(20) Introspections from subjects F and G quite constantly revealed articulatory impulses vividly accompanying the feelings for many colors and forms.
(21) A scowl and puckering of the lips was descriptive of the attitude taken toward some unpleasant situations.
(22) A contraction or relaxation of the throat-muscles and of the vocal chords generally was not infrequently noticed. The tendency to swallow is spoken of. The throat is felt often to be "concave" when certain bad feelings are sufficiently pronounced. A contraction in the mucous membrane, with teeth on edge, such as one would experience in eating something sour, is frequent. A twitching of the ears, squinting of the eyebrows, and a "heavy feeling" through the neck and chest occur often, or again a pressing hard of the tongue against the roof of the mouth.
(23) Forms suggested a shrinking in the volume of the face, sometimes of the crown of the head, and even of the whole head.
(24) Upright or horizontal ovals especially provoked the impulse to imitate the figure itself, either with the lips or with the hands and arms. When the feeling was particularly strong, all these impulses often occurred together and appeared mutually to reënforce, or to intensify each other.
(25) Horizontal ovals gave one the feeling of being "flattened out," coupled with an impulse to adjustment altogether unlike the sprightly, alert, airy feeling aroused by the "trim," upright figures.
(26) Occasionally when the irregular shapes were presented directly after a subject had been enjoying one of the perfect figures, that side of his face or body corresponding to the distorted portion of the figure was felt to be in an abnormal and unpleasant position. This "caving-in" or "bulging-out" sensation, which accompanies the unpleasant feeling, happens when the whole muscular system at the time for the subject seems inert or externally controlled.
All these sensations of bodily processes, taken from the introspective descriptions given by the subjects, are distinctly reported by them as very faint. They by no means detect them in every experience, nor do they always seem to the subject himself to mean the whole of the feeling as experienced. Neither did any one subject find all the concomitant processes recorded above. Subject H failed throughout the whole period to detect anything whatsoever, except slight tendencies to frown, smooth the brow, or to open wide the eyes. This subject was unable to detect any special differences in his feelings, either in variety or in amount. For him neither soft red nor brilliant yellow was either exciting or soothing. They were and always remained for him more or less vaguely pleasant, and this description for him was both ultimate and exhaustive.
Subject B could get no kind of pleasant feeling from any tactual surface, while to Subject E even the coarsest sandpaper usually afforded pleasant stimulation. As spoken of above, articulatory impulses were characteristic of the motor tendencies of Subjects D and G. To Subject A the experiences seemed richest and fullest, and the corresponding bodily processes were likewise more pronounced and varied. In the great majority of the experiments, especially during the period of training, the feeling itself vanished when the subjects attempted to analyze the bodily processes. It was chiefly, however, a matter of training, and this more and more ceased to be a disturbing element.
Some subjects preferred often to speak of circulatory, or at least, decidedly internal and usually involuntary changes in addition to, and sometimes without, the controlled muscular actions. The mood of the time affects the amount of feeling, and occasionally, but far less frequently, the quality. The moral significance of the feelings was most prominent when the subject felt most interested in the experiment, as may be noted above in their descriptions of the feelings for red and yellow. What may be termed the "regularity element" would seem generally to serve as the test especially for the pleasant-unpleasant character of the feeling-tone. The feeling of expansiveness never accompanied unpleasant feelings. Feelings of contraction, on the other hand, very often occurred when the feelings were not at all disagreeable. In such cases there was a significance attached to the direction or meaning of the adjustment.
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.
Section B. Introspection here as to the physiological accompaniments referring exclusively to one of the two or more existing feeling-tones is still more meagre, but at times very definite. When the elements of a total feeling fuse there is of course no reference to the particular processes which bring this about. It is then simply a general response to a situation. When, however, distinct, or opposing feeling-tones are present and detected, they do often mean opposing inclinations to action. The yellow color can retain its exciting tone, and refer clearly to such activities as opening wide the eyes, incipient smiling tendencies, and general alertness of facial expression, when a soothing touch is also felt as suggesting a toning-down of the body and a general relaxation of the muscles of the abdomen. This is the most frequently noticed effect. Tactual impressions are accompanied by pervading organic feelings in the trunk, while visual and auditory stimulations, in their incipient stages, at least, have the more pronounced effect upon facial muscles of expression, and general sensations in the head. When any of these feelings are particularly strong, however, the sensations, whose feeling-tones seem to constitute the feeling in question, tend to pervade the entire system and to usurp the whole bodily activity. The motor tendencies noticed above for the irregular forms are also reported when the color itself remains pleasant. Yellow, possessing more of this activity itself, is least pleasant when exposed in these forms. The opposition of tendencies is noticed, yellow meaning its own peculiar kind of aggressive movement, and the bad form at the same time calling for that irregular kind of unpleasant adjustment. Red does not "intrude itself" nor demand action, and is always less strikingly in opposition to the form than is the case with yellow or green or blue. Forms, almost perfect, relate themselves to feelings of tension. One feels that he cannot quite take them as perfect figures, and this strain and inability to take them for what they suggest provokes a decidedly unpleasant feeling. Very irregular forms become "grotesque" or ludicrous, and the bodily change is indicated as a "jumble of partially carried out reactions."
