Attention / by W.B. Pillsbury.

  • Walter Bowers Pillsbury
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Attention / by W.B. Pillsbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    pendence of attention of intensity by reminding us that when we are gazing at a sheet of white paper there is no difference in shade between the part looked at directly and the surrounding parts which are not attended to. Again, there are two objections to this summary settle- ment of the question. In the first place, it is frequently denied that the intensity of the visual stimulus is accom- panied by corresponding change in the intensity of the sensation, but rather that the series of grays that we find on the sensation side are differences in quality. In that case we should expect no change in colour to come with the attending, for no one has claimed that quality changes with degree of attention. In the second place even if there were a difference in the shade we would not expect it to be noticed, as it is well known that an evenly-coloured red area seems red over its entire extent, although we know that we can only see the red in a limited field in the centre. And finally, the objection would hold here also that it is impossible to compare the portion attended to with the other parts of the field, because with the comparison there comes at once and involuntarily a change of the attention to the parts of the field hitherto not directly observed. The experiments that have been devoted to the ques- tion by Miinsterberg, [5] Kiilpe, [2] and Miss Hamlin all rest upon the assumption that distraction decreases the amount of attention. This may or may not be true, as will be seen in a later chapter. Even granting the general prin- ciple, we are no better off, for results vary between proving that attention increases the intensity of a sensation and that it decreases it. A careful consideration of the facts seems to give no definite proof in favour of either side in the controversy. We are left with the mere fact that the weight of authority is in favour of regarding the effect of attention as different from the effect of an increased intensity of the external stimu- lus, but with no convincing proof in favour of that posi- tion. One other factor demands consideration in this
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