![1
Familiar Size and the Perception
of Depth
Carol Barnes Hochberg and Julian E. Hochberg
The Problem
Among the ‘‘cues’’ of depth perception and the techniques for the rep-
resentation of space on two-dimensional surfaces, familiar size (2, 9, 28) is
unique, being the only one which by its very definition requires past ex-
perience.
Thus, while perspective might be a ‘‘learned cue,’’ it may instead be that
symmetrical tridimensional objects are perceived, autochthonously, in place
of less regular two-dimensional shapes (stimulus conditions permitting; cf.
20, pp. 159–160); interposition may be due to learning or, instead, to
‘‘completion’’ behind the overlapping object which prevented ‘‘good con-
tinuation’’ in two dimensions (cf. 25, pp. 115–118). Such depth ‘‘cues’’
may, as well as not, be direct stimuli for perceived depth, with no need for
past experience. This view is opposed by Berkeley’s famous ‘‘demonstration’’
that distance has no direct stimuli (‘‘ . . . being a line directed endwise to the
eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains
invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter’’ [6, p. 13]),
an argument which apparently makes the exceedingly dubious assump-
tions (20, p. 85; 26, p. 33n) that we are aware of our retinal images,1
that a
sensation must somehow share the quale of its stimulus, and, since there is
nothing ‘‘depth-like’’ in the proximal stimulus, that ‘‘depth’’ must come
from some nonsensorial source, i.e., inference based on adventitious asso-
ciation (6, p. 201).
Consider, on the other hand, a hypothetical case of pure familiar size,
with a nearby boy and a distant man subtending the same visual angle and
all other possible distance ‘‘cues’’ absent: if the man should be seen, not as a
midget standing beside the boy, but of normal size at his true distance, the
crucial factor must be the observer’s ‘‘knowledge’’ of the sizes of man and
boy. Presumably, the perceived distances of man and boy would arise because
of discrepancies between (a) unnoticed sensory data (the sizes and identi-
fying characteristics of the retinal images) and (b) unnoticed nonsensory
data (the recognition of the meaning of the images of man and boy, and the
3](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/916958-250616222120-20c15500/85/In-The-Minds-Eye-Julian-Hochberg-On-The-Perception-Of-Pictures-Films-And-The-World-1st-Edition-Mary-A-Peterson-30-320.jpg)
![knowledge of their average sizes)2
by means of (c) unnoticed inferential
processes (the ‘‘trigonometry’’ which locates man and boy spatially).3
Such appeal to the unconscious prodigies of a multileveled human mind
(cf. 21, p. 94) is not unfamiliar. If retinal images are compared with those
of past experience to form ‘‘depth,’’ then the organism must functionally be
able to ‘‘recognize’’ them before the percept itself, with its depth relation-
ships, is aroused; this implied pre-perceptual homunculus (14) also appears
in the ‘‘subception’’ (22) and pre-threshold recognition phenomena of
‘‘perceptual defense’’ (3, 23), and, above all, in psychoanalysis. It is a con-
cept which, with its drastic import, its difficulties (20), and its ‘‘solution’’ by
removal of the problem to another sphere, can neither be left hidden as
‘‘common sense,’’ nor accepted lightly.
Most of the support for familiar size (11) comes from the many dem-
onstrations (5, 8, 30) that a difference (or change) in retinal image size tends
to be perceived as a difference (or change) in the distance of objects of
constant size. Thus, if a giant playing card is compared to a physically nearer
(but smaller) one, the larger card seems nearer than the smaller (1).
However, such situations do not test pure familiar size, and while their
results do show that larger objects tend to appear nearer than similar smaller
ones, they do not show that past experience is at all responsible: there are
two variables to be ‘‘untied’’ here (in Brunswik’s terminology [4]), the
relative size of the stimuli, on the one hand, and their ‘‘associated meaning’’
on the other. It is unjustified (and unparsimonious [cf. 27, pp. 88, 102]) to
attribute the results to one without controlling the other; only if we assume,
with Berkeley, that we ‘‘see’’ our retinal image and that there can be no
direct visual stimuli for depth (since they could not be ‘‘depth-like’’) are
unconscious assumptions ‘‘inescapable’’ (18, p. 198). Otherwise, we are per-
fectly free to note a ‘‘stimulus-bound’’ (cf. 27, p. 102) correlation between
retinal size and perceived distance, or more elaborately, we can hypothe-
size an autochthonous tendency toward homogeneity by which similar
shapes ‘‘seek’’ similar size through appropriate distribution in perceived
space (20, 25).
