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Sensation is the first response aroused by a stimulus, or at least the first response that is conscious. Perception is a second response, following the sensation, and being properly a direct response to the sensation, and only an indirect response to the physical stimulus. The chain of events is: stimulus, response of the sense organ and sensory nerve, first cortical response which is sensation, second cortical response which is perception.
Conscious sensation is the response of the part of the cortex that first receives the nerve current from the sense organ stimulated, the response of the "sensory area" for the particular sense stimulated. When the eye is stimulated, the nerve current first reaches a small portion of the occipital lobe, called the visual sensory area. Without that area there is no visual sensation. When the ear is stimulated, the conscious sensation is the response of a small portion of the temporal lobe called the auditory sensory area, and without this area there is no auditory sensation. But the presence of the visual sensory area is not enough to give the visual perception of facts, nor is the presence of the auditory sensory area enough to give auditory perception. The cortical regions adjacent to the sensory areas are necessary for perception; if they are destroyed, the individual may still see, but not know the objects seen; or may still hear, but not recognize the words or tunes that he hears. If the cortical area destroyed is in the parietal {424} lobe, adjacent to the sensory area for the cutaneous and kinesthetic senses, he may still "feel" objects, but without being able to distinguish an apple from a lump of coal, or a folded newspaper from a tin pail.
Sense perception, then, is a response of areas adjacent to the sensory areas, and this response is aroused by nerve currents coming along "association fibers" from the sensory areas which are first aroused from the sense organs.
The whole chain of events, from the time the stimulus reaches the sense organ to the time the fact is perceived, occupies only a fifth or even a tenth of a second in simple cases, and the interval between the beginning of the sensation to the beginning of the perception is not over a twentieth when the fact is easily perceived. Since the sensation usually lasts for longer than this, it overlaps the perception in time, and the two conscious responses are so blended that it is difficult or impossible for introspection to separate them.
But when an unusual fact is presented, perception may lag, though sensation occurs promptly. We may be baffled and confused for an instant, and have sensation without any definite perception; or, more often, we make a rapid series of trial and error perceptions. In one instance, a noise was first heard as distant thunder, and then, correctly, as somebody walking on the floor above. In another case, a faint sound was first taken for a bird singing, then for a distant locomotive whistle, and finally for what it was, the tinny noise of a piece of metal carried in the hand and brushing against the overcoat as the person walked; this series occupied not over five seconds. On touching an object in the dark, you may feel it as one thing and another till some response is aroused that fits the known situation and so satisfies you. Such trial and error perception can be observed very frequently if one is on the watch for {425} psychological curiosities; and it justifies the distinction between sensation and perception, since the sensation remains virtually unchanged while perception changes.
Another sort of shifting perception is seen in looking steadily at the "ambiguous figures" which were considered in the chapter on attention, the cube, staircase, and others; and the "dot figures" belong here as well. [Footnote: See p. 252.] In these cases the stimulus arouses two or more different perceptions, alternately, while the sensation remains almost or quite unchanged.
Perception and Image
The experiment with ambiguous figures also gives an answer to the question whether perception consists in the addition of recalled memory images to the sensations aroused by the present stimulus. If that were so, you should, when you see the upper side of the flight of stairs, see them as wooden stairs or stone stairs, as carpeted or varnished, with shadows on them such as appear on a real flight of stairs, with a railing, or with some other addition of a similar nature; and, when the appearance changes to that of the under side of a flight of stairs, the colors, shadows, etc., should change as well. The usual report is that no such addition can be detected, and that the subject sees no filling-in of the picture, but simply the bare lines—only that they seem at one moment to be the bare outline of the upper side, and at another moment an equally bare outline of the lower side, of a flight of stairs.
So again, when you "hear the street car", you do not ordinarily, to judge from the reports of people who have been asked, get any visual or kinesthetic image of the car, but you simply know the car is there. You will quite {426} possibly get some such image, if you dwell on the fact of the car's being there, just as some persons, in talking to a friend over the telephone, have a visual image of the friend. There is no reason why such images should not be aroused, but the question is whether they are essential to perception of the fact, and whether they occur before or after the fact is perceived. Often they do not occur, and often, when they do occur, they follow the perception of the fact, being aroused by that perception and not constituting it.
Sometimes images are certainly aroused during the perception of a fact, and, blending with the present rather vague sensation, add color and filling to the picture.
Here is an instance of this which I once observed in myself, in spite of the infrequency of my visual images. Approaching a house through a wide field one winter night, and seeing a lamp shining out of a window towards me, I seemed to see the yellowish light touching the high spots in the grass around. I was surprised that the lamp should carry so far, and the next instant saw that the light spots on the ground were small patches of snow, lighted only from the clouded sky; and at this the yellow tinge of the spots vanished. I must have read the yellow color into them to fit the lamplight. The yellow was an image blending with the actual sensation. Colors tacked on to a seen object in this way are sometimes called "memory colors".
When this instance is considered carefully, however, it does not by any means indicate that the image produced the perception. I responded to the pair of stimuli—lamp shining towards me and light spots around me—by perceiving the spots as lighted by the lamp; and the color followed suit. I next saw the spots as snow, and the color vanished. It was a case of trial and error perception, with color images conforming to the perception.
Perception does not essentially consist in the recall of {427} images, but is a different sort of response—what sort, we have still to consider.
Perception and Motor Reaction
Possibly, we may surmise, perception is a motor response, completely executed or perhaps merely incipient, or at least a readiness for a certain motor response. This guess is not quite so wild as our customary sharp distinction between knowing and doing might lead us to think. When we say that reacting to a thing in a motor way is quite different from merely seeing the thing, we forget how likely the child is to do something with any object as soon as he sees what it is. We forget also how common it is for a person, in silently reading a word—which is perceiving the word—to whisper it or at least move his lips. To be sure, persons who read a great deal usually get over this habit, as the child more and more inhibits his motor response to many seen objects. But may it not be that the motor response is simply reduced to a minimum? Or, still better, may it not be that perceiving an object amounts to getting ready to do something with it? May not seeing a word always be a getting ready to say it, even if no actual movement of the vocal organs occurs? May not seeing an orange consist in getting ready to take it, peel it, and eat it? May not perceiving our friend amount to the same thing as getting ready to behave in a friendly manner, and perceiving our enemy amount to the same thing as getting on our guard against him? According to this view, perception would be a response that adjusted the perceiver to the fact perceived, and made him ready to do something appropriate.
In spite of the attractiveness of this theory of perception, it is probably not the real essence of the matter. Just as perception may change while sensation remains the same, so there may be a hesitation between two motor responses {428} to an object, without any change in the way it is perceived; and just as a block may occur between sensation and perception, so also may one occur between perception of a fact and the motor response. In other words, perception of a fact may not spell complete readiness to act upon it. The best example of this is afforded again by cases of localized brain injuries.
It happens, in motor aphasia, that the subject hears and understands a spoken word—fully perceives it—and yet cannot pronounce it himself. And at that, there need be no paralysis of the speech organs. The brain injury has affected the motor speech-cooerdinating machinery, and deprived the individual of the power to get ready for speaking a word, even though he perceives it.
Analogous disabilities occur in respect to other movements. It may happen, through injury somewhere near the motor area, though not precisely in that area, that one who clearly perceives a seen object is still quite incapable of handling it. He knows the object, and he knows in an abstract way what to do with it, but how to go about it he cannot remember. This type of disturbance is called "motor apraxia", and, like motor aphasia, it proves that there is a preparation that follows perception and still precedes actual movement. Paralysis of the motor area is different; then, the subject both perceives the object, and gets all ready to act upon it; only, the movement does not occur.
The truth seems to be that a series of four responses occurs in the brain, in the process of making a skilled movement dealing with a perceived object. First, sensation; second, perception of the object; third, cooerdinating preparation for the act; and fourth, execution of the act by the motor area arousing the lower motor centers and through them the muscles. The first response is like receiving signals {429} or code messages; the second deciphers the messages and knows the state of affairs; the third plans action; and the fourth sends out orders to the agents that perform the action.
The distinction between perception and preparation for action is sometimes rather difficult to draw. The twelve o'clock whistle means time to drop your tools, and it is hard to draw a line between knowing the fact and beginning the act. On the other hand, when my watch tells me the noon hour is almost over, some little time may be required before I get into motion. Where there is no block or inhibition, the chain of responses runs off with such speed as to seem a single response. But a block may occur at any one of several places. It may check the actual movement, as in the "delayed reaction", [Footnote: See p. 76.] and in cases where we itch to do something yet check ourselves. Here the preparation occurs, but the execution is checked. Sometimes the block occurs between perception and preparation, when we know a fact but find nothing to do about it or hesitate between two ways of acting. Sometimes, also, the block occurs between sensation and perception; a sudden loud noise will sometimes throw a person into a momentary state of confusion during which he is unable to recognize the noise.
