help, because the quality of extension itself is contributed by the 'muscular sense.'
[180] Fechner describes (Psychophysik, i. 132) a 'method of equivalents' for measuring the sensibility of the skin. Two compasses are used, one on the part A, another on the part B, of the surface. The points on B must be adjusted so that their distance apart appears equal to that between the points on A. With the place A constant, the second pair of points must be varied a great deal for every change in the place B, though for the same A and B the relation of the two compasses is remarkably constant, and continues unaltered for months, provided but few experiments are made on each day. If, however, we practise daily their difference grows less, in accordance with the law given in the text.
[181] Prof. Jastrow gives as the result of his experiments this general conclusion (Am. Journal of Psychology, iii. 53): "The space-perceptions of disparate senses are themselves disparate, and whatever harmony there is amongst them we are warranted in regarding as the result of experience. The spacial notions of one deprived of the sense of sight and reduced to the use of the other space-senses must indeed be different from our own." But he continues: "The existence of the striking disparities between our visual and our other space-perceptions without confusing us, and, indeed, without usually being noticed, can only be explained by the tendency to interpret all dimensions into their visual equivalents." But this author gives no reasons for saying 'visual' rather than 'tactile;' and I must continue to think that probabilities point the other way so far as what we call real magnitudes are concerned.