In many cases sensations or motor tendencies are noted all over the body during the existence of these complex states. At such times they are not recognized as referring to either feeling-tone in particular. When also a favorite color is presented to a subject who is experiencing a disagreeable feeling from sandpaper, the touch is so pervasive usually that he feels that this "controls the whole response" and inhibits any reaction, or even any suggested reaction to the color. When there does fail to be even any possible incipient motor suggestion, as a rule the feeling-tone for the object is extremely vague if it exists at all, and the object appears for the time "dead" or "valueless." Subjects speak of their own inability to respond in such cases. It is not at all as if the color is definitely bad, but rather as if one cannot do two different things with the same muscular apparatus at once. As often, as has before been noted, does the opposite occur. Colors in definitely characterized forms illustrate the relations of similar activities when feeling-tones occur together. Yellow is preferred in upright ovals, for both accentuate the same demand for activity, and calling for the same kind of response, tend to fuse into a single object. Yellow and plush do not harmonize, and in many cases where both retain their feeling-tones, distinct activities in different parts of the body are aroused simultaneously. With the circles the feeling-tone for yellow does not agree with that for form. The yellow becomes almost unpleasant at times. Circles are "heavy," "stable," "on their own axes." A yellow thus enclosed seems "too fat," too "unnaturally heavy," not free and light, and the effect is less pleasing. Circles suit the red better than they do the yellow or the green or the blue, and tend to be seen as one object, or to fuse, more readily than red in an upright oval form. The feeling-tones for red and for upright ovals are both very pleasant, but not as much in harmony, and consequently usually taken as two different feelings.
As a general result of introspective analysis at this point, when different feeling-tones did occur together, they were described in terms similar to those used when each alone was experienced. The bodily references, when found, were of the same character, the only difference being that there was much difficulty in determining to which feeling-tone the response referred. In many instances, however, again it seemed quite certain that different kinds of adaptation in different parts of the body were suggested which seemed to correspond to distinct affective qualities. Also distinct feeling-tones, each of which alone could call forth a similar kind of action, when given together tended to accentuate the total unified response. The upright ovals mean alertness and soaring motions with a general suggestion of drawing the shoulders up. The yellow color accentuated this. The circle with the soothing red, or the fusion of feelings for red and plush, pleases in quite another fashion.
In attempting to measure the rate at which feeling-tones for those slight stimulations develop when no disturbing factors are consciously present, an interval of from one and one half to two and one half seconds seemed to be required. At such a time the feeling was experienced as having reached its maximum. There was no marked difference for different subjects, nor any constantly noticeable difference among the kind of stimulations used. A possible exception was found for Subject I, but this was probably due, as he himself thought, to his inability to adapt himself easily to the requirement of the experiment.
After this was sufficiently tested, the interval which was required for one feeling-tone to arise when another was already present, was in the same manner tested. The interval in all cases was too long to be measured by means of a chronometer. A stop-watch was used.
While the subject was consciously enjoying a sound from a tuning-fork or a tactual impression from some chosen texture surface, one of the colors was presented to him. The time-interval thus ascertained as necessary for the new feeling-tone to reach its maximum was compared in each case with the time-interval when the color alone was presented. Various combinations were here employed also. Colors in forms in addition were studied in comparison with the same colors presented without regard to the enclosing forms. No definite results could be obtained in most cases. It was thought that the repose one feels for plush might appreciably hasten the feeling-tone for the red and probably retard that for the more exciting yellow. The evidence is not directly conclusive. This was not found to be the case in much more than half of the tests. It did, however, in the great majority of the cases with all subjects, retard the time-interval for the development of the unpleasant character of ordinarily disagreeable colors. Given at such times also the normally unpleasant colors not infrequently appeared themselves as slightly agreeable. In these cases the interval was also appreciably longer, suggesting evidence that new processes of some sort were set up. A pleasant low tone hastened the arousal of a pleasant feeling-tone for red quite perceptibly for three subjects, and had no influence upon the other subjects. The feeling-tone for yellow under the same circumstances was for two subjects retarded regularly, with no marked effect either way for the others. The same low tone retarded all the unpleasant colors, as did the plush, in many cases causing them to appear as pleasant.