Blocking of response at different stages can be illustrated very well in the case of anger. The irritating stimulus gives a prompt fighting reaction, unless checked at some stage. When the check prevents me from actually striking the offending person, but leaves me clenching my fist and gnashing my teeth, the chain of responses has evidently gone as far as readiness for action, and been blocked between that stage and the stage of execution. Probably the inhibitory influence here is anticipation of bad consequences. The block may occur one stage further back, when I say to myself that {430} I mustn't let myself get "all riled up" since it will spoil my morning's work; here, instead of substituting the clenched fist for actual fighting, I substitute a bored or contemptuous attitude for the pugnacious attitude. All this time I still am conscious of the offense done me. But suppose something leads me to try to look at the other person's behavior from his own point of view—then I perceive it in a different light, and it may no longer appear a personal offense to myself. I here get a substitute perception.
The process of blocking and substituting is the same process that we have seen in trial and error.[Footnote: See p. 408.] The response proving unsatisfactory, or promising to be unsatisfactory, is checked and a substitute response found. Other elements in the situation get a chance to exert their influence on the reaction. If perception of a fact were absolutely the same as preparing a motor act, we could not look over the situation, perceiving one fact after another, and letting our adjustment for action depend on the total situation instead of on the separate facts successively observed; nor could we perceive one fact while preparing the motor response to another fact, as is actually done in telegraphy, typewriting, reading aloud, and many other sorts of skilled action. In reading aloud, the eyes on the page keep well ahead of the voice; while one word is being pronounced, the next word is being prepared for pronouncing, and words still further ahead are in process of being perceived.
We conclude, accordingly, that perception of an object is not absolutely the same thing as motor response to the object, nor even as motor readiness to respond, although the transition from perception to motor readiness may be so quick that the whole reaction seems a unit. In reality, perception of the object precedes the motor adjustment, and is one factor in determining that adjustment.
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What Sort of Response, Then, Is Perception?
We can say this, that perception is knowing the fact, as distinguished from readiness to act. We can say that perception is an adjustment to facts as they are, while motor adjustment is a preparation for changing the facts. Perception does not alter the facts, but takes them as they are; movement alters the facts or produces new facts. We can say that perception comes in between sensation and motor preparation. But none of these statements is quite enough to satisfy us, if we wish to know something of the machinery of perception. What is the stimulus in perception, and what is the nature of the response?
It takes a collection of stimuli to arouse a perception. This collection is at the same time a selection from among the whole mass of sensory stimuli acting at any moment on the individual. Perception is thus a fine example both of the "law of selection" and of the "law of combination". [Footnote: See pp. 256, 263.] Perception is at once a combining response and an isolating response.
We perceive a face—that means that we take the face as a unit, or make a unitary response to the multiple stimuli coming from the face. At the same time, in perceiving the face, we isolate it from its background, or disregard the numerous other stimuli that are simultaneously acting upon us. If we proceed to examine the face in detail, we may isolate the nose and perceive that as a whole. We might isolate still further and perceive a freckle on the nose, taking that as a whole, or even observing separately its location, diameter, depth of pigmentation, etc. Even if we went so far as to observe a single speck of dust on the skin, in which case isolation would about reach its maximum, combination would still stay in the game, for we should either note {432} the location of the speck—which would involve relating it to some part of the face—or we should contrast it with the color of the skin, or in some similar way take the single stimulus in relation with other present stimuli. Perception is always a unitary response to an isolated assemblage of stimuli.
Consider these two opposite extremes: taking in the general effect of the view from a mountain top, and perceiving the prick of a pin. In the first case, combination is very much in evidence, but where is the isolation? There is isolation, since internal bodily sensations, and very likely auditory and olfactory sensations as well, are present but do not enter into the view. In the case of the pin prick, isolation is evident, but where does combination come in? It would not come into the mere reflex of pulling the hand away, but perceiving the pin means something more than reflex action. It means locating the sensation, or noticing its quality or duration or something of that sort, and so contrasting it with other sensations or relating it to them in some way. To perceive one stimulus as related to another is to respond to both together.
But in describing perception as a unitary response to an isolated assemblage of stimuli, we have not differentiated it from a motor response, for that, too, is often aroused by a few (or many) stimuli acting together. What more can we say? In neural terms, we can only repeat what was said before, that perception is the next response after sensation, being a direct response to a certain combination of sensations, and being in its turn the stimulus, or part of the stimulus, that arouses a motor adjustment, as it may also be the stimulus to recall of previously observed facts. In more psychological terms, we can say that sense perception is closely bound up with sensation, so that we seem to see the fact, or hear it, etc.; we perceive it as present to the {433} senses, rather than as thought of or as anticipated. Motor readiness is anticipatory, perception definitely objective. Motor readiness is an adjustment for something yet to be, while perception is an adjustment to something already present.
Practised Perception
A fact perceived for the first time must needs be attended to, in order that it may be perceived. That is, the first and original perception of a fact is a highly conscious response. But the perception of a fact, like any other form of response, becomes easy with practice; the linkage of stimulus and response becomes stronger and stronger, till finally the stimulus arouses the perceptive response almost automatically. The familiar fact is perceived without receiving close attention, or even without receiving any attention. While your attention is absorbed in reading or thinking, you may respond to the sight of the flower in a vase on your table by knowing it to be there, you may respond to the noise of the passing street car by knowing what that is, and you may respond to the contact of your foot with the leg of the chair by dimly knowing what that object is. A great deal of this inattentive perception of familiar facts is always going on. Aside from sensation and from some of the reflexes, the perception of familiar facts is the most practised and the easiest of all responses.
The laws and sub-laws of learning apply perfectly to practised perception. The more frequently, the more recently, and the more intensely a given fact has been perceived, the more readily is it perceived again. The more a given fact is in line with the mental set of the moment, the more readily is it perceived. Sometimes it is so readily perceived that we think we see it when it isn't there. If you are hunting for a lost knife, anything remotely resembling {434} a knife will catch your eye and for an instant be perceived as the missing object.
The principle of substitute stimulus applies remarkably well to practised perception. The first time you perceive an object, you observe it attentively, and expose your perceptive apparatus to the whole collection of stimuli that the object sends your way. The next time you need not observe it so attentively, for you make the same perceptive response to a part of the original collection of stimuli. The response originally aroused by the whole collection of stimuli is later aroused by a fraction of this collection. The stimulus may be reduced considerably, and still arouse the perception of the same fact. A child is making the acquaintance of the dog. The dog barks, and the child watches the performance. He not only sees the dog, and hears the noise, but he sees the dog bark, and hears the dog bark. This original perception is a unitary response to the combination of sight and sound. Thereafter he does not require both stimuli at once, but, when he hears this noise, he perceives the dog barking, and when he sees the dog he sees an object that can bark. In the same way, a thousand objects which furnish stimuli to more than one of the senses are perceived as units, and, later, need only act on a single sense to be known.
The stimulus, instead of being reduced, may be modified, and still arouse the same perception as before. A face appears in the baby's field of view, but away across the room so that it is a very small object, visually. The face approaches and gradually becomes a larger visual object, and the light and shadow upon it change from moment to moment, but it remains nearly enough the same to arouse essentially the same perception in the child. He comes to know the face at various distances and angles and under various lights.
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Again, the child holds a block in his hands, and looks at it square on, so that it is really a rectangle in his field of view. He turns it slightly, and now it is no longer visually a rectangle, but an oblique parallelogram. But the change is not enough to abolish the first perception; he sees it as the same object as before. By dint of many such experiences, we see a book cover or a door as a rectangle, no matter at what angle we may view it, and we know a circle for a circle even though at most angles it is really an ellipse in the field of view. A large share of practised perceptions belong under the head of "response by analogy",[Footnote: See p. 406.] since they consist in making the same response to the present stimulus that has previously been made to a similar but not identical stimulus. If every modified stimulus gave a new and different perception, it would be a slow job getting acquainted with the world. A thing is never twice the same, as a collection of stimuli, and yet, within wide limits, it is always perceived as the same thing.
Corrected Perception
Response by analogy, however, often leads us astray, in making us perceive a new object as essentially the same as something already familiar. First impressions of a new object or acquaintance often need revision, because they do not work well. They do not work well because they are rough and ready, taking the object in the lump, with scant attention to details which may prove to be important. It is easy to follow the law of combination and respond to a whole collection of stimuli, but to break up the collection and isolate out of it a smaller collection to respond to—that is something we will not do unless forced to it. Isolation and discrimination are uphill work. When they occur, it is {436} because the rough and ready response has proved unsatisfactory,
Substitute response is the big factor in corrected perception, as substitute stimulus is in practised perception. When our first perception of an object gets us into difficulties, then we are forced to attend more closely and find something in the object that can serve as the stimulus to a better response. This is the process by which we isolate, analyze, discriminate.