Portions of recent experiments by Hastorf (11) and by Ittelson (17, 18)
seem free of this objection. For example, Hastorf’s subjects viewed a variable-
sized luminous disc monocularly, which the experimenter suggested at one
time to be a ‘‘ping-pong ball’’ and, at another time, a ‘‘billiard ball’’; their
reports of the disc’s distance (and their size settings) in terms of a well-
structured binocular field were found to change appropriately with the ex-
perimental suggestions. However, one can question first whether the effect
was truly perceptual,4
since two-thirds of the subjects perceived that the disc
was not really a ball (11, p. 208), and an unspecified number realized that
two different names had been given to the same stimulus (and these subjects
might even have contributed to the significance of the results, since they
‘‘ . . . still altered their settings when the suggestion as to the nature of the
stimulus was changed’’ [11, p. 209]). Second, since Hastorf’s subjects were
S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G
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![told the meaning of the forms, the essential element of ‘‘pre-perceptual
recognition’’ was absent, i.e., the subject was not required to recognize the
object’s meaning prior to organization of the percept. (Ittelson’s procedure
[17] was free from this second objection: the meaning of his stimulus objects
was given by their form [normal and out-size playing cards, etc.], not by his
suggestion.) Perhaps the same results could be achieved with no stimuli at
all, with subjects indicating how large a billiard or ping-pong ball would
have to be to appear at a given distance, etc. Pratt (27, p. 103) asks, ‘‘What
else could the observers have said? . . . This shift in judgment . . . was pre-
sumably no more than the kind of verbal displacement involved in saying,
for example, that a 25 cent piece is smaller than a half-dollar but at the same
time larger than a nickel. The object has not changed, but only the units or
words used to describe the object in relation to other objects.’’
Some of the other situations used by Hastorf and by Ittelson seem to
involve immediate perception (11, p. 208; 18), but these, on the other hand,
are merely additional cases of change or difference in size of like shapes,
which we have seen does not necessarily involve past experience. Since we
do not know that such size effects and familiar size are the same ‘‘cues,’’ we
cannot attribute the immediacy of one to the inferences of the other. To be
sure, ‘‘judgmental’’ processes may modify, and be important to perception.
However, if familiar size is to support an empiricistic theory of ‘‘primary’’
space perception, involving unconscious inference and pre-perceptual rec-
ognition, it must be demonstrated as operative at or below the level of the
immediate perception which it is trying to explain, not as some process
which may very well be ‘‘secondary’’ or subsequently interacting (26, p. 341)
with a prior percept which is organized in depth.
Let us consider two experiments whose results5
are pertinent to this
proposed distinction between familiar size, which logically requires past
experience, and relative size or size difference, which does not.
Experiment I
On two-dimensional ‘‘reversible-screen’’ drawings (see Figure 1.1a) were
drawn a man, 4¼ in. high, on one panel, and a boy of the same size and
approximate contour, on the other.6
Subjects pressed one telegraph key
when the left panel appeared nearer, another key when the right seemed
nearer. With space errors controlled or equated (each of the two positions of
man and boy on each of the two forms of the ‘‘screen’’ [Figures 1.1a and
1.1b] being presented to a separate group of subjects, no subject seeing more
than one presentation), the problem is whether the panel with the boy ap-
pears nearer more of the time than that with the man, as might be expected
from familiar size.
The ‘‘screen’’ presented a labile perceptual situation which at the same
time was ‘‘structured’’ enough to yield definite, albeit reversible, depth; it
Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth 5](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/916958-250616222120-20c15500/85/In-The-Minds-Eye-Julian-Hochberg-On-The-Perception-Of-Pictures-Films-And-The-World-1st-Edition-Mary-A-Peterson-32-320.jpg)
![and Seaman [16]) created a Ganzfeld of homogeneous visual stimulation
which ‘‘untied’’ illumination intensity from ‘‘texture,’’ and obtained with
intensity changes alone (12) the characteristic depth differences noted by
Metzger (24); Gibson found that in aperture vision with only texture gra-
dients varied, perceived ‘‘slant’’ changed with texture changes (10). It would
not be surprising if relative size constituted another such depth stimulus.
It is not contended here that familiar size is always powerless, even in
immediate perception; certainly, qualifications are necessary as to general-
izability to more ‘‘life-like’’ situations, and as to possible optimal differences
in familiar size of the represented objects, etc. These problems of ‘‘ecological
sampling’’ (4) are, however, also faced by proponents of this ‘‘cue’’ (cf. 27,
p. 89), and it has yet to be shown that familiar size as opposed to relative size
can be of any influence in ‘‘primary,’’ immediate space perception. It is
premature, therefore, to employ this portmanteau in an empiricist-nativist
controversy with such far-flung implications (7, 19).