The effect of forms, as enclosures for colors, upon the time-rate was more marked and constant. Subject I again was always disturbed when colors were presented to him in definite forms. For him feeling-tones never arose so quickly when the form-element entered. For the other six subjects, available for this part of the work, upright ovals considerably increased the whole state of pleasure whether or not fusion of the different elements resulted. For them the feeling-tone for every pleasing color was hastened from two fifths to four fifths of a second. These same forms retarded the unpleasant colors whenever one element of the experience seemed to be opposed to the other. Occasionally here also the color appeared as itself directly and unaccountably pleasant, the prepared situation of the subject being such, apparently, that the ordinary character of the color did not appear at all. This was very frequently the case for all subjects.
The irregular unpleasant forms generally retarded the feeling-tone for the enclosed color when that color appeared to have lost some of its accustomed agreeableness. When, however, the contrast in feeling-character between the form-element and the color-element as such was noted as marked, the feeling-character of the color was more often hastened than retarded. These same forms in almost every case (of nearly two months' work for seven subjects) hastened the feeling-tone for the corresponding disagreeable color. Often again pleasant colors changed the feeling-tones for these irregular forms. In such cases the influence could not be attributed to the effect of unpleasant forms upon feeling-tones.
Statistics alone seem insignificant here. Each variety of affective experience in itself presents its own peculiar difficulties. In a great number of tests the affective phases of the experiences were all described in such terms as to suggest that too general a grouping of them would not mean much. Often when one thought, after a careful choice of the stimuli to be used, that the experiment would show that feelings whose prominent characteristics were those of excitement or tension, for example, were exerting an influence upon some other kind of feeling, introspection would reveal the fact that altogether other phases of the experience were the pronounced elements. Examples of what at first appeared to be capricious results illustrate the baffling nature of the problem here dealt with. Red is very pleasant. The oval with the bulging side is repulsive. This combination caused no marked retardation in the time required for a feeling-tone to develop. The blue, not so markedly pleasant alone, with the same bulging oval as its frame, had its feeling-tone changed, and the time-development quite perceptibly hastened. This same blue color with an upright oval as its frame produced a feeling-tone much more pleasant, also with marked hastening of the speed-development of its feeling-character. The pleasant-unpleasant dimension of the feeling clearly cannot alone furnish one with an explanation of these different phenomena. The red under normal conditions, i. e., if not influenced by either favorable or unfavorable coexisting feeling-tones, aroused its peculiar and not necessarily pervasive kind of physiological process. Likewise all our evidence goes to show that the feeling for blue is correlated with a peculiar physiological process, not so deeply seated in the organism, and not so satisfactorily coördinated, or "definite." Now the specific feeling-tone for forms arises when the imitative adjustment called for is successfully accomplished. In the first combination cited above the feeling-tone for red, being mild, soothing, more pervasive than blue, but lacking in the exciting character, is correlated with processes not so easily influenced by the reactions occasioned by the presented forms. Subjects say that it does not call for "surface reactions." It is less "intrusive." It does not "fall in with," nor does it strikingly oppose, the necessary reaction to the forms. Its influence upon the time-development of feeling-tones for accompanying stimuli is consequently small. This is not the case with the blue. The explanation, however, does not here differ in principle. This "volatile, unstable, indecisive, thin, or shallow" feeling, can be more easily influenced by the definite and decisive processes characteristic of the forms. It, indeed, needs something to determine its character, or coördinate its general reaction. Hence in both the above combinations the development period of the new feeling-tone for blue is shortened. The feeling reaches its maximum in either combination more quickly than when it occurs alone. As one should expect, fusion or mutual reënforcement quickens coördinated reaction; and partially independent coexistence, except where the contrast is sharp, serves as a condition for the lengthening of the latent period of feelings.
