A study of the individual differences in attitude towards tones / by C.S. Myers and C.W. Valentine.
- Charles Samuel Myers
- Date:
- [1914?]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: A study of the individual differences in attitude towards tones / by C.S. Myers and C.W. Valentine. Source: Wellcome Collection.
43/52 page 105
![6. Conflict between sadness and pleasure. The following examples illustrate the fact that a sound may be liked despite the mournfulness or sadness connected with it. J. 500. “I had a feeling of desolation. Then I thought of a fog signal, and finally came the image of a Flushing crossing on a foggy summer morning. I was on deck, leaning over the rails. And yet I like the sound.” K. 300. “Like a fog horn suggesting the sea, quite of its own accord. I at once saw the sea with a haze over it....Pleasant in tone, but sad and discomforting for the association.” “Mournful but rather pleasant.” S. 500. “ Rather sad, but I like it.” • “Very pleasant, though sad.” “Pleasant for its mellowness and purity. Yet it gave me a feeling of sadness and melancholy.” In all these subjects, the objective and character aspects are combined with one another or with the intra-subjective aspect. In many cases, at least, the answers appear to be due to a balancing or wavering between different aspects, the more ‘distant’ aspect, for example, giving pleasure despite the feeling of sadness produced in the subject, such subjective impressions tending to yield before the independent objectivity or character of the sound. Appendix B. Indications of Sexual and Racial Differences [by C. W. Valentine]. The men and women students who acted as subjects in my experiments were drawn pretty much from the same class of homes, the women, if anything, having had some advantage in the way of hearing music, and certainly more women seem to have had a con¬ siderable amount of instruction in the playing of the piano. At first it appeared that there were interesting differences between the men and women as shown by the following table. Total number of judgments of different types. Types of judgment Men Women Character 137 79 Musical Association 140 139 Objective 512 (253) 409 (211) Intra-subjective 256 (133) 273 (149) Associations other than musical 119 191 1164 1091](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30620715_0043.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