Summary
Most of the ‘‘cues’’ for the immediate perception of space do not as yet
require explanation in terms of past experience. Only if we assume that a
stimulus for depth perception must have something ‘‘depth-like’’ about it
are explanations in terms of inferences based on learning necessary; unless
we then make the equally dubious assumption that we can see our retinal
images, such ‘‘inferences’’ must be unconscious. Only the cue of familiar size
requires past experience; most of the evidence for this cue actually involves,
instead, relative size (which does not require pre-perceptual recognition of
retinal images, past experience, and unconscious inference). An experimental
separation of the two ‘‘cues’’ found the latter effective and the former in-
effective.
Notes
Thanks are due to Professors E. C. Tolman, H. D. Carter, and L. J. Postman of the
University of California at Berkeley, and to Professor J. S. Bruner of Harvard
University, for helpful comments and criticisms.
1. The retinal image is probably never present in awareness, although under
special attitudes (rotation to an assumed frontal-parallel plane, etc.) percepts having
some formal similarity to the image may result; consider the facts of phenomenal
constancy, the inability to see the blind spot or the two retinal components pre-
sumably responsible for the perception of ‘‘yellow,’’ etc. Thus, any theory in which
‘‘depth’’ is based on recognition of retinal content would seem committed to call
upon unconscious processes, not, as Hastorf says, ‘‘ . . . that some sort of judgment or
interpretation, be it conscious or unconscious, must be made . . . if . . . size is to be
used as a cue to distance’’ (11, p. 198).
S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G
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![3
Apparent Spatial Arrangement
and Perceived Brightness
Julian E. Hochberg and Jacob Beck
The problems of brightness constancy (e.g., the constancy of perceived object
color under different illumination conditions) and of the perceptual con-
stancies in general arise from the fact that changed sensory stimuli frequently
elicit unchanged responses (and vice versa) which follow more closely the
variations of distal stimuli (objects) than of the sensory-surface stimulus
distributions. This raises difficulties for any formulation of a one-to-
one correspondence between stimulus and experience (confusingly called the
‘‘constancy hypothesis’’ [5, p. 86]), which at first sight would seem essential
to psychological prediction.
Such findings have been used in attempted (‘‘nativistic’’) refutation of
the constancy hypothesis and its associated stimulus-sensation units of anal-
ysis (5) and to demonstrate the importance of nonstimulus organizational
‘‘forces.’’ Empiricist ‘‘inferential’’ explanations, on the other hand, retain the
constancy hypothesis in sensation, and ascribe the obtained discrepancies to
the effects of past experience in perception. Objections to the nativistic po-
sition are (a) some evidence suggests that the accuracy of the perceptual
constancies depends on past experience (1); (b) no well-defined analytic
units have been presented to supplant the old ‘‘sensations,’’ and in their
absence precise prediction is difficult despite the considerable heuristic value
of the more or less intuitive Gestalt ‘‘laws.’’ General objections to the em-
piricist positions have been (a) it is not possible to distinguish between
‘‘sensation’’ and ‘‘perception’’; (b) there is some awkwardness involved in
the doctrine of ‘‘unconscious inference’’ and its derivatives, especially when
referring to the lower animals in which the constancies appear (7, pp. 605–
607); (c) any attempt at precise prediction from this viewpoint must await as
yet unperformed ‘‘ecological surveys’’ to determine what the past experi-
ences of an organism are likely to have been; (d) the constancies also appear
to exist without opportunity for past experience (3), and while demonstrated
effects of past experience on the constancies do not necessarily refute the
Gestalt position, evidence of the reverse seriously injures a thoroughgoing
empiricist explanation.
17](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/916958-250616222120-20c15500/85/In-The-Minds-Eye-Julian-Hochberg-On-The-Perception-Of-Pictures-Films-And-The-World-1st-Edition-Mary-A-Peterson-44-320.jpg)
![4
Perception
Toward the Recovery of a Definition
Julian Hochberg
Perception, a word which once had a fairly limited meaning, has recently
acquired a host of new (and frequently mutually contradictory [e.g., 26, 27])
ones. The shattering of the taxonomy of sensation, image, and percept (15,
30) made it difficult to maintain the older definitions (e.g., perception equals
sensations plus images). Since then, usage has ranged from a narrowing of
‘‘perception’’ almost to the previous connotations of ‘‘sensation’’ (27), to a
widening which includes almost all cognition—e.g., ‘‘Symbolization makes
possible perception at a distance where the immediate percept is only a symbol
of a distant event’’ (26). So loose has the term become that today Murray
might call his battery the Thematic Perception Test, and not arouse any great
comment. This diffuseness renders the term almost meaningless, and, even if
there were no more serious consequences, it tends to promote a feeling of
false unity and community of subject matter among diverse disciplines which
really use the word in quite different fashions (cf. 29).