It is beyond the province of this paper to report the accounts the subjects have attempted to give of the complex feelings aroused by the pictures of statues. The primary and limited purpose is to try to trace out the influences of the feelings before dealt with for colors when these are also present in some way related to the now complex æsthetic states. The Einfühlung, often reported for the simple forms, is here much more easily detected, if the statues arouse agreeable feelings. They "work themselves into the statue," or assume the position, or the facial expression if this is prominent, or feel very strongly in their own body what seems to be the most prominent element in the feeling portrayed by the figure. Few subjects liked all the statues. Incipient if not actual tendencies to motion of some sort, with the sensory counterparts to these situations called for when the subject feels that he is in the "proper attitude" to get most feeling from the presentations, chiefly constitute what was in different ways reported.
These statues presented on colors as backgrounds are variously and interestingly modified. The feeling-tones for colors distinctly affect the meaning of the statues. Of the above colors our shade of red is preferred with Venus by all subjects. Here the feeling-tones more nearly fuse. Always the feeling-character of the statue predominates, and the other feeling-elements of the situation are accepted or rejected in proportion as they harmonize or fail to harmonize with the predominant partial tone. Red, for example, here adds to the "richness and luxuriousness." It accentuates the strength, poise, grace, balance, ease, rest, wisdom, composure, endurance, and dignity. It is more soothing, and calls for no unnecessary action. One subject never liked any color as a background. In this case colors were good in proportion as "they kept out of the way." This is the reason for red being always preferred to yellow or green. With these latter colors there is an interplay of reactions not coöperating. The color-exciting element is more immediate, tension is brought about, the color asserts itself, is pleasant, and tends directly to inhibit the feelings for the statue. The pleasure in the color is called "thin" in comparison, and the power of sympathetic appreciation of Venus is lessened. There is suggestion now in the statue still of its strength, but with no "enduring" quality. It has become commonplace, merely a "pretty woman," jaunty, self-sufficient, cynical, and with little dignity. The motion element, now prominent, is not pertinent. The statue looks "cheap," and as a figure is volatile and unsteady.
In a similar way one finds these feeling-tones for colors variously playing their part. The statue of Apollo is not pleasing to some subjects. They want it "toned down." The red effects this. To some it is most pleasing by its suggestion of easy grace and springy, elastic step. The yellow harmonizes and accentuates this chosen feeling. The blue often destroys its moral meaning. The red hampers the feeling for the Laocoön group. They become listless, dead, and have still strength, but no struggle. Yellow increases the amount of activity, but often lessens the "serious despair." Fierceness is added, but the liveliness thus furnished is at the expense of the necessary balancing solemnity. The color again becomes intrusive. "The snakes fairly dance," and the "flashing action behind" the statue is now too prominent.
For the Dying Gladiator or Dying Alexander red is preferred. It, however, as do all the other colors, often produces an overbalance in the whole situation. Here it suggests no conflicting feelings. It adds—often too much—to the hopelessness of the situation, and gives to them an exaggerated solemnity and resignation, which emphasizes a melancholy cast, not altogether called for. Green and yellow are always incongruous. They tend to distract the attention to certain particular muscles, thereby lessening the whole general effect. The little "prettiness" they still retain is not called for, and is not "of the right sort." They do not allow one to be sufficiently contemplative or thoughtful. They have little depth, and cause inharmonious bodily commotions, and too much intensify the life-struggle and anguish.
The general effect of the statues here is much like that of the simple forms above. Both not only call for something to be done by the subject, but some action more or less already definitely outlined. The Einfühlung for little wooden figures, such as cones, columns, pyramids, etc., was clear and decided. The tipping character or the straight erectness caused a feeling which seemed describable in terms of the way in which the bodily position, as one naturally adapted himself to the object, took place. Statues afford richer experiences, but the principle is not different. They seem full of suggestions of abstractions, such as strength, wisdom, grace, beauty, power, and, in general, what are often called spiritual feelings. These are not so easily imitated in detail. Subjects have their own ways of adapting themselves. They want to carry out the suggestion or impulse in their own way. These impulses are projected into the figure, and all of the vigor inhibited in one's own body becomes a living part of the figure. The impulses thus from the colors may or may not be of such a character as to bring about the same proportionate adjustment as a desirable intensification equally of all the feeling-elements. Whether desirable or not, however, these feeling-combinations furnish additional illustrations of the various mutual relations of coexisting feelings.
