< Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu
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154
GEISSLER

dass beide Reihen nicht annahernd parallel verlaufen, was nach der Verschiedenheit der psychologischen Bedingtmgen beider Methoden auch zu erwarten war, wodurch aber auch die Moglichkeit einer objektiven Wiedergabe des Klarheitsreliefs nach beiden Methoden in Frage gestellt wird."[1] I confess, too, that I do not see why, if Wirth objects to the assumption that his reaction- experiments were meant to be "cine Methode zur Messung der Klarheitsgrade,"[2] he should compare their results with those of his Schwellenmethode. And why does he speakof an "Ubereinstimunng der beiderseitigen Aufmerksamkeitsmasse?"[3] Surely, such language is both inconsistent and misleading.

Aside from these more technical issues, there remain certain important points concerning which a real disagreement seems to exist between Wirth and myself. In the first place, I cannot follow Wirth in drawing a sharp distinction between "the activity of attention as the most important subjective condition of a certain formation of the clearness relievo" and "the actually attained degree of clearness"( 3).[4] I myself never experience anything like an 'activity,' which might be supposed to be under voluntary control, nor have I ever met with it in the introspections of my observers; and the psychologists who occasionally mention it in experimental contexts, do not agree as to its nature. Hence the meaning of the phrase is not as unequivocal as Wirth assumes it to be.[5] For my own part, I must continue to identify the 'activity of attention* with the attained degree of clearness.

Another point upon which I disagree with Wirth concerns the general nature of the attentive consciousness, especially in the tachistoscopic experiments. I happen to have taken part lately in over one thousand monocular tachistoscopic observations on liminal and slightly supraliminal brightness-

  1. ↑ Ibid., 99.
  2. ↑ Psych. Stud., V, 69.
  3. ↑ Psych Stud., IV, 156.
  4. ↑ Psych. Stud., V, 52.
  5. ↑ Perhaps Wirth's distinction is meant to be identical with Wundt's distinction between Aufmerksamkeit and Apperception, as it is presented in the Physiol. Psych., Ill, especially 341: "Nach allem diesem sind Aufmerksamkeit and Apperception Ausdriicke fiir einen und denselben psychologischen Thatbestand. Den ersten dieser Ausdriicke wahlen wir vorzugsweise, um die subjective Seite dieses Thatbestandes, die begleitenden Gefiihle und Empfiudungen, zu bezeichnen; mit dem zweiten deuten wir hauptsachlich die objectiven Erfolge, die Veranderungen in der Beschaffenheit der Bewusstseinsinhalte an." Wirth's "activity of attention" would then be identical with Wundt's "Thatigkeitsgefiihl." But it is well known that this side of Wundt's apperception theory has been sharply criticised, and has found little acceptance.
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