When the different definitions of the term are allowed to shift and
interact in a single argument, however, serious confusion may result. When
pre-, sub-, and unconscious perceptual processes are postulated (1, 17),
when the results of presumably ‘‘perceptual’’ demonstrations are the occa-
sion of profound epistemological conclusions (6, 12), and when questions
are raised as to whether it is ‘‘really’’ perception (18, 21, 11) that is being
investigated—at such points, it is not mere pedantry to ask questions about
definitions. ‘‘Perception’’ frequently carries with it the various connotations
of ‘‘awareness,’’ of a ‘‘discrimination’’ between stimuli, of a conviction of the
‘‘real’’ environmental presence of the perceived object, etc. These con-
cepts are quite complex and as yet ill defined, and their casual intermixture
may have methodological as well as theoretical consequences. For example,
Bruner, Postman, and Rodrigues (4) attempted to demonstrate that the
effect of the previously experienced normal color of an object on its pres-
ently perceived color increased as the ambiguity was increased by increasing
the time elapsed between the presentation of the stimulus and the matching
of that stimulus to a color wheel—a procedure more appropriate to the
investigation of memory than to the traditional usage of perception. This is
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![not to say that we must adhere to the old structuralist methods of slicing
mental processes, but memorial effects in memory are not quite as critical a
phenomenon as would be memorial effects in perception, and the distinc-
tion seems worth retaining when the existence of such effects is itself the
question at hand. For most purposes such distinctions may actually be as
unnecessary as the tendency to ignore them suggests, but this really depends
upon the use to which the definition will be put.
It seems to me that there are at present at least two purposes for which
a definition of perception is needed: (a) to delimit certain characteristics
(phenomenal properties) of the experience of the subject, and (b) to distin-
guish between the immediate (primary) and less immediate (secondary)
functional determinants we assume to be underlying the overt discriminal
response. Few attempts have been made recently at explicit definitions for
either purpose, and this is what has generated the delightful Freudian
paradoxes about ‘‘subceptual recognition,’’ the ambiguity about motiva-
tional determinants in perception, and the confusion about ‘‘ambiguity.’’
Programs for the Definition of Perception
Perceptual Experience. One aspect of classical consensual usage is given
in a definition by MacLeod: Perception is that process by which things,
events, and relationships become phenomenally ‘‘here,’’ ‘‘now,’’ and ‘‘real.’’
Some might object to the ‘‘private’’ and ‘‘subjective’’ nature of the construct;
however, aside from such metaphysical objections, the actual problems of
applying such definitions experimentally have largely been ignored. Since a
‘‘percept’’ is a construct and not ‘‘directly measurable,’’ its definition can be
approached with different indices and at various levels.
At the most primitive level, a considerable gain in information could
be achieved in many supposedly ‘‘perceptual’’ experiments (cf. 8) simply if
subjects were asked whether their reports concerned objects ‘‘really seen’’ as
present, rather than inferred or imagined. This is particularly important
where the experimental findings are intended to reveal the fundamental
dependence of perceptual experience in general upon some set of variables
other than those immediately involved, e.g., dependence upon learning,
upon motivation, etc. Thus, Hastorf (8) attempts to support the empiricist
explanation of depth perception by showing that the known size of an object
can determine its apparent distance: He instructs subjects that a rectangular
stimulus, presented so that its visual distance is indeterminate, is a calling
card, an envelope, etc., and obtains different distance matches; the relevance
of his findings would be considerably increased, however, by some assur-
ance (in the face of some evidence to the contrary [10]) that his subjects’
performance actually entailed perceiving the stimulus as instructed and
perceiving the distances as reported. Again, if we have attempted to dem-
onstrate the effects of needs on the perception of length by rewarding lon-
ger lines (22), we require some assurance that the subjects are not merely
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![reporting, without seeing, greater length (18). Where needed, greater cer-
tainty as to the degree to which ‘‘immediacy’’ characterizes the experience
and as to the uni- or multidimensionality of the response system could be
achieved by the use of psychophysical and scaling procedures. Whether or not
a given response is perceptual in this sense is an empirical matter (cf. Perky’s
demonstration of the continuity of image and percept [19]).
Since it seems unlikely that very many modern American experimental
psychologists feel quite comfortable when brought face to face, in such bald
fashion, with a construct of ‘‘conscious perceptual experience,’’ the second
purpose for which definition is required is probably more important at the
moment (although it cannot be completely untied from this first problem).