Our old friend, the white rat, learned to enter a door only if it bore a yellow sign. [Footnote: See p. 304.] It was uphill work for him, hundreds of trials being required before the discriminating response was established; but he learned it finally. At the outset, a door was a door to the rat, and responded to as such, without regard to the sign. Whenever he entered a door without the sign, he got a shock, and scurried back; and before venturing again he looked all around, seeking, we may say, a stimulus to guide him; incidentally, he looked at the yellow disk, and this stimulus, though inconspicuous and feeble to a rat, finally got linked up with the entering response. The response of first finding and then following the sign had been substituted for the original response of simply entering.
In the same way the newly hatched chick, which at first pecks at all small objects, caterpillars included, learns to discriminate against caterpillars. In a practical sense, the chick, like the rat, learns to distinguish between stimuli that at first aroused the same response. It is in the same way that the human being is driven to discriminate and attend to details. He is brought to a halt by the poor results of his first rough and ready perception, scans the situation, isolates some detail and, finding response to this detail to bring satisfactory results, substitutes response to this {437} detail for his first undiscriminating response to the whole object.
The child at first treats gloves as alike, whether rights or lefts, but thus gets into trouble, and is driven to look at them more sharply till he perceives the special characteristics of rights and lefts. He could not describe the difference, to be sure, but he sees it well enough for his purposes. If you ask an older person to describe this difference, and rally him on his inability to do so, he is thus driven to lay them side by side and study out the difference still more precisely.
The average non-mechanical person, on acquiring an automobile, takes it as a gift of the gods, a big total thing, simply to sit in and go. He soon learns certain parts that he must deal with, but most of the works remain a mystery to him. Then something goes wrong, and he gets out to look. "What do you suppose this thing is here? I never noticed it before". Tire trouble teaches him about wheels, engine trouble leads him to know the engine, ignition trouble may lead him to notice certain wires and binding-posts that were too inconspicuous at first to attract his attention. A car becomes to him a thing with a hundred well-known parts, instead of just one big totality.
Blocked response, closer examination, new stimulus isolated that gives satisfactory response—such is, typically, the process of analytic perception.
Sensory Data Serving as Signs of Various Sorts of Fact
Among facts perceived, we may list things and events, and their qualities and relations. Under "things" we here include persons and animals and everything that would ordinarily be called an "object". Under "events", we include movement, change and happenings of all sorts. Under {438} "qualities" we may include everything that can be discovered in a thing or event taken by itself, and under "relations" anything that can be discovered by comparing or contrasting two things or events. The "groups" that we have several times spoken of as being observed would here be included under "things"; but the strict logic of the whole classification is not a matter of importance, as the only object in view is to call attention to the great variety of facts that are perceived.
Now the question arises, by what signs or indications these various facts are perceived. Often, as we have seen, the fact is by no means fully presented to the senses, and often it is far from easy for the perceiver to tell on what signs the perception depends. He knows the fact, but how he knows it he cannot tell. A large part of the very extensive experimental investigation of perception has been concerned with this problem of ferreting out the signs on which the various perceptions are based, the precise stimuli to which the perceptions respond.
For example, we can examine objects by feeling of them with a stick held in the hand, and thus perceive their roughness or smoothness; but how do we sense these facts? It seems to us as if we felt them with the end of the stick, but that is absurd, since there are no sense organs in the stick. It must be that we perceive the roughness by means of sensations arising in the hand and arm, but to identify these sensations is a much harder task than to discover the objective fact of roughness.
Again, we distinguish the tones of two musical instruments by aid of their overtones, but elaborate experiments were required to prove this, since ordinarily we do not distinguish the overtones, and could simply say that the instruments sounded differently, and let it go at that.
Once more, consider our ability to perceive time intervals; {439} and to distinguish an interval of a second from one of a second and a quarter. How in the world can any one perceive time? Time is no force that could conceivably act as a stimulus to a sense organ. It must be some change or process that is the stimulus and that serves as the indication of duration. Most likely, it is some muscular or internal bodily change, but none of the more precise suggestions that have been offered square with all the facts. It cannot be the movements of breathing that give us our perception of time, for we can hold our breath and still distinguish one short interval from another. It cannot be the heart beat, for we can beat time in a rhythm that cuts across the rate of the heart beat. When a singer is accompanying himself on the piano, keeping good time in spite of the fact that the notes are uneven in length, and meanwhile using his feet on the pedals, what has he got left to beat time with? No one has located the stimulus to which accurate time perception responds, though, in a general way, we are pretty sure that change of one sort or another is the datum. With longer intervals, from a minute to several hours, the sign of duration is probably the amount happening in the interval, or else such progressive bodily changes as hunger and fatigue.
The Perception of Space
Stimuli for the perception of location are provided by all the senses. We perceive a taste as in the mouth, thirst as in the throat, hunger pangs as in the stomach. To a familiar odor we may respond by knowing the odorous substance to be close at hand. To stimulation of the semi-circular canals we respond by knowing the direction in which we are being turned.
We respond to sounds by knowing the direction from which they come, and the distance from which they come; {440} but it must be confessed that we are liable to gross errors here. To perceive the distance of the sounding body we have to be familiar with the sound at various distances, and our perception of distance is based on this knowledge. As to the direction of sound, experiment has proved that we do little more than distinguish between right and left; we are all at sea in attempting to distinguish front from back or up from down. Apparently the only datum we have to go by is the different stimulation given the two ears according as the sound comes from the right or left.
The remaining senses, the cutaneous, the kinesthetic and the visual, afford much fuller data for the perception of spatial facts. Movements of the limbs are perceived quite accurately as to direction and extent.
A cutaneous stimulus is located with fair exactness, though much less exactly on such regions as the back than on the hands or lips. If you were asked how you distinguished one point from another on the back of the hand, you could only answer that they felt different; and if you were further asked whether a pencil point applied to the two points of the skin did not feel the same, you would have to acknowledge that it did feel the same, except that it was felt in a different place. In other words, you would not be able to identify the exact data on which your perception of cutaneous position is based. Science has done no better, but has simply given the name of "local sign" to the unanalyzed sensory datum that gives a knowledge of the point stimulated.
In handling an object, as also in walking and many other movements, the cutaneous and kinesthetic senses are stimulated together, and between them furnish data for the perception of many spatial facts, such as the shape of an object examined by the hand. The spherical shape is certainly better perceived by this combination of tactile and kinesthetic {441} sensations than by vision, and the same is probably true of many similar spatial facts. That is, when we see a round ball, the visual stimulus is a substitute for the tactile and cutaneous stimuli that originally had most to do with arousing this perception.
In part by this route of the substitute stimulus, the sense of vision comes to arouse almost all sorts of spatial perceptions. Of itself, the retina has "local sign" since we can tell where in the field of view a seen object is, i.e., in what direction it is from us. This visual perception of location is so much more exact than the cutaneous or kinesthetic that it cannot possibly be derived from them; and the same is true of the visual perception of difference in length, which is one of the most accurate forms of perception. The retina must of itself afford very complete stimuli for the perception of location and size, as far as these are confined to the two dimensions, up-down and right-left. But, when you stop to think, it seems impossible that the retina should afford any data for perceiving distance in the front-back dimension.
The retina is a screen, and the stimulus that it gets from the world outside is like a picture cast upon a screen. The picture has the right-left and up-down dimensions, but no front-back dimension. How, then, does it come about, as it certainly does, that we perceive by aid of the eye the distance of objects from us, and the solidity and relief of objects? This problem in visual perception has received much attention and been carried to a satisfactory solution.
Consider, first, what stimuli indicative of distance and relief could affect a single motionless eye. The picture on the retina could then be duplicated by a painter on canvas, and the signs of distance available would be the same in the two cases. The painter uses foreshortening, making a man in the picture small in proportion to his distance away; {442} and in the same way, when any familiar object casts a small picture on the retina, we perceive the object, not as diminished in size, but as far away. The painter colors his near hills green, his distant ones blue, and washes out all detail in the latter—"aerial perspective", he calls this. His distant hill peeks from behind his nearer one, being partially covered by it. His shadows fall in a way to indicate the relief of the landscape. These signs of distance also affect the single resting eye and are responded to by appropriate spatial perceptions.
Now let the single eye move, with the head, from side to side: an index of the distance of objects is thus obtained, additional to all the painter has at his disposal, for the distant objects in the field of view now seem to move with the eye, while the nearer objects slide in the opposite direction. How much this sign is ordinarily made use of in perceiving distance is not known; it is believed not to be used very much, and yet it is the most delicate of all the signs of distance. The reason why it may not be much used by two-eyed people is that another index almost as delicate and handier to use is afforded by binocular vision.
When both eyes are open, we have a sign of distance that the painter does not use, though it is used in stereoscope slides. The right and left eyes get somewhat different views of the same solid object, the right eye seeing a little further around the object to the right, and the left eye to the left. The disparity between the two retinal images, due to the different angles at which they view the object, is greatest when the object is close at hand, and diminishes to practically zero when it is a few hundred feet away. This disparity between the two retinal images is responded to by perception of the distance and relief of the object.
