Harvard Psychological Studies Part 50

[2] Lotze, R.H.: 'Geschichte der aesthetik,' Munchen, 1863, S.

487 ff.

[3] Vierordt, K.: 'Untersuchungen uber d. Zeitsinn,' Tubingen, 1868.

[4] von Brucke, E.W.: 'Die physiol. Grundlagen d.

neuhochdeutschen Verskunst,' Wien, 1871.

[5] Mach, Ernst: 'Unters. u. d. Zeitsinn d. Ohres,' _Wiener Sitz. Ber., mathem. naturw. Cla.s.se_, 1865, Bd. 51, II., S. 133.

_Beitrage zur Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane_, S. 104 ff.

Many of the recent theories of rhythm are based on Wundt's a.n.a.lysis.

The work of Wundt and Dietze,[6] was concerned with rhythmic series; but it may be noted that the 'span of consciousness' and the 'synthetic activity of consciousness' were the subjects actually under investigation. Rhythm was considered as a special temporal form of this 'psychic synthesis.' There are three different elements in a sound series, declared these writers, which contribute to this synthesis: qualitative changes, intensive changes and melodic changes.

Of these the intensive changes are the most important. Every increase in intensity, that is, every beat ('Hebung') is followed by a decrease, and the next increase which follows is recognized as a repet.i.tion of the preceding beat and as the forerunner of the beat which is to follow. From this comes the synthetic power of the rhythm.

Just as the simple unit groups are built up by this synthesizing power, so they in turn are combined into larger phrases and periods.

The motor factor has little place in Wundt's own discussion,[7] the 'mental activity' is the all-important thing. Bolton[8] also made a very important contribution to the experimental knowledge of rhythm.

His work was based entirely on Wundt's theory. His method of experimentation was accurate and his observations copious. The arrangement of his apparatus, however, led him to emphasize objective uniformity as a condition of rhythmic grouping; so that Meumann's criticism of his application of this principle to poetry is quite just. Nevertheless Bolton established the essential facts of subjective accentuation and apparent temporal displacement. It is noteworthy that he laid great emphasis on the motor aspect of rhythm, and made many careful observations on the 'motor accompaniment.' While inclining strongly to a motor interpretation he did not attempt to cut loose from the Wundtian 'apperceptive process' as the primary factor.

[6] Wundt, W.: 'Physiol. Psych.,' 4te Aufl., Leipzig, 1893, Bd.

II., S. 83.

[7] Wundt, W.: 'Physiol. Psych.,' 4te Aufl., Leipzig, 1893, II., S. 89 ff.

[8] Bolton, T.L.: _Amer. Jour. of Psych._, 1894, VI., p. 145 et seq.

The most elaborate consideration of rhythm yet published is that of Meumann.[9] He avowedly worked out and defended the theory of Wundt.

The only important difference is the larger place which he gave to the 'motor accompaniment,' although he was always careful to emphasize its secondary and derived character. He insisted that the 'mental activity' is always primary, and that without it there can be no rhythmization; and he opposed vigorously the motor inclinations of Mach and Bolton. It is certainly unfortunate that rhythm has always fallen into the hands of the investigators of the 'attention,' or the 'span of consciousness,' or the 'perception of time.' It is but an incident that judgments of time are often based on rhythms; and everything that Meumann has said of a 'mental prius,' or a 'synthesizing activity' in the case of rhythms, may just as well be said in the case of any coordinated act.

[9] Meumann, E.: _Phil. Stud._, 1894, X., S. 249 ff.

Meumann discussed in detail the characteristics of the rhythm of a simple series of sounds, of music, and of verse. He a.s.sumed that in the simple sound series we have rhythm in its barest form, and only the rhythmic synthetic activity is at work; while in music there is a content which to some extent prescribes unities, and the objective regularity of the rhythm is broken. In verse we have much more content, and the rhythmization is no longer regular in its temporal relations; it is entirely dominated at times by the 'logical unities'

of the 'thought.'

