Ambiguity of Retinal Impressions.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
James, William
Fig. 57.
What does each theory try to do? To make of seen location a fixed function of retinal impression. Other facts may be brought forward to show how far from fixed are the perceptive functions of retinal impressions. We alluded a while ago to the extraordinary ambiguity of the retinal image as a revealer of magnitude. Produce an after-image of the sun and look at your finger-tip: it will be smaller than your nail. Project it on the table, and it will be as big as a strawberry; on the wall, as large as a plate; on yonder mountain, bigger than a house. And yet it is an unchanged retinal impression. Prepare a sheet with the figures shown in Fig. 57 strongly marked upon it, and get by direct fixation a distinct after-image of each.
Figs. 58 & 59.
Project the after-image of the cross upon the upper left-hand part of the wall, it will appear as in Fig. 58; on the upper right-hand it will appear as in Fig. 59. The circle similarly projected will be distorted into two different ellipses. If the two parallel lines be projected upon the ceiling or floor far in front, the farther ends will diverge; and if the three parallel lines be thrown on the same surfaces, the upper pair will seem farther apart than the lower.
Fig. 60.
Fig. 61.
Adding certain lines to others has the same distorting effect. In what is known as Zöllner's pattern (Fig. 60), the long parallels tip towards each other the moment we draw the short slanting lines over them yet their retinal images are the same they always were. A similar distortion of parallels appears in Fig 61.
Fig. 62.
Fig. 63.
Drawing a square inside the circle (Fig. 62) gives to the outline of the latter an indented appearance where the square's corners touch it. Drawing the radii inside of one of the right angles in the same figure makes it seem larger than the other. In Fig. 63, the retinal image of the space between the extreme dots is in all three lines the same, yet it seems much larger the moment it is filled up with other dots.
In the stereoscope certain pairs of lines which look single under ordinary circumstances immediately seem double when we add certain other lines to them.[224]