It will be recalled [Footnote: See pp. 253-254.] that when two utterly inconsistent {443} views are presented to the two eyes, as a red field to one and a green field to the other, the visual apparatus balks and refuses to see more than one at a time—the binocular rivalry phenomenon. But when the disparate views are such as are presented to the two eyes by the same solid object, the visual apparatus (following the law of combination) responds to the double stimulation by getting a single view of an object in three dimensions.
Esthetic Perception
Beauty, humor, pathos and sublimity can be perceived by the senses, though we might debate a long time over the question whether these characteristics are really objective, or merely our own feelings aroused by the objects, and then projected into them. However that may be, there is no doubt that the ability to make these responses is something that can be trained, and that some people are blind and deaf to beauty and humor that other people clearly perceive. Many a one fails to see the point of a joke, or is unable to find any humor in the situation, which are clearly perceived by another. Many a one sees only a sign of rain in a great bank of clouds, only a weary climb in the looming mountain.
"A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him. And it was nothing more."
It would not be quite fair to describe such a one as lacking in feeling; he probably has, on sufficient stimulus, the same feelings as another man, and it would be more exact to say that he is lacking in perception of certain qualities and relations. He probably tends, by nature and training, to practical rather than esthetic perception. To see any {444} beauty in a new style of music or painting, or to sense the humor in a new form of humorous writing, you need to be initiated, to be trained in observing the precise qualities and relations that are depended on for the esthetic effect. A complex situation presents almost an unlimited range of facts that may be perceived; no one perceives them all, and which he shall perceive depends on his nature and training, as well as on his attitude or mental set at the moment when the situation is presented.
Psychology has not by any means been idle in this field of esthetics; it has developed experimental methods for determining the preferences of individuals and of social groups. But it must be confessed that the results offer little that can be succinctly summarized.
One curious result is that even the very simplest objects can produce an esthetic effect. You would scarcely suppose, for example, that a mere rectangle could produce any esthetic effect, or that it would make any difference what exact proportions the rectangle possessed; and yet it is found that some rectangles are preferred to others, and that the popular choice falls upon what the art theorists have long known as the "golden section", a rectangle with a width about sixty-two per cent, of its length. Also, however much you may like symmetry, you would scarcely suppose that it could make much difference where, on a horizontal line, a little cross line should be erected; and yet nearly every one, on being tested, will agree that the middle is the best point. These are merely a couple of sample results from the numerous studies in this field.
Social Perception
By the senses we perceive the motives and intentions of other people, their sincerity, goodness, intelligence, and {445} many other traits. We see them angry or bored, amused, full of energy. To be sure, none of these human characteristics is directly and fully sensed, but that is the case also with many characteristics of inanimate objects which, nevertheless, we perceive by aid of the senses. We perceive anger or sincerity in much the same way that we perceive moisture or smoothness by the eye. To experience the anger of another person is a complex experience, but a single element from this experience may come to serve as the sign of the whole condition. A good share of the child's undirected education consists in learning to perceive the intentions and characteristics of other people by aid of little signs. He learns to read the signs of the weather in the family circle, and he learns in some measure to be a judge of men.
I once saw an instructive little incident, in which an older boy suddenly grabbed the cap from a little boy's head, and held it out to the driver of a passing automobile, as if giving it to him. The man saw the joke, and drove on laughing, but the little boy took it seriously and was quite worried for fear the man would carry off his cap. An older child would have "seen into" the situation readily; he could not have been teased in that way. Many social situations which are "all Greek" to a little child are understood readily by an older person.
It would be very valuable if psychology could succeed in analyzing out the signs by which such a trait as intelligence or "will power" is perceived, so as to reduce such perception to a science; but it is very doubtful if this can be done. Some persons who probably have themselves a keen perception of such traits have put forward systems, based upon the shape of the face, etc. They probably think they perceive human traits according to their systems, but the systems fail in other hands, and are undoubtedly {446} fallacious. No good judge of character really goes by the shape of the face; he goes by little behavior signs which he has not analyzed out, and therefore cannot explain to another person.
You can tell very little regarding a person's intelligence from his photograph. This has now been pretty well established. Photographs of persons of various degrees of intelligence are placed before those who are reputed to be good judges, and their estimates compared with the test ratings, and there is no correspondence. You might just as well look at the back of the photograph as at the front.
Even with the person before you, you are likely to commit great errors. This sort of incident has happened. A young woman is brought before the court for delinquency, and the psychologist who has tested her testifies that she is of low intelligence. But the young woman is good-looking and graceful in her speech and manners, and so impresses the judge that he dismisses as "absurd" the notion of her being feeble-minded. He sets her free, on which she promptly gets into trouble again. Apparently the only way to perceive intelligence is to see a person in action, preferably under standard conditions, where his performance can be measured; that is to say, in an intelligence test.
Errors of Perception
The grocer needs to be assured of the accuracy of his scales, and the chemist of the high accuracy of his chemical balance; the surveyor needs to know about the errors that may creep into the process of measuring the length of a line or angle. All of them, using instruments to assist in accurate perception of facts, are concerned about the accuracy of their instruments. Now, we all use the senses in perceiving facts, and "errors of sense" therefore concern us {447} all. Some of the errors committed in sense perception can be laid at the door of the senses, and some rather belong in the sphere of perception proper.
If you come out of a cold room into a warm room, the latter seems warmer than it is; and if you come out of a dark room into a light room, the latter seems brighter than it is. These errors, due to adaptation of the temperature sense and of the retina, are properly classed as errors of sense.
If you are taking a child's temperature with a "minute thermometer", it is best to use your watch to tell you when the minute is up, for the minute, when you are simply waiting for it to pass, seems very long. But if you are "working against time", a minute seems short. The professor is shocked when the closing bell rings, and thinks that certainly the hour cannot be up; but some of the students have been consulting their watches for quite a long while, being sure the hour must be nearly over. These are scarcely errors of sense, but they are errors of perception.
Where we tend to err in one certain direction from the truth, as in the examples just cited, psychology speaks of a "constant error", and evidently the knowledge of such constant errors is of importance wherever the facts are of importance. In a court of law, a witness often has to testify regarding the length of time occupied by some event, and a knowledge of the constant errors in time perception would therefore be of considerable legal importance. They would need to be worked out in considerable detail, since they differ according to the desires and attitude of the witness at the time of the event.
Besides constant errors, there are accidental or variable errors, due to slight momentary causes. Both constant and variable errors can be illustrated by a series of shots at a target. The variable error is illustrated by the scatter of {448} the hits, and the constant error by the excess of hits above the bull's-eye, or below, or to the right or left. The constant error can be corrected, once you know what it is; if results show that you tend to shoot too high, you can deliberately aim lower. But the variability of any performance cannot be eliminated except by long practice, and not altogether even then.
Experimental psychology has taken great pains in measuring the accuracy of different sorts of perception. How small a difference in length can be perceived by the eye, how small a difference of weight by the hand—these are sample problems in this line.
For example, to measure the fineness with which weights can be perceived when "hefted" in the hand, you take two objects that are alike in size and appearance but differing slightly in weight, and endeavor to decide which is the heavier just by lifting them. You try repeatedly and keep track of the number of errors, using this number as a measure of the accuracy of perception. Now, if one weight were twice as heavy as the other (one, for example, weighing 100 grams {449} and the other 200), you would never make an error except through carelessness; but if one were 100 and the other 120 grams, you would make an occasional error, and the number of errors would increase as the difference was decreased; finally, comparing 100 and 101 grams, you would get almost as many wrong as right, so that your perception of that small difference would be extremely unreliable.
ERRORS IN PERCEIVING SMALL DIFFERENCES OF WEIGHT (From Warner Brown)
Difference 20 16 12 8 4 8 2 1 grams
Errors 1 2 5 18 28 81 89 44 per hundred trials
The weights were in the neighborhood of 100 grams; each weight was compared with the 100-gram weight, and each such pair was lifted and judged 1400 times. Notice that the per cent of errors gradually increases as the difference becomes smaller.
The smaller the difference between two stimuli, the more numerous the errors in perceiving it, or, the less perceptible it is, and there is no sharp line between a difference that can be perceived and one that is too small to be perceived. That is the first great result from the study of the perception of small differences.
The second great result is called Weber's law, which can be stated as follows: In the same sort of perception, equal relative (not absolute) differences are equally perceptible. For example, from the preceding table we see that 28 per cent. of errors are made in comparing weights of 100 and 104 grams; then, according to Weber's law, 28 per cent, of errors would also be made in comparing 200 grams with 208, or 500 with 520, or 1000 with 1040 grams, or any pair of weights that stood to each other in the ratio of 100 to 104. Weber's law is only approximately true for the perception of weights, since actually fewer errors are committed in comparing 500 and 520 than in comparing 100 and 104 grams; but the discrepancy is not extremely great here, and in {450} some other kinds of perception, as especially in comparing the brightness of lights or the length of seen lines, the law holds good over a wide range of stimuli and only breaks down near the upper and lower extremes. We are familiar, in ordinary life, with the general truth of Weber's law, since we know that an inch would make a much more perceptible addition to the length of a man's nose than to his height, and we know that turning on a second light when only one is already lit gives a much more noticeable increase in the light than if we add one more light when twenty are already burning.