One great difficulty with such a differentiation of the three types of rhythms presents itself when one inquires into the objective regularity of the types; the fact is that music is by far the most regular in its time values, though it has more content than the sound series; and that just as great irregularities are possible in the bare sound series as in the rhythm of verse with its rich and definite content.

Later statements of the facts and theories relating to rhythm have inclined more and more to an emphasis of the motor aspect, even on the part of Wundtians. Since Meumann there has been some detailed laboratory work published, but the amount of accurately measured rhythmic material is astonis.h.i.+ngly small. Meumann established experimentally the well-known relation between the length of a rhythmic element and its accent, and corroborated the earlier work on subjective accentuation. The reports contain the measurements of but about eighty individual unit groups (iambs, trochees, etc.).

Ebhardt[10] gave the measurements of from 150 to 300 taps from each of three subjects. But his work is vitiated, as far as any application to rhythm is concerned, because he based everything on the judgment of _equality_, which has nothing to do with rhythm.

[10] Ebhardt, K.: _Zeilschr. f. Psych, u. Physiol. d.

Sinnesorgane,_1898, Bd. 18, S. 99.

Hurst, McKay and Pringle[11] published measurements of about 600 individual unit groups from three different subjects; in several cases, the material consists rather too much of records of the experimenters themselves, but in general their results agree very well with those of other authors. Scripture[12] published the measurements of a single stanza of poetry. It is but a single stanza and quite too little material on which to base any conclusions, but it is notable as a measurement of freely spoken rhythm. No experiments have been published which bear on the nature of the rhythmic phrase, of the period, or of the stanza.

[11] Hurst, A.S., McKay, J., and Pringle, G.C.F.: _Univ. of Toronto Studies,_ 1899, No. 3, p. 157.

[12] Scripture, E.W.: _Studies from the Yale Psych. Lab.,_ 1899, VII., p. 1.

Our problem is: What part do the recurrent qualitative factors, like rhyme, play in the grouping of rhythms? They function evidently, in the main, as factors determining the periods or larger phrases of the rhythm structure--the verses and stanzas of poetry and nonsense verse.

As no work has been done on the nature of such larger rhythmic unities, a large share of the investigation was concerned with the nature of the verse unity.

Two methods of investigation were used: Subjects listened to rhythmic series, into which various modifications were introduced; and secondly, rhythms of a prescribed type, produced by the subject, were recorded and measured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. MONOGRAPH SUPPLEMENT, 17. PLATE IX.

Opposite p. 417]

II. THE PERCEPTION OF A RHYTHMIC SERIES.

Apparatus: A disc (Fig. 1, Plate IX.) about 50 c. in diameter, rotating on a vertical pivot, was driven by a pulley-cone underneath mounted on the same spindle (not shown in the figure). On the face of the disc were four concentric rings of regularly s.p.a.ced holes, which received pegs of uniform height and provided with a shoulder.

Corresponding holes of each circle lay on the same radius. On a plate supported by a bracket were mounted four levers whose heads stood in line radially to the movable disc. When the disc rotated to the right under the levers, the pegs forced up the lever heads and made an electric contact. The dip of the levers was controlled by a screw adjustment. The apparatus was driven by a motor and reducing gear, which were isolated in a sound-proof box. The rate of speed was controllable.

The apparatus was built for use with sounders connected with the binding-posts, but in this investigation sounders were dispensed with, and the clicks from the apparatus itself were used, since but one qualitative difference was introduced. As a rule, the objective accent of the foot was not given; the subjective accentuation was nearly always sufficient. Subjects were quite unable to say whether the accent was objective or not. If necessary, an accentuation was produced by raising the pegs representing the accentuated part of the foot. The group elements were represented by single, simple clicks made by a bra.s.s screw on the lever arm striking an iron plate (the noise of the bra.s.s peg striking the lever head was eliminated by damping with cloth). The rhyme was represented by a compound noise consisting of a click higher in pitch than the verse element click, made by the peg striking the lever head, and an almost simultaneous click lower in pitch than the verse element click, made by the screw of the lever arm striking another iron plate. The rhyme noise was not louder than the verse element click, and as a whole gave the impression of being a lower tone because the first click was very brief. Subjects did not a.n.a.lyze the rhyme noise, and had no difficulty in making it represent rhyming syllables. The pauses throughout had no filling.