The Temporal Primacy of ‘‘Perceptual’’ Processes. A recurring theme (by
no means new) is the helpless dependence of perception on internal non-
exteroceptive factors of motivation and past experience. Thus, our percep-
tions of the world—its spatial fabric (16), the objects within it (3), and their
dimensions (13) and attributes (4)—are supposedly determined by desire
and habit. A percept becomes merely a normal hallucination and, with all
knowledge based upon the senses, all our cognitive processes are contami-
nated and deluded. In extreme cases (6), solipsistic epistemologies—each
man being viewed as in an independent, monadic universe produced by the
projection of his trigonometric judgments (16) or of his unconscious desires
(1) or memories (9)—have been offered as psychological ‘‘findings’’ with
great energy and persuasiveness. We are not concerned here, however, with
either the philosophical or the factual aspects of this matter, but rather with
the definitions of perception involved, implicit or explicit.
By the old structuralist definition of perception, all of this is trivial and
at least as old as Bishop Berkeley—by definition, a percept is not in corre-
spondence with proximal stimulation, but is compounded of sensations and
remembered images. Sensations alone would be in expected correspondence
with the physical world of proximal stimulus energies, while the nature of
the world of objects and space would by definition be determined by (in
fact, composed of) the associated images of past experience and the judg-
ment-like processes of unbewusstersschluss. The Princeton demonstrations of
purported experiential determinants in perception should occasion no great
amazement to anyone who has the traditional definition in mind, with its
temporal primacy of sensation and associated memory trace arousal before
the arousal of the perceptual process. Similarly, there is little occasion for
pleased surprise at the ‘‘perceptual defense’’ claims that unconscious rec-
ognition processes intervene between what, in classical terms, would be
sensation (itself not always conscious [2]) and conscious perception or overt
recognition. Another class of implicit definitions has evidently been under
attack here, one which ignores the old sensation-perception dichotomy (14).
However, if we wish to establish anything concerning the effects of, say,
judgment as an independent variable upon perception as a dependent var-
iable, we must be sure that the process we have observed as a dependent
Perception 25](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/916958-250616222120-20c15500/85/In-The-Minds-Eye-Julian-Hochberg-On-The-Perception-Of-Pictures-Films-And-The-World-1st-Edition-Mary-A-Peterson-52-320.jpg)
![variable was not, itself, the judgmental one whose effect we were presumably
investigating (11, 21). Postman (20) seems to tell us that the perceptual
response—and, therefore, everything useful we can say about ‘‘percep-
tion’’—follows the ‘‘laws of associative learning.’’ However, the main point
has been glossed over by Postman, and tends to return us to the earlier
problem of conscious experience: not every behavior measured is an index of
the perceptual nature of the response, and not all indices are equally good. Let us
look, therefore, at some examples of perceptual research in which implicit or
explicit attempts were made to answer this question.
1. If we reward differently the two alternates of a simple reversible figure-
ground pattern, the situation is vastly different from that of rewarding
different line lengths. Schafer and Murphy (24) coupled monetary re-
ward with one, monetary loss with the other of two sets of half-faces,
which were then combined to form single reversible figure-ground
units and presented for tachistoscopic recognition. Here, subjects who
report recognition of the previously rewarded half-face cannot be
‘‘judging’’: If we assume (23) that only one of the two faces can be
figure at one time (there is some doubt about this, however; see 27,
25) and that the tachistoscopic exposure employed does not allow
time for a reversal of figure and ground, the subject cannot correctly
report a face other than the one he first sees, since he cannot (except
by chance) know which it is. The subject cannot be giving a report
which could equally well have been made in the absence of the stimulus.
2. Wallach, O’Connell, and Neisser (28) found that the shadow of a static
wire form, originally reported to be two-dimensional, appeared three-
dimensional after viewing the shadow cast by the same wire form in
rotation. This would constitute a clear demonstration of the effect of past
experience on depth perception if we could be sure that this was not
merely recollection by the subjects that ‘‘this pattern is one which was cast
by a three-dimensional form.’’ The experimenters therefore had the
subjects continue to view the same static shadow pattern, and when
reversals of perspective were reported with appropriate changes in rela-
tive sizes of the parts, concluded that they were dealing with perceived,
rather than just judged, depth. The criterion of reversal has been used
before (for example, by Hochberg and Hochberg [10] in testing the
perceptual effects of ‘‘familiar size’’ on ‘‘represented’’ depth).