A third great result of this line of study is that different sorts of perception are very unequal in their fineness and reliability. Perception of brightness is about the keenest, as under favorable conditions a difference of one part in one hundred can here be perceived with very few errors. Visual perception of length of line is good for about one part in fifty, perception of lifted weight for about one part in ten, perception of loudness of sound for about one part in three. But the perception of small differences in the pitch of musical tones is keener still, only that, not following Weber's law in the least, it cannot be expressed in the same way. A person with a good ear for pitch can distinguish with very few errors between two tones that differ by only one vibration per second, and can perceive this same absolute difference equally well, whether the total vibration rate is 200, 400, or 800 vibrations per second.
Illusions
An error of perception is often called an "illusion", though this term is commonly reserved for errors that are large and curious. When one who is being awakened by a bell perceives it as a tom-tom, that is an illusion. An {451} illusion consists in responding to a sensory stimulus by perceiving something that is not really there. The stimulus is there, but not the fact which it is taken to indicate. Illusion is false perception.
The study of illusions is of value, not only as showing how far a given kind of perception can be trusted, but also as throwing light on the process of perception. When a process goes wrong, it sometimes reveals its inner mechanism more clearly than when everything is running smoothly. Errors of any kind are meat to the psychologist.
Illusions may be classified under several headings according to the factors that are operative in causing the deception.
1. Illusions due to peculiarities of the sense organs.
Here the stimulus is distorted by the sense organ and so may easily be taken as the sign of an unreal fact.
Separate the points of a pair of compasses by about three-quarters of an inch, and draw them across the mouth, one point above it and the other below; you will get the illusion of the points separating as they approach the middle of the mouth (where the sensory nerve supply is greatest), and coming together again as they are drawn to the cheek at the other side.
Under this same general head belong also after-images and contrast colors, and also double vision whenever for any reason the two eyes are not accurately converged upon an object. The fact that a vertical line appears longer than an equal horizontal is supposed to depend upon some peculiarity of the retina. Aside from the use of this class of illusions in the detailed study of the different senses, the chief thing to learn from them is they so seldom are full-fledged illusions, because they are ignored or allowed for, and not taken as the signs of facts. An after-image would constitute a genuine illusion if it were taken for some real {452} thing out there; but as a matter of fact, though after-images occur very frequently—slight ones practically every time the eyes are turned—they are ignored to such an extent that the student of psychology, when he reads about them, often thinks them to be something unusual and lying outside of his own experience. The same is true of double images. This all goes to show how strong is the tendency to disregard mere sensation in the interest of getting objective facts.
2. Illusions due to preoccupation or mental set.
When an insane person hears the creaking of a rocking-chair as the voice of some one calling him bad names, it is because he is preoccupied with suspicion. We might almost call this an hallucination,[Footnote: See p. 375.] since he is projecting his own auditory images and taking them for real sensations; it is, at any rate, an extreme instance of illusion. In a milder form, similar illusions are often momentarily present in a perfectly normal person, as when he is searching for a lost object and thinks he sees it whenever anything remotely similar to the desired object meets his eyes; or as when the mother, with the baby upstairs very much on her mind, imagines she hears him crying when the cat yowls or the next-door neighbors start their phonograph. The ghost-seeing and burglar-hearing illusions belong here as well. The mental set facilitates responses that are congruous with itself.
3. Illusions of the response-by-analogy type.
This is probably the commonest source of everyday illusions, and the same principle, as we have seen, is operative in a host of correct perceptions. Perceiving the obliquely presented rectangle as a rectangle is an example of correct perception of this type. Perceiving the buzzing of a fly as an aeroplane is the same sort of response only that it happens to be incorrect. If the present stimulus has something in {453} common with the stimulus which has in the past aroused a certain perception, we may make the same response now as we did before—especially, of course, if the present mantel set favors this response.
A good instance of this type is the "proofreader's illusion", so called, perhaps, because the professional proofreader is less subjcet to it than any one else. The one most subject to it is the author of a book, for whom it is almost impossible to find every misspelled word and other typographical error in reading the proof. Almost every book comes out with a few such errors, in spite of having been scanned repeatedly by several people. A couple of misprints have purposely been left in the last few lines for the reader's benefit. If the word as printed has enough resemblance to the right word, it arouses the same percept and enables the reader to get the sense and pass on satisfied. {454} Before we began to pore over books and pictures, the lines that we saw usually were the outlines of solid objects, and now it requires only a bare diagram of lines to arouse in us the perception of a solid object seen in perspective. An outline drawing, like those of the cube and staircase used to illustrate ambiguous perspective, is more readily seen as a solid object than as a flat figure.
Another illusion of this general type dates away back to Aristotle. Cross two fingers, perhaps best the second and third, and touch a marble with the crossed part of both fingers, and it seems to be two marbles; or, you can use the side of your pencil as the stimulus. In the customary position of the fingers, the stimuli thus received would mean two objects.
A much more modern illusion of the same general type is afforded by the moving pictures. The pictures do not actually show an object in motion; they simply show the object in a series of motionless positions, caught by instantaneous photography. The projector shows the series of snap-shots in rapid succession, and conceals them by a shutter while they are shifted, so as to avoid the blur that would occur if the picture were itself moved before the eyes. But the series of snap-shots has so much in common with the visual stimulus got from an actually present moving object that we make the same perceptive response. {455} The same illusion in a rudimentary form can be produced by holding the forefinger upright three or four inches in front of the nose, and looking at it while winking first the one eye and then the other. Looked at with the right eye alone it appears to be more to one side and looked at with the left eye alone it appears to be more to the other side; and when the one eye is closed and the other simultaneously opened, the finger seems actually to move from one position to the other.
4. Illusions due to imperfect isolation of the fact to be perceived.
Here belong, probably, most of the illusions produced in the psychological laboratory by odd combinations of lines, etc. A figure is so drawn as to make it difficult to isolate the fact to be observed, and when the observer attempts to perceive it, he falls into error. He thinks he is perceiving one fact, when he is perceiving another. The best example is the Mueller-Lyer figure, in which two equal lines are embellished with extra lines at their ends; you are supposed to perceive the lengths of the two main lines, but you are very apt to take the whole figure in the rough and perceive the distances between its chief parts. You do not succeed in isolating the precise fact you wish to observe.
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The Mueller-Lyer Illusion
The most familiar form of this striking illusion is made with arrow heads, thus
In attempting to compare the two horizontal lines one is confused so as to regard the line with outward-extending obliques longer than that with inward-extending obliques, though, measured from point to point, they are equal. The same illusion occurs in a variety of similar figures, such as
where the main lines are not drawn, but the distances from point to point are to be compared; or such as
where the two distances between points are again to be compared. Angles, however, are not necessary to give the illusion, as can be seen in this figure
or in this
In the last the lengths to be compared extend (a) from the right-hand rim of circle 1 to the left-hand rim of circle 2, and (b) from this last to the right-hand rim of circle 3. The same illusion can be got with squares, or even with capital letters as
or
or
where the distances between the main vertical lines are to be compared.
Here is an another form of the same illusion
the middle lines being affected by those above and below.
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Though these illusions seem like curiosities, and far from every-day experience, they really do enter in some degree into almost every figure that is not perfectly square and simple.
Any oblique line, any complication of any sort, is pretty sure to alter the apparent proportions and directions of the figure. A broad effect, a long effect, a skewed effect, may easily be produced by extra lines suitably introduced into a dress, into the front of a building, or into a design of any sort; so that the designer needs to have a practical knowledge of this type of illusion.
Extra lines have an influence also upon esthetic perception. The esthetic effect of a given form may be quite altered by the introduction of apparently insignificant extra lines.
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Esthetic perception is very much subject to the law of combination, and to the resulting difficulty of isolation.
One of the most interesting illusions, not being visual, can {459} only be described and not demonstrated here.
It is called the "size-weight illusion", and may be said to be based on the old catch, "Which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?" Of course, we shrewdly answer, a pound's {460} a pound. But lift them and notice how they feel! The pound of lead feels very much heavier. To reduce this illusion to a laboratory experiment, you take two round wooden pill-boxes, one several times as large as the other, and load them so that they both weigh the same; then ask some one to lift them and tell which is the heavier. He will have no doubt at all that the smaller box is the heavier; it may seem two or three times as heavy. Young children, however, get the opposite illusion, assimilating the weight to the visual appearance; but older persons switch over to the contrast effect, and perceive in opposition to the visual appearance. What seems to happen in the older person is a motor adjustment for the apparent weights, as indicated by their visual appearance, with the result that the weight of larger size is lifted more strongly than the weight of smaller size; so that the big one comes up easily and seems light, the little one slowly and seems heavy.