The subject was always given a normal series until the type was clearly established, and when the variations to be judged were introduced his attention was directed as far as possible to the factor to be introduced. This seemed the only way to obtain trustworthy judgments. If the subject waits blindly for some perceptual change in the whole complicated ma.s.s of sensations which the simplest rhythmic series const.i.tutes, he is apt to fit his attention on some irrelevant detail, and the change may not be noted until greatly exaggerated, and he may not judge that particular factor at all.

The subject was always asked to choose a rate of delivery which would correspond to his natural rate of reading nonsense verse, and the clicks were always a.s.sociated with syllables, though not with words.

An effort was made to keep the series as colorless and devoid of content as possible, to eliminate uncertain a.s.sociation. Beyond suppressed articulation, the subject was not encouraged to mark the rhythm with any part of the body, but a number of involuntary movements of neck, body, hand, or foot were nearly always observed.

Occasionally, when a subject's expression was doubtful, he was asked to say a nonsense series with the clicks.

The nomenclature to be used in this paper is that of meter, but it is always subject to the reservation that the material is only a.n.a.logous to series of nonsense syllables.

Records were kept in terms of the intervals on the revolving disc; the time of revolution was also taken, so that the figures may be translated in time intervals if desired. Thus, 34, 34, 34, 34, 34 represents a series of iambs in which the unaccented click has the length of three, and the accented click the length of four s.p.a.ces between pegs. A uniform verse represented by a digit giving the number of feet, followed by digits in parenthesis giving the character of the foot, _e.g._, 4 (34), is an iambic tetrameter.

For convenience, the verse pause is written independently of the last foot of the verse, _e.g._, 4 (34) p. 7 represents a tetrameter line having the intervals 34, 34, 34, 37. The interval of the last accented syllable is counted twice.

Occasionally this is disregarded and vs. p. equals o is written to indicate that the vs. p. is equal to the foot pause.

The results of the experiments may be grouped under three heads:

1. Why does a synthesizing factor such as rhyme occur at the end of the verse?

2. What is the relation between the verse pause and the rhyme?

3. What is the relation of rhyme to the cyclic movement of the unit group and of the verse?

_1. Why the Synthesizing Factor Occurs at the Close of the Verse_.

To determine a possible difference in the sense of rhythm at the beginning and the close of a verse, pauses ('lags') were introduced into the earlier and later parts of the verse. These pauses were made barely perceptible, _i.e._, barely perceptible in any part of the verse. Usually in iambic verse the barely perceptible lag shows the following proportions to the other pauses:

34 _35_ 34 etc., or 47 _48.5_ 47.

Most of the experiments were performed with iambic tetrameter. The subject was told to note the lags in the verse: these were introduced either in both parts of the verse or at its close only. At least three verses were given, and records were kept of the false judgments. When lags of identical duration were introduced between the first and second and between the third and fourth feet, it was found that nearly always the lag would not be detected in the earlier part of the verse but would be detected in the later part. Out of eighty-two cases, there were but six in which the same lag was recognized in the first as well as in the last position. In two of these cases the subject's attention had been called to the first part of the verse; and in the four other cases the lag was still found more marked at the close than at the beginning.

There were no cases in which a lag detected in the earlier part of the verse was not also detected in the later part. False judgments, when they occurred, were made as to a lag in the earlier part of the verse.

One subject falsely located a lag in the first of the verse four times. Judgments as to the earlier part of the verse were uncertain and frequently changed.

The maximum lag possible without breaking the unity of the verse was determined for the earlier and later parts of the verse. The verse unity was tested by adding enough feet to make a full verse, after the break, and asking the subject to mark the close of the verse. In every case this irregularity was introduced into the second verse, and the first verse was normal, _e.g._ (pentameter),