The Angelus or the Shepherdess Knitting bring about feelings in striking contrast to the feeling for the Horse Fair picture. The latter arouses suggestions of a tumultuous bodily condition, increased muscular tonicity, muscles twitching everywhere, breathing heavier, shoulders strained, and in comparison, great general innervation. When the characteristic feeling had been aroused, the subjects were requested to close their eyes and observe if possible to what extent the feeling already aroused was dependent upon the retained images. The results were clear. If the feeling is slight, as it is for some subjects, the feeling tended to vanish and return with the recurring images. If it is fairly strong, the feeling persists for some time after visual imagery is lost. If very strong, the feeling is constant for a still longer period and still less dependent upon the original peripheral excitation. The feeling is always more constant than any imagery. Not often for example is the whole picture retained. Sometimes one prominent part only remains. Often again various kinds of imagery aid in preserving the feeling. Besides visual, auditory, the sounds of the horses' hoofs, of the tones of the Angelus bell, are chiefly prominent in preserving the situation and the condition for the feeling. Articulatory impulses again, in the tendency to repeat to one's self such words as are descriptive of the moral meaning of the pictures, offer sufficient clues to keep the desired feeling aroused. When the feeling has "struck deep," subjects report motor imagery pervading the whole system. In such cases the recurring visual imagery has little effect upon the feeling. On the whole, the feelings for the more quiet pictures last longer and are more easily retained than is the case with the more exciting ones, if the original feelings are, as to mere intensity, approximately equal.
The character and strength of these feeling-tones determine also to a large extent the lines of association followed. Here the mutual influences of feelings are clearly recognized. The character of the new associated images and situations is colored by the feelings which were connected with the original stimulations. The pictures, such, for example, as the Angelus and the Horse Fair, were presented to the subjects in quick succession. These were to be merely starting-points for association. For all the subjects who were able to report anything definite, the feeling-tone for one was read into the associations which were aroused by the other. The second of the two starting-points as a rule controls the imagery. A few examples will illustrate how both feeling-tones are retained. The Angelus was presented first in these cases, and the Horse Fair second.
For subject K, the parts of the picture of the Horse Fair remained. The feeling of seriousness and quietness, foreign to it itself, was projected into it. Solemnity and the feeling of strength and power was accentuated. The gaiety originally present was very much lessened, and finally not noticed at all.
For subject C, a sacred feeling was aroused. Wars of the Bible were recalled. There was a fusion of the imagery. He saw the church on a battlefield near a cavalry fight. The feeling of active earnestness and the sacred moral character was reported as due to the retained feeling first brought about by the Angelus. The influence of the other starting-point is clear.
Subject B found the incongruity between the two feelings very strong. The Angelus was the stronger in influence. The other caused one to stress the lighter, more trivial character of the former. Meadows, streams, pools, and enchanted regions typified the fanciful mood thus brought about.
It is not a question as to whether such trains of thought would have occurred if only one starting-point had been used. It is rather that, in such cases as the above, two distinct feeling-tones were actually detected as playing their part in the resulting complex experiences. It is with some effort that both feeling-tones can be thus at first retained. The resulting undertone or general mood, however brought about, colors and determines to a certain extent the associations which follow. The feeling is more deeply seated than the image, and here also it is retained longer.
The above recorded account of the behavior of simple feelings fairly represents the accumulated data at our disposal. How they can be adjusted to modern theories of the relation of consciousness to movement may be briefly suggested. Yet the rudimentary state both of the psychology and of the physiology of feeling makes the present task a hazardous one. Psychologists are not agreed as to the best way to conceive of the relation of feelings to sensations. Feeling-tone is in some ways dependent upon sensations; and at the same time, in comparison with other sensation attributes, it is relatively independent. Physiologists are still farther from agreement with regard to the nervous processes involved.
But the deeply organic seat of feelings is unquestioned. However the concept of feeling itself may differ, all are looking for corresponding bodily processes by means of which to classify these affective states. Clearly, to say that feeling is of such a nature that one need never hope to be able to predict it from psycho-physical conditions, is no more justified than to say that we can never predict exactly the intensity nor the vividness of any stimulation. Feeling-tone is here simply on a par with other attributes ascribed to sensation.