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EXERCISES
1. Outline the chapter.
2. Show that the law of combination accounts both for many correct perceptions, and for many illusions.
3. Through which of the senses are spatial facts best perceived?
4. "At first, the baby very likely perceives a ball simply as something for him to handle and throw; but, through the medium of blocked response, he comes to perceive it more objectively, i.e., as an object related to other objects, and not simply related to himself." Explain and illustrate this statement.
5. Give an example from the field of auditory perceptions where "isolation" is very much in evidence.
6. Can you see any law analogous to Weber's law in the field of financial profit and loss? Does a dollar gained or lost seem the same amount, without regard to the total amount possessed?
7. Trial and error perception. Go about the room with closed eyes, and identify objects by touching them with the hands. Notice whether your first impression gives place to corrected impressions.
8. Perception of form by "active" and "passive" touch. With the eyes closed, try to distinguish objects of different shapes (a) by letting them simply rest upon the skin, and (b) by handling them. What senses cooeperate in furnishing data for "active touch"?
9. Binocular parallax, or the differing views of the same solid object obtained by the two eyes. Hold a small, three-dimensional object a foot in front of the face, and notice carefully the view of it obtained by each eye separately. A pencil, pointing towards the face, gives very different views. What becomes of the two monocular views when both eyes are open at once?
10. Binocular compared with monocular perception of "depth" or distance away. Take a pencil in each hand, and bring the points together a foot in front of the face, while only one eye is open. When the points seem to be nearly touching, open the other eye, and see whether the two points still seem to be close together. Repeat.
REFERENCES
Discussions of perception that are in some respects fuller than the present chapter can be found in C. H. Judd's Psychology, General Introduction, 2nd edition, 1917, pp. 162-194; in Titchener's Textbook of Psychology, 1909, pp. 303-373; and in Warren's Human Psychology, 1919, pp. 232-269.
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CHAPTER XVIII
REASONING
THE PROCESS OF MENTAL, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM MOTOR EXPLORATION
We are still on the general topic of "discovery". Indeed, we are still on the topic of perception; we come now to that form of perception which is different from sense perception. The reasoner is an explorer, and the culmination of his explorations is the perception of some fact previously unknown to him.
Reasoning might be described as mental exploration, and distinguished from purely motor exploration of the trial and error variety. Suppose you need the hammer, and go to the place where it is kept, only to find it gone. Now if you simply proceed to look here and there, ransacking the house without any plan, that would be motor exploration. But if, finding this trial and error procedure to be laborious and almost hopeless, you sit down and think, "Where can that hammer be? Probably where I used it last!" you may recall using it for a certain purpose, in a certain place, go there and find it. You have substituted mental exploration of the situation for purely motor exploration, and saved time and effort. Such instances show the use of reasoning, and the part it plays in behavior.
The process of reasoning is also illustrated very well in these simple cases. It is an exploratory process, a searching for facts. In a way, it is a trial and error process. If you don't ransack the house, at least you ransack your memory, in search for facts that will assist you. You recall this fact {463} and that, you turn this way and that, mentally, till some fact is recalled that serves your need. No more in reasoning than in motor exploration can you hope to go straight to the desired goal.
Animal and Human Exploration
Is man the only reasoning animal? The experimental work on animal learning, reviewed in one of our earlier chapters, was begun with this question in mind. Previous evidence on this point had been limited to anecdotes, such as that of the dog that was found opening a gate by lifting the latch with his nose, and was supposed to have seen men open the gate in this way, and to have reasoned that if a man could do that, why not a dog? The objection to this sort of evidence is that the dog's manner of acquiring the trick was not observed. Perhaps he reasoned it out, and perhaps he got it by accident—you cannot tell without watching the process of learning. You must experiment, by taking a dog that does not know the trick, and perhaps first "showing him" how to open the gate by lifting the latch; but it was found that dogs and cats, and even monkeys, could not learn the trick in this way. If, however, you placed a dog in a cage, the door of which could be opened by lifting a latch, and motivated the dog strongly by having him hungry and placing food just outside, then the dog went to work by trial and error, and lifted the latch in the course of his varied reactions; and if he were placed back in the cage time after time, his unsuccessful reactions were gradually eliminated and the successful reaction was firmly attached to the situation of being in that cage, so that he would finally lift the latch without any hesitation.
The behavior of the animal does not look like reasoning. For one thing, it is too impulsive and motor. The typical {464} attitudes of the reasoner, whether "lost in thought" or "studying over things", do not appear in the dog, or even in the monkey, though traces of them may perhaps be seen in the chimpanzee and other manlike apes. Further, the animal's learning curve fails to show sudden improvements such as in human learning curves follow "seeing into" the problem. In short, there is nothing to indicate that the animal recalls facts previously observed or sees their bearing on the problem in hand. He works by motor exploration, instead of mental. He does not search for "considerations" that may furnish a clue.
The behavior of human beings, placed figuratively in a cage, sometimes differs very little from that of an animal. Certainly it shows plenty of trial and error and random motor exploration; and often the puzzle is so blind that nothing but motor exploration will bring the solution. What the human behavior does show that is mostly absent from the animal is (1) attentive studying over the problem, scrutinizing it on various sides, in the effort to find a clue; (2) thinking, typically with closed eyes or abstracted gaze, in the effort to recall something that may bear on the problem; and (3) sudden "insights" when the present problem is seen in the light of past experience.
Though reason differs from animal trial and error in these respects, it still is a tentative, try-and-try-again process. The right clue is not necessarily hit upon at the first try; usually the reasoner finds one clue after another, and follows each one up by recall, only to get nowhere, till finally he notices a sign that recalls a pertinent meaning. His exploration of the situation, though carried on by aid of recalled experience instead of by locomotion, still resembles finding the way out of a maze with many blind alleys. In short, reasoning may be called a trial and error process in the sphere of mental reactions.
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The reader familiar with geometry, which is distinctly a reasoning science, can readily verify this description. It is true that the demonstrations are set down in the book in a thoroughly orderly manner, proceeding straight from the given assumption to the final conclusion; but such a demonstration is only a dried specimen and does not by any means picture the living mental process of reasoning out a proposition. Solving an "original" is far from a straight-forward process. You begin with a situation (what is "given") involving a problem (what is to be proved), and, studying over this lay-out you notice a certain fact which looks like a clue; this recalls some previous proposition which gives the significance of the clue, but often turns out to have no bearing on the problem, so that you shift to another clue; and so on, by what is certainly a trial and error process, till some fact noted in the situation plus some knowledge recalled by this fact, taken together, reveal the truth of the proposition.
Reasoning Culminates in Inference
When you have described reasoning as a process of mental exploration, you have told only half the story. The successful reasoner not only seeks, but finds. He not only ransacks his memory for data bearing on his problem, but he finally "sees" the solution clearly. The whole exploratory process culminates in a perceptive reaction. What he "sees" is not presented to his senses at the moment, but he "sees that something must be so". This kind of perception may be called inference.
To bring out distinctly the perceptive reaction in reasoning, let us cite a few very simple cases. Two freshmen in college, getting acquainted, ask about each other's fathers and find that both are alumni of this same college. "What class was your father in?" "In the class of 1900. And {466} yours?" "Why, he was in 1900, too. Our fathers were in the same class; they must know each other!" Here two facts, one contributed by one person and the other by another person, enable both to perceive a third fact which neither of them knew before. Inference, typically, is a response to two facts, and the response consists in perceiving a third fact that is bound up in the other two.
You do not infer what you can perceive directly by the senses. If Mary and Kate are standing side by side, you can see which is the taller. But if they are not side by side, but Mary's height is given as so much and Kate's as an inch more, then from these two facts you know, by inference, that Kate is taller than Mary.
"Have we set the table for the right number of people?" "Well, we can see when the party comes to the table." "Oh! but we can tell now by counting. How many are there to be seated? One, two, three—fifteen in all. Now count the places at table—only fourteen. You will have to make room for one more." This reducing of the problem to numbers and then seeing how the numbers compare is one very simple and useful kind of inference.
Indirect comparison may be accomplished by other similar devices. I can reach around this tree trunk, but not around that, and thus I perceive that the second tree is thicker than the first, even though it may not look so. If two things are each found to be equal to a third thing, then I see they must be equal to each other; if one is larger than my yardstick and the other smaller, then I see they must be unequal.
Of the two facts which, taken together, yield an inferred fact, one is often a general rule or principle, and the inference then consists in seeing how the general rule applies to a special case. A dealer offers you a fine-looking diamond ring for five dollars, but you recall the rule that "all genuine diamonds are expensive", and perceive that this {467} diamond must be an imitation. This also is an instance of indirect comparison, the yardstick being the sum of five dollars; this ring measures five dollars, but any genuine diamond measures more than five dollars, and therefore a discrepancy is visible between this diamond and a genuine diamond. You can't see the discrepancy by the eye, but you see it by way of indirect comparison, just as you discover the difference between the heights of Mary and Kate by aid of the yardstick.
