A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/446 page 43
    And according to many (though not to all) psychologists, the consciousness of quality and of intensity are fused also with that of auditory extensity, or bigness.33 This auditory extensity, or voluminousness, is the predominant factor in our distinction of one instrument from another — ’cello from organ, or flute from violin — when both are playing at the same pitch and intensity. To sum up the results of the preceding paragraphs: the following auditory, sensational elements of consciousness occur: (i) auditory qualities (pitches, or tonal qualities and, perhaps, noise-qualities); (2) loudnesses, or auditory intensi¬ ties; (3) auditory extensities. A fusion of loudness and voluminousness with predominating pitch-quality is a tone. A fusion of loudness and voluminousness with noise-quality is a noise. (Or, if the occurrence of specific noise-qualities is denied, a noise may be defined as a complex of tones with¬ out any one prolonged or emphasized pitch-quality.) b. ATTEMPTED EXPLANATION OF ELEMENTAL AUDITORY EXPERIENCES The main explanation of the specific nature of the auditory elements of consciousness is, once more, physical and physio¬ logical. 1. The Physical Conditions of Auditory Sensation We shall find it convenient to consider the physical, and therefore secondary and remote, conditions of pitch and noise-quality, before regarding the more immediate physio¬ logical antecedents. The physical condition of the auditory consciousness in general may be described as oscillation of air- particles, producing rarefactions and condensations of the air. A rarefaction followed by a condensation is called an
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