Why is perspective reversal considered evidence that the response is
perceptual? (a) For one thing, spontaneous perspective reversal is known to
occur in the presence of certain kinds of stimuli and has not yet been
reported to occur in cognitive processes which take place in the absence of the
specific stimulus. (b) More important is the element of ‘‘additional infor-
mation’’ already noted to be implicit in the Schafer-Murphy criterion: the
second (reversed) description of the wire form is only one of an unlimited
number of responses which the subject could make, but the one which he
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- 6. In the Mind’s Eye
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- 8. In the Mind’s Eye J U L I A N H O C H B E R G on the Perception of Pictures, Films, and the World Edited by Mary A. Peterson Barbara Gillam H. A. Sedgwick 1 2007
- 9. 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright # 2007 by Mary A. Peterson, Barbara Gillam, and H. A. Sedgwick Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hochberg, Julian E. In the mind’s eye : Julian Hochberg on the perception of pictures, films, and the world / edited by Mary A. Peterson, Barbara Gillam, and H. A. Sedgwick. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13 978-0-19-517691-9 ISBN 0-19-517691-X 1. Visual perception. I. Peterson, Mary A., 1950– II. Gillam, Barbara. III. Sedgwick, H. A. IV. Title. BF241.H55 2006 152.14—dc22 2005019299 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
- 10. Contents Credits ix Contributors xiii Introduction xv Part I Selected Papers of Julian Hochberg 1 Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth (with Carol Barnes Hochberg) 3 2 A Quantitative Approach to Figural ‘‘Goodness’’ (with Edward McAlister) 11 3 Apparent Spatial Arrangement and Perceived Brightness (with Jacob Beck) 17 4 Perception: Toward the Recovery of a Definition 23 5 The Psychophysics of Pictorial Perception 30 6 Pictorial Recognition as an Unlearned Ability: A Study of One Child’s Performance (with Virginia Brooks) 60 7 Recognition of Faces: I. An Exploratory Study (with Ruth Ellen Galper) 66 8 In the Mind’s Eye 70 9 Attention, Organization, and Consciousness 100 10 Components of Literacy: Speculations and Exploratory Research 125 11 Reading as an Intentional Behavior (with Virginia Brooks) 139 12 The Representation of Things and People 148
- 11. 13 Higher-Order Stimuli and Inter-Response Coupling in the Perception of the Visual World 186 14 Film Cutting and Visual Momentum (with Virginia Brooks) 206 15 Pictorial Functions and Perceptual Structures 229 16 Levels of Perceptual Organization 275 17 How Big Is a Stimulus? 302 18 Form Perception: Experience and Explanations 329 19 The Perception of Pictorial Representations 360 20 Movies in the Mind’s Eye (with Virginia Brooks) 376 21 Looking Ahead (One Glance at a Time) 396 Part II Commentaries on Julian Hochberg’s Work Overviews 22 The Piecemeal, Constructive, and Schematic Nature of Perception Mary A. Peterson 419 23 Hochberg: A Perceptual Psychologist Barbara Gillam 429 Schematic Maps and Integration Across Glances 24 Mental Schemata and the Limits of Perception James T. Enns and Erin Austen 439 25 Integration of Visual Information Across Saccades Mary M. Hayhoe 448 26 Scene Perception: The World Through a Window Helene Intraub 454 27 ‘‘How Big Is a Stimulus?’’: Learning About Imagery by Studying Perception Daniel Reisberg 467 28 How Big Is an Optical Invariant?: Limits of Tau in Time-to-Contact Judgments Patricia R. DeLucia 473 29 Hochberg and Inattentional Blindness Arien Mack 483 Contents vi
- 12. Local Processing, Organization, and Perceptual Rules 30 Framing the Rules of Perception: Hochberg Versus Galileo, Gestalts, Garner, and Gibson James E. Cutting 495 31 On the Internal Consistency of Perceptual Organization James T. Todd 504 32 Piecemeal Perception and Hochberg’s Window: Grouping of Stimulus Elements Over Distances James R. Pomerantz 509 33 The Resurrection of Simplicity in Vision Peter A. van der Helm 518 34 Shape Constancy and Perceptual Simplicity: Hochberg’s Fundamental Contributions Zygmunt Pizlo 525 35 Constructing and Interpreting the World in the Cerebral Hemispheres Paul M. Corballis 534 36 Segmentation, Grouping, and Shape: Some Hochbergian Questions Philip J. Kellman and Patrick Garrigan 542 Pictures, Film, and Dance 37 Ideas of Lasting Influence: Hochberg’s Anticipation of Research on Change Blindness and Motion- Picture Perception Daniel J. Simons and Daniel T. Levin 557 38 On the Cognitive Ecology of the Cinema Ed S. Tan 562 39 Hochberg on the Perception of Pictures and of the World H. A. Sedgwick 572 40 Celebrating the Usefulness of Pictorial Information in Visual Perception Jeremy Beer 581 41 Mental Structure in Experts’ Perception of Human Movement Dale S. Klopfer 592 Contents vii
- 13. Part III Julian Hochberg: Biography and Bibliography Biography 601 Bibliography 602 Name Index 609 Subject Index 620 Contents viii
- 14. Credits Chapter 1: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, C. B., & Hochberg, J. (1952). Familiar size and the perception of depth. Journal of Psychology, 34, 107–114. Reprinted with permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educa- tional Foundation. Published by Heldref Publications, 1219 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036-1802, http://www.heldref.org. Copyright # 1952. Chapter 2: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & McAlister, E. (1953). A quantitative approach to figural ‘‘goodness.’’ Journal of Experi- mental Psychology, 46, 361–364. Chapter 3: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Beck, J. (1954). Apparent spatial arrangement and perceived brightness. Journal of Experi- mental Psychology, 47, 263–266. Chapter 4: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1956). Perception: Toward the recovery of a definition. Psychological Review, 63, 400–405. Chapter 5: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1962). The psy- chophysics of pictorial perception. Audio-Visual Communication Review, 10, 22–54. Reprinted with permission of the National Education Association. Chapter 6: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Brooks, V. (1962). Pictorial recognition as an unlearned ability: A study of one child’s performance. American Journal of Psychology, 75, 624–628. Copyright # 1962 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press. Chapter 7: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Galper, R. E. (1967). Recognition of faces: I. An exploratory study. Psychonomic Science, 9, 619–620. Reprinted with permission of the Psychonomic Society. ix