According to Münsterberg's Action Theory the intensity of the sensation depends upon the strength of the incoming current. Its quality depends upon the position or location of this current in its particular neurone. The vividness depends upon the "openness" or "closedness" of the neurone conditioning the outgoing current. And finally to the feeling-tone shall correspond the local difference of this discharge in outgoing currents. For instance, the pleasant feelings have, related to them, central outgoing paths which lead to approach, and thus to the continuation of the stimulus, and the unpleasant feelings have related to them in turn central neurones which lead to withdrawal or escape, and thus to the breaking-up of the stimulus.
Our empirical data gathered from the experiments above reported demand not so much a modification as an elaboration of this theory. The tridimensionality of the feeling-tone itself must be physiologically described. We must conceive the feeling-tone itself as possessed of its own vividness, intensity, and quality.
It seems clear indeed that any explanation of the affective or feeling-character of experience must be sought somewhere in the outgoing currents from the motor region. This alone will serve to account for the inevitable volitional or "intent" aspect which invariably accompanies feeling, and I think may serve to account also for the organic or necessarily coördinating or functioning aspect required by some writers who so stoutly object to "barren atomistic or structural" psychological explanations.
The Action Theory might then be specialized in the following way:
The intensity of the feeling will depend upon the force or amount of the outgoing currents from the motor cells. This would enable one to explain that state of mind when a sensation only is experienced from a stimulus which ordinarily has a characteristic feeling-tone, but which feeling-tone in the special instance is lacking. Many cases have been cited above where one feeling seemed to efface another. The nerve-energy called for in arousing the unpleasant feeling-tone for the sandpaper inhibited the process of the discharge from the cells conditioning any response to the ordinarily pleasing red color. Others again can reënforce or at least not seriously interfere with each other. All cases already cited where two feeling-tones were detected as existing simultaneously are examples in point. It is quite clear of course that the intensity of feeling is not at all commensurate with the intensity of sensation. Commotion is not the only condition for emotion. Yet where there is no tendency to do anything, as is so noticeable in the reported introspections above, there is no feeling. A mere shock, even though intense as a sensation, simply benumbs one. In thus describing any feeling for a particular stimulation, one should include, besides the original results of the chosen peripheral excitation, all the reënforcing factors that accumulate by reason of the sensory counterparts to this originally called-for movement. When one is, for example, feeling sandpaper, the feeling for the soft red, when it exists at all, is less intense. Subjects say, "It ought to be more pleasant than it is. The trouble is in me, not in the color." The suggested movement which conditions the intensity is lessened in amount, or partially inhibited. One could scarcely say, so far as the sensation is concerned, that it has lost some of its brightness, or that it is not strong enough to arouse its customary feeling-tone. This is distinctly reported as not the case. It is of course almost always recognized as the same shade of color. The recorded examples, showing that intensity of feeling is itself one dimension of a feeling-tone in no way necessarily related to the intensity of the sensation, are numerous.
The vividness of the feeling-tone is likewise a relatively independent phenomenon, and it, too, is not commensurate with the vividness of the sensation as such, and hence demands a different explanation. It can then be dependent upon the actual stage in the process of completing the movements suggested by the color or tone or form in question. All feelings dealt with in this investigation one can describe by relating them to the actual stage in the process of completing the coördinated adjustments. Without some progress in such a process no feeling would cross the threshold of awareness. In Part III above are recorded many illustrations, where degrees of vividness for feelings are noted by the subjects. When they were attempting to report the actual time when a feeling became definite enough to be called such at all, there was much difficulty in knowing just when to give the signal. Feelings develop much more slowly than do perceptions. Subjects often give the signal too soon, at once correcting themselves by saying that it was too vague at that moment. It grows in definiteness, and has degrees of vividness. A movement in the first stages of the process, before the feeling-tone has sufficiently developed, is a state of vague feeling. Again, many states of so-called indifferent feeling meant, according to the subjects, not lack of feeling, but rather vagueness, lack of vividness. Three or more stimulations from different sources resulted in confusion where no feelings were vivid. When the color again, for example, is pronounced "dead" so far as feeling is concerned, other feelings and other movements are too prominent. The sensations are in such cases unchanged. The intensity and vividness of the feeling-tone for the color are at a minimum.
