Volume 1
A text-book of experimental psychology : with laboratory exercises / by Charles S. Myers.
- Charles Samuel Myers
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A text-book of experimental psychology : with laboratory exercises / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.
52/370 page 32
![These after-sensations of hearing must be distinguished from certain continuous or intermittent ‘ revived sensations ’ which are far rarer and are sometimes referable to pathological disorder. They are said to occur more frequently among subjects whose hearing is subacute. Their onset usually follows some fifteen or more seconds after the stimulus has been withdrawn, but this is not always the case. After pro¬ longed experiments during the day with the highest audible tones, they may recur at night and their vividness may be so intense that they may be confused with sensations of objective origin. In most instances of revived sensation it is highly improbable that they are due to after-vibrations of the ossicles of the middle ear. In some cases the absence of beats (page 35) or difference tones (page 40), when revived sensations of different pitch are simultaneously present, points to a neural or central origin. They are probably akin to visual halluci¬ nations, and are perhaps the result of a temporally abnormal exaltation of nervous excitability. Even when all the effects of a sound stimulus have passed away, the end organs of the ear do not enjoy complete rest. They are perpetually being played upon by feeble stimuli of internal origin, due, for example, to the circulation of the blood or to muscular contractions within the ear ; although it is to this condition that we give the name of silence. In ‘ singing in the ear' such intra-aural disturbances reach a distressing intensity.] Tone Character.—Sensations of pure tone differ not only in pitch and loudness, but also in various features which we may conveniently designate under the term ‘ tone character.’ For example, a very high tone sensation appears thin, pointed, and piercing, a very low tone sensation appears coarse, volu¬ minous, and massive. These special characters of tone sensations are in part dependent on the loudness, number, and pitch of the accompanying overtones and on the beats to which neighbouring overtones give rise. They are also in part the outcome of association with the instruments which produce the tones ; the double bass, for example, suggesting the sombre immensity of low tones, the trumpet suggesting the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3135984x_0001_0052.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