- 15. Chapter 8: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1968). In the mind’s eye. Invited address read at the September 1966 meeting of the American Psychological Association, Division 3. Reprinted in R. N. Haber (Ed.), Contemporary theory and research in visual perception (pp. 309–331). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted with permission. Chapter 9: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1970). Attention, organization, and consciousness. In D. Mostofsky (Ed.), Attention: Contem- porary theory and analysis (pp. 99–124). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Chapter 10: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1970). Compo- nents of literacy: Speculations and exploratory research. In H. Levin & J. P. Williams (Eds.), Basic studies on reading (pp. 74–89). New York: Basic. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Chapter 11: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Brooks, V. (1970). Reading as an intentional behavior. In H. Singer & R. B. Ruddell (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (pp. 304–314). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Copyright # 1970 by the Inter- national Reading Association. Reprinted with permission of the International Reading Association. Chapter 12: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1972). The rep- resentation of things and people. In E. H. Gombrich, J. Hochberg, & M. Black (Eds.), Art, perception, and reality (pp. 47–94). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Copyright # 1972 by the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press. Reprinted with permission of the Johns Hopkins University Press. Chapter 13: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1974). Higher- order stimuli and inter-response coupling in the perception of the visual world. In R. MacLeod & H. Pick, Jr. (Eds.), Perception: Essays in honor of James J. Gibson (pp. 17–39). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Copyright # 1974 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press. Chapter 14: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Brooks, V. (1978). Film cutting and visual momentum. In J. W. Senders, D. F. Fisher, & R. A. Monty (Eds.), Eye movements and the higher psychological functions (pp. 293–313). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprinted with permission of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Chapter 15: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1980). Pictorial functions and perceptual structures. In M. Hagen (Ed.), The perception of pictures (Vol. 2, pp. 47–93). New York: Academic. Credits x
- 16. Chapter 16: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1981). Levels of perceptual organization. In M. Kubovy & J. Pomerantz (Eds.), Perceptual organization (pp. 255–278). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprinted with per- mission of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Chapter 17: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1982). How big is a stimulus? In J. Beck (Ed.), Organization and representation in perception (pp. 191–217). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprinted with permission of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Chapter 18: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1983). Form per- ception: Experience and explanations. In P. C. Dodwell & T. Caelli (Eds.), Figural synthesis (pp. 1–30). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprinted with per- mission of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Chapter 19: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J. (1984). The per- ception of pictorial representations. Social Research, 51, 841–862. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Chapter 20: Article originally appeared as Hochberg, J., & Brooks, V. (1996). Movies in the mind’s eye. In D. Bordwell (Ed.), Post-theory (pp. 368–387). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Copyright # 1996. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Credits xi
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- 18. Contributors Erin Austen, Department of Psychology, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia Jeremy Beer, Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, U.S. Naval Health Research Center Detachment, Brooks Air Force Base, Texas Paul M. Corballis, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technol- ogy, Atlanta, Georgia James E. Cutting, Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell Univer- sity, Ithaca, New York Patricia R. DeLucia, Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas James T. Enns, Department of Psychology, University of British Colum- bia, Vancouver, British Columbia Patrick Garrigan, David Rittenhouse Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Barbara Gillam, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Mary M. Hayhoe, Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York Helene Intraub, Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware xiii