And thirdly the quality of the feeling-tone must be dependent upon, and must be described in terms of the particular kind of coördinated movements suggested or actually carried out. Thus the characters of the feeling-tones for the yellow color above described, for the upright ovals, for the very high tones, for the Laocoön group, and for the Horse Fair, are in some respects alike. They have the same general Gefühlsgrundlage. The qualities of the feelings for soft deep red, for tactual plush, for low tones, and for the Angelus, and, for most subjects, for Venus, would represent another class having the same Gefühlsgrundlage. This admits of all the uniqueness specific feelings may have, and at the same time permits of a general classification and description. Some subjects, D and F, for example, may have a feeling whose quality is disgust at some color-form combination. The accompanying sensations may be localized, as they frequently are, in the arms, with impulses to "ward off" the displeasing influence. Subject B often for the same feeling finds sensations of contraction in the throat most prominent, and subject A a stiffening of the features and incipient scowl. The most prominent localization depends upon the habits of the person and the habitual kind of reaction he has acquired and developed during his lifetime. The localization of muscular activity may differ, but the kind of coördination does not, so far as our introspection shows. The regularity, the rate, the smooth light ease, or the heavy, ponderous, deep-seated character of the suggested responses indicate some of the terms which would serve as aids in classifying kinds of processes which are physiological conditions for feelings of definite character. Again, feelings of pleasant repose, of depression, or of sudden collapse are still changes also in innervation tonus. These are adaptations for situations just as are the more positive or aggressive kinds illustrated above. Feelings where quick collapse occurs differ in quality from feelings of calm repose. All can be conceived as kinds of adaptations or responses, and clearly correspond to the characters of feeling-tones rather than to any other dimension of feelings or sensations.
Certainly the central preparedness for discharge largely determines the feelings. The external excitations are merely the clues. The internal apparatus is set vibrating in a constant manner if no other external or central stimulus is present to demand other adjustments or to intensify the same kind. When such synergetic or antagonistic stimuli are also present the mutual influences of feelings do seem to be, indeed, of great significance.
BY ELEANOR HARRIS ROWLAND
The object of this paper is to discover some of the sources of our pleasure in repeated space forms, and the laws which govern this repetition. The repetition of an object, and its regular recurrence subject to certain possible variations, is one of the basal principles of art, and of architecture in particular.
It is necessary at the outset to define our use of the word repetition more exactly, for there are obviously different meanings of the word, which may lead to confusion.
1. The term repetition may be applied to the existence of any two objects similar to each other, whether they are near together or widely sundered. Our pleasure in such a repetition would be merely that of re-seeing and recognizing the two as counterparts of each other. This kind of repetition I call conceptual, for it requires only that the memory-picture of the object be held in mind and the two recognized as similar when met again. This is not the kind of repetition which I have in mind, and I shall never use the word in this sense during the discussion.
2. In any one work of art there may be some feature repeated, some motif which is taken up and carried out in different ways throughout the whole, and these features we recognize as having an orderly relation to one another in the unity. This might be termed repetition of content, and be applied to the recurrence of some type of decoration over a window or a peculiar arch taken up in various ways throughout a cathedral. I do not use the word in this sense, but limit it still further.
3. By repetition is meant during this discussion the regular recurrence of an object, and an equally regular recurrence of intervals. The repeated object must come at uniform intervals, and this restricts us to the consideration of that repetition alone which consists of recurrence at regular intervals of some object more or less beautiful in itself, and the description of the nature of our æsthetic feeling in experiencing such a series.
Although this discussion is divided into the two divisions of experiments and analysis of architectural examples, and the experiments are described first, the investigation was not carried out separately in this order. The two went along together, the art-analysis suggesting experiments, and the experiments in turn throwing light on the analysis. The two parts of the discussion are kept separate merely for the convenience of the reader, and in the experimental discussion all allusions to the art-illustrations are excluded in order to avoid confusion. In reality the two went hand in hand, but the connection between the experiments and art-analysis will be reserved for the latter half of the paper.
The experiments were begun in the following manner: In a velvet screen about a foot high was cut a window 460 mm. by 35 mm. in size. Behind the window was a metre measure and a rod from which hung small strips of cardboard 10 mm. wide. First two, three, and four strips were hung behind the window, and the subjects were required to arrange them at the intervals where they preferred to see them repeated. The results were uniform in certain particulars and very suggestive. In their arrangements of two, three and four strips, the subjects were guided by considerations of symmetry or proportion. They insisted that although they knew that the strips were repeated, they did not feel the repetition, but the strips seemed like parts of some larger unity to be arranged with reference to the unity of the whole. With the addition of the fifth strip came a difference in their apperception. Instead of the strips seeming parts of a whole including figure they seemed like repeated units.
FAVORITE ARRANGEMENTS