If all French writers are clear, then Binet, a French writer, must be clear. Here "French writers" furnish your yardstick. Perhaps it would suit this case a little better if, instead of speaking of indirect comparison by aid of a mental yardstick, we spoke in terms of "relations". When you have before your mind the relation of A to M, and also the relation of B to M, you may be able to see, or infer, a relation between A and B. M is the common point of reference to which A and B are related. Binet stands in a certain relation to "French writers", who furnish the point of reference; that is, he is one of them. Clear writing stands in a certain relation to French writers, being one of their qualities; from which combination of relations we perceive clear writing as a quality of Binet.
Just as an illusion is a false sense perception, so a false inference is called a "fallacy". One great cause of fallacies consists in the confused way in which facts are sometimes presented, resulting in failure to see the relationships clearly. If you read that
"Smith is taller than Brown; and Jones is shorter than Smith; and therefore Jones is shorter than Brown,"
the mix-up of "taller" and "shorter" makes it difficult to get the relationships clearly before you, and you are likely {468} to make a mistake. Or again, if Mary and Jane both resemble Winifred, can you infer that they resemble each other? You are likely to think so at first, till you notice that resemblance is not a precise enough relation to serve for purposes of indirect comparison. Mary may resemble Winifred in one respect, and Jane may resemble her in another respect, and there may be no resemblance between Mary and Jane.
Or, again,
"All French writers are clear; but James was not a French writer; and therefore James was not a clear writer,"
may cause some confusion from failure to notice that the relation between French writers and clear writing is not reversible so that we could turn about and assert that all clear writers were French.
The reasoner needs a clear head and a steady mental eye; he needs to look squarely and steadily at his two given statements in order to perceive their exact relationship. Diagrams and symbols often assist in keeping the essential facts clear of extraneous matter, and so facilitate the right response.
To sum up: the process of reasoning culminates in two facts being present as stimuli, and the response, called "inference", consists in perceiving a third fact that is implicated in the two stimulus-facts. It is a good case of the law of combination, and at the same time it is a case where "isolation" is needed, otherwise the response will be partly aroused by irrelevant stimuli, and thus be liable to error.
Varieties of Reasoning
Reasoning as a whole is a process of mental exploration culminating in inference. Now, without regard to possible {469} variations of the perceptive response of inference, there are at least different varieties of the exploratory process leading up to inference. The situation that arouses reasoning differs from one case to another, the motive for engaging in this rather laborious mental process differs, and the order of events in the process differs. There are several main types of reasoning, considered as a process of mental exploration.
1. Reasoning out the solution of a practical problem.
A "problem" is a situation for which we have no ready and successful response. We cannot successfully respond by instinct or by previously acquired habit. We must find out what to do. We explore the situation, partly by the senses and actual movement, partly by the use of our wits. We observe facts in the situation that recall previous experiences or previously learned rules and principles, and apply these to the present case. Many of these clues we reject at once as of no use; others we may try out and find useless; some we may think through and thus find useless; but finally, if our exploration is successful, we observe a real clue, recall a pertinent guiding principle, and see the way out of our problem.
Two boys went into the woods for a day's outing. They climbed about all the morning, and ate their lunch in a little clearing by the side of a brook. Then they started for home, striking straight through the woods, as they thought, in the direction of home. After quite a long tramp, when they thought they should be about out of the woods, they saw clear space ahead, and, pushing forward eagerly, found themselves in the same little clearing where they had eaten their lunch! Reasoning process No. 1 now occurred: one of the boys recalled that when traversing the woods without any compass or landmark, the traveller is very likely to go in a circle; inference, "That is what we have done and {470} we probably shall do the same thing again if we go ahead. We may as well sit down and think it over."
Mental exploration ensued. "How about following the brook?" "That won't do, for it flows down into a big swamp that we couldn't get through". "How about telling directions by the sun?" "But it has so clouded over that you can't tell east from west, or north from south." "Yes, those old clouds! How fast they are going! They seem to go straight enough." "Well, say! How about following the clouds? If we keep on going straight, in any direction, for a couple of hours, we shall surely get out of the woods somewhere." This seems worth trying and actually brings the boys out to a road where they can inquire the way home.
What we find in this case is typical of problem solution. First, a desire is aroused, and it facilitates the observation and recall of facts relevant to itself. One pertinent fact is observed, another pertinent fact, or rule, is recalled; and in these two taken together the key to the problem is found.
2. Rationalization or self-justification.
While in the preceding case reasoning showed what to do, here it is called upon to justify what has been done, or what is going to be done anyway. The question is, what reason to assign for the act; we feel the need of meeting criticism, either from other people or from ourselves. The real motive for the act may be unknown to ourselves, as it often is unless we have made a careful study of motives; or, if known, it may not be such as we care to confess. We require a reasonable motive, some acceptable general principle that explains our action.
A child is unaccountably polite and helpful to his mother some day, and when asked about it replies that he simply wants to help—while his real motive may have been to score against his brother or sister, who is to some extent his rival.
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If I have work requiring attention but want to go to the game, I should certainly be lacking in reasoning ability if I could not find something in the situation that made my attendance at the game imperative. I am stale, and the game will freshen me up and make me work better afterward. Or, I am in serious danger of degenerating into a mere "grind", and must fight against this evil tendency. Or, my presence at the game is necessary in order to encourage the team.
Thus, aspects of the situation that are in line with our desire bob to the surface and suggest acceptable general principles that make the intended action seem good and even necessary. Finding excuses for acts already performed is a reasoning exercise of the same sort. Man is a rationalizing animal as well as a rational animal, and his self-justifications and excuses, ludicrous though they often are, are still a tribute to his very laudable appreciation of rationality.
3. Explanation.
This form of reasoning, like the preceding, takes its start with something that raises the question, "Why?" Only, our interest in the question is objective rather than subjective. It is not our own actions that call for explanation, but some fact of nature or of human behavior. Why—with apologies to the Southern Hemisphere!—is it so cold in January? The fact arouses our curiosity. We search the situation for clues, and recall past information, just as in the attempt to solve a practical problem. "Is it because there is so much snow in January?" "But what, then, makes it snow? This clue leads us in a circle." "Perhaps, then, it is because the sun shines so little of the time, and never gets high in the sky, even at noon." That is a pretty good clue; it recalls the general principle that, without a continued supply of heat, cold is inevitable. To explain a phenomenon is to deduce it from {472} an accepted general principle; to understand it is to see it as an instance of the general principle. Such understanding is very satisfactory, since it rids you of uncertainty and sometimes from fear, and gives you a sense of power and mastery.
4. Application.
The reasoning processes discussed up to this point have taken their start with the particular, and have been concerned in a search for the general principle that holds good of the given particular case. Reasoning may also take its start at the other end, in a general statement, and seek for particular cases belonging under this general rule. But what can be the motive for this sort of reasoning? What is there about a general proposition to stimulate exploration?
Several motives may be in play. First, there may be a need for application of the general principle. Somebody whose authority you fully accept enunciates a general proposition, and you wish to apply it to special cases, either for seeing what practical use you can make of it, or simply to make its meaning more real and concrete to yourself. Your exploration here takes a different form from that thus far described. Instead of searching a concrete situation for clues, and your memory for general principles, you search your memory for particular cases where the general law should apply. If all animals are cold-blooded, excepting only birds and mammals, then fish and frogs and lizards are cold-blooded, spiders, insects, lobsters and worms; having drawn these inferences, your understanding of the general proposition becomes more complete.
5. Doubt.
A general proposition may stimulate reasoning because you doubt it, and wish to find cases where it breaks down. Perhaps somebody makes the general statement whose authority you do not accept; perhaps he says it in an assertive way that makes you want to take him down {473} a peg. Perhaps you are in the heat of an argument with him, so that every assertion he may make is a challenge. You search your memory for instances belonging under the doubted general statement, in the hope of finding one where the general statement leads to a result that is contrary to fact. "You say that all politicians are grafters. Theodore Roosevelt was a politician, therefore, according to you, he must have been a grafter. But he was not a grafter, and you will have to take back that sweeping assertion."
6. Verification.
This same general type of reasoning, which takes its start with a general proposition, and explores particular instances in order to see whether the proposition, when applied to them, gives a result in accordance with the facts, has much more serious uses; for this is the method by which a hypothesis is tested in science. A hypothesis is a general proposition put forward as a guess, subject to verification. If it is thoroughly verified, it will be accepted as a true statement, a "law of nature", but at the outset it is only a guess that may turn out to be either true or false. How shall its truth or falsity be demonstrated? By deducing its consequences, and testing these out in the realm of observed fact.
An example from the history of science is afforded by Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, which was at first only a hypothesis, and a much-doubted one at that. If the blood is driven by the heart through the arteries, and returns to the heart by way of the veins, then the flow of blood in any particular artery must be away from the heart, and in any particular vein towards the heart. This deduction was readily verified. Further, there should be little tubes leading from the smallest arteries over into the smallest veins, and this discovery also was later verified, when the invention of the microscope made observation of the capillaries possible. Other deductions also were verified, {474} and in short all deductions from the hypothesis were verified, and the circulation of the blood became an accepted law.
Most hypotheses are not so fortunate as this one; most of them die by the wayside, since it is much easier to make a guess that shall fit the few facts we already know than to make one that will apply perfectly to many other facts at present unknown. A hypothesis is a great stimulus to the discovery of fresh facts. Science does not like to have unverified hypotheses lying around loose, where they may trip up the unwary. It is incumbent on any one who puts forward a hypothesis to apply it to as many special cases as possible, in order to see whether it works or not; and if the propounder of the hypothesis is so much in love with it that he fails to give it a thorough test, his scientific colleagues are sure to come to the rescue, for they, on the whole, would be rather pleased to see the other fellow's hypothesis come to grief. In this way, the rivalry motive plays a useful part in the progress and stabilizing of science.
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
When you are sure at the outset of your general proposition, and need only to see its application to special cases, your reasoning is said to be "deductive". Such reasoning is specially used in mathematics. But in natural science you are said to employ "inductive reasoning". The process has already been described. You start with particular facts demanding explanation or generalization, and try to find some accepted law that explains them. Failing in that, you are driven to guess at a general law, i.e., to formulate a hypothesis that will fit the known facts. Then, having found such a conjectural general law, you proceed to deduce its consequences; you see that, if the hypothesis is true, such and such facts must be true. Next you go out and see whether these facts are true, and if they are, your hypothesis {475} is verified to that extent, though it may be upset later. If the deduced facts are not true, the hypothesis is false, and you have to begin all over again.
The would-be natural scientist may fail at any one of several points. First, he may see no question that calls for investigation. Everything seems a matter-of-course, and he concludes that science is complete, with nothing left for him to discover. Second, seeing something that still requires explanation, he may lack fertility in guessing, or may be a poor guesser and set off on a wild-goose chase. Helmholtz, an extremely fertile inventor of high-grade hypotheses, describes how he went about it. He would load up in the morning with all the knowledge he could assemble on the given question, and go out in the afternoon for a leisurely ramble; when, without any strenuous effort on his part, the various facts would get together in new combinations and suggest explanations that neither he nor any one else had ever thought of before. Third, our would-be scientific investigator may lack the clear, steady vision to see the consequences of his hypothesis; and, fourth, he may lack the enterprise to go out and look for the facts that his hypothesis tells him should be found.
Psychology and Logic
Psychology is not the only science that studies reasoning; that is the subject-matter of logic as well, and logic was in the field long before psychology. Psychology studies the process of reasoning, while logic checks up the result and shows whether it is valid or not. Logic cares nothing about the exploratory process that culminates in inference, but limits itself to inference alone.
Inference, in logical terminology, consists in drawing a conclusion from two given premises. The two premises are the "two facts" which, acting together, arouse the {476} perceptive response called inference, and the "third fact" thus perceived is the conclusion. [Footnote: The "two facts" or premises need not be true; either or both may be assumed or hypothetical, and still they may lead to a valid conclusion, i.e., a conclusion implicated in the assumed premises.] Logic cares nothing as to how the premises were found, nor as to the motive that led to the search for them, nor as to the time and effort required, nor the difficulty encountered; these matters all pertain to psychology.
Logic sets forth the premises and conclusion in the form of the "syllogism", as in the old stand-by:
Major premise: All men are mortal Minor premise: Socrates is a man Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal
The syllogism includes three "terms", which in the above instance are "Socrates", "mortal", and "man" or "men". Logic employs the letters, S, P, and M to symbolize these three terms in general. S is the "subject" (or, we might say, the "object" or the "situation") about which something is inferred. P is the "predicate", or what is inferred about S; and M is the "middle term" which corresponds to our "yardstick" or "point of reference", as we used those words at the beginning of the chapter. S is compared with P through the medium of M; or, S and P are both known to be related to M, and therefore (when the relations are of the right sort) they are related to each other. It is part of the business of logic to examine what relations are, and what are not, suitable for yielding a valid inference.
In symbols, then, the syllogism becomes:
Major premise: M is P Minor premise: S is M Conclusion: Therefore, S is P
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Without confounding logic and psychology in the least, we may take this symbolic syllogism as a sort of map, on which to trace out the different exploratory processes that we have already described under the head of "varieties of reasoning". To do so may make these different processes stand out more distinctly.
In problem-solution, we start with S, a situation unsolved, i.e., without any P. P, when found, will be the solution. We explore the situation, and find in it M; i.e., we observe that S is M. Now M recalls our previously acquired knowledge that M is P. Having then before us the two premises, we perceive that S is P, and are saved.
In rationalization or explanation, we know, to start with, that S is P, and wish to know why this is so. As before, we explore S, find M, recall that M is P, and see that S, therefore, is P. Our final conclusion is, really, that S is P because it is M; that January is cold because it gets little sunlight.
In application, doubt or verification, we start with the major premise, M is P, and explore our memories for an S which, being M, should therefore be P according to our hypothesis. If we find an S which is not P, then our final conclusion is that the major premise is false.
Reference to our "map" indicates that there might be several other varieties of reasoning, and there are, indeed, though they are scarcely as important as those already mentioned. Reasoning sometimes starts with the observation of P, which means something that might prove useful on some future occasion. Your attention is caught by these prominent words in an advertisement, "$100 a week!" That might come in handy on some future occasion, and you look further to see how all that money can be attached to S, yourself on some future occasion. You soon learn that you have only to secure subscriptions for a certain magazine, {478} and that income may be yours. P is the money, and M is the occupation that gives the money, while S is yourself supposedly entering on this occupation and earning the money. This type of reasoning is really quite common. If we see a person making a great success of anything, we try to discover how he does it, reasoning that if we do the same, we shall also be successful; or, if we see some one come to grief, we try to see how it happened, so as to avoid his mistake and so the bad consequences of that mistake. We plan to perform M so as to secure P, or to avoid M in the hope of avoiding P.
Sometimes, not so rarely, we have both premises handed out to us and have only to draw the conclusion. More often, we hear a person drawing a conclusion from only one expressed premise, and try to make out what the missing premise can be. Sometimes this is easy, as when one says, "I like him because he is always cheerful", from which you see that the person speaking must like cheerful persons. But if you hear it said that such a one "cannot be a real thinker, he is so positive in his opinions" or that another "is unfeeling and unsympathetic from lack of a touch of cruelty in his nature", you may have to explore about considerably before finding acceptable major premises from which such conclusions can be deduced.
Finally, in asking what are the qualifications of a good reasoner we can help ourselves once more by reference to the syllogistic map. To reason successfully on a given topic, you need good major premises, good minor premises, and valid conclusions therefrom.
(a) A good stock of major premises is necessary, a good stock of rules and principles acquired in previous experience. Without some knowledge of a subject, you have only vague generalities to draw upon, and your reasoning process will be slow and probably lead only to indefinite conclusions. {479} Experience, knowledge, memory are important in reasoning, though they do not by any means guarantee success.
(b) The "detective instinct" for finding the right clues, and rejecting false leads, amounts to the same as sagacity in picking out the useful minor premises. In problem solution, you have to find both of your premises, and often the minor premise is the first to be found and in turn recalls the appropriate major premise. Finding the minor premise is a matter of observation, and if you fail to observe the significant fact about the problem, the really useful major premise may lie dormant, known and retained but not recalled, while false clues suggest inapplicable major premises and give birth to plenty of reasoning but all to no purpose. Some persons with abundant knowledge are ineffective reasoners from lack of a sense for probability. The efficient reasoner must be a good guesser.
(c) The reasoner needs a clear and steady mental eye, in order to see the conclusion that is implicated in the premises. Without this, he falls into confusion and fallacy, or fails, with the premises both before him, to get the conclusion. The "clear and steady mental eye", in less figurative language, means the ability to check hasty responses to either premise alone, or to extraneous features of the situation, so as to insure that "unitary response" to the combination of premises which constitutes the perceptive act of inference.
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EXERCISES
1. Outline the chapter.
2. In what respects does the animal's solution of a problem fall short of reasoning?
3. Give a concrete instance of reasoning belonging under each of the types mentioned in the text.
4. How is it that superstitions such as that of Friday being an unlucky day persist? What would be the scientific way of testing such a belief?
5. What causes tend to arouse belief, and what to arouse doubt?
6. Introspective study of the process of thinking. Attempt to solve some of the following problems, and write down what you can observe of the process. |
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