- 19. Philip J. Kellman, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California Dale S. Klopfer, Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio Daniel T. Levin, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee Arien Mack, Department of Psychology, Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, New School University, New York, New York Mary A. Peterson, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona Zygmunt Pizlo, Department of Psychological Sciences, School of Elec- trical and Computer Engineering (by courtesy), Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana James R. Pomerantz, Department of Psychology, Rice University, Houston, Texas Daniel Reisberg, Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon H. A. Sedgwick, State University of New York College of Optometry, New York, New York Daniel J. Simons, Psychology Department and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois Ed Tan, Department of Communication, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands James T. Todd, Psychology Department, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Peter A. van der Helm, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Informa- tion, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands Contributors xiv
- 20. Introduction Barbara Gillam, H. A. Sedgwick, and Mary Peterson How can we best describe the processes by which we attain the visual per- ception of an extended and coherent world? One view, which for many years has been the standard model, is that through a series of eye fixations we trigger the creation of a detailed internal model of the world, which we then consult in order to report our percep- tions or to control our actions. Recent research, however—grouped under headings such as ‘‘change blindness’’ and ‘‘inattentional blindness,’’ among others—has seriously undermined this view, showing that little visual detail is preserved from one eye fixation to the next and that, in the control of action, eye fixations are continually being deployed to reassess relevant in- formation. An alternative view, which has also had considerable support for some time, is that all the information needed for the perception of the visual world is continuously present in the structured optic array of light reaching the eye from the environment. Thus no internal model is needed. This view, although it may be correct as far as it goes, does not engage directly with the particularities of human perception and so leaves many questions unad- dressed. Contemporary visual theory has reached a junction at which the de- velopment of a coherent and well-thought-out middle position is clearly needed—a theoretical position that acknowledges the wealth of available information while also recognizing the particularity of the perceptual pro- cesses that are able to find structure and organization within this informa- tion, a theoretical position that negotiates successfully between the limitations on the information that can be retained from a single eye fixation and the phenomenal and behavioral evidence for the perception of an extended and coherent world. At this junction, many leading theorists and researchers in visual per- ception are turning with new or renewed interest to the work of Julian Hochberg. For more than 50 years, in his own experimental research, in his detailed consideration of examples drawn from a very wide range of visual experiences and activities, and most of all in his brilliant and sophisticated xv
- 21. theoretical analyses, Hochberg has persistently engaged with the myriad problems inherent in working out such a middle position. The complexity of Hochberg’s thought and the wide range of the areas into which he has pursued the solution of this central problem have, however, limited both the accessibility of his work and the appreciation of his accomplishment. This book came about as a convergence of two concepts. Peterson had for some time wanted to bring together a series of commentaries on the work of Julian Hochberg from the many influential people in perception who admired him, were indebted to him, and felt that the field as a whole had been influenced by him in ways that should be recognized. Peterson was Hochberg’s student at Columbia and now in the thick of her own career was aware of how many colleagues had enthusiasm for such an enterprise. Meanwhile, Sedgwick and Gillam, who were not Hochberg students but long-standing junior colleagues in the perception world of New York City, had another idea. Their concern was that many of Hochberg’s important works would be lost because of the relative inaccessibility of the journals in which they were published or because they were in books now out of print. So Sedgwick and Gillam thought that it would be good to collect some of his most significant writings and make them available to a new generation of perception scholars. At an early meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, we described our ideas to each other over lunch and decided to combine them into a book that would be both a collection of many of Julian Hochberg’s major papers and a series of short articles by individuals on the significance of his work both for themselves and for the field more broadly. The choice of which of Hochberg’s papers to include has not been easy because of the wealth of possibilities from which we had to choose. One decision that we made early on was to include only whole articles or chapters. We were initially tempted to include some excerpts because Hochberg has written many important book chapters that are of considerable length, but to include as many of them as we might have wished would have made the length of this book excessive. What decided us against excerpts, however, is that each of Hochberg’s papers, even the longest ones, is carefully organized around the development of a theoretical argument, and we feared that some of the coherence and thrust of these arguments might be lost in excerpts. A second choice we made was to keep some chronological balance in our selections. Hochberg’s ideas and interests have of course developed and changed over the course of his long career, but many of the earlier papers are still of considerable interest, either because they examine topics that he has not since revisited, because his earlier positions help us to understand the development of what has followed, or because some readers may still find valuable insights in ideas from which Hochberg has since distanced himself. Certain topics, such as picture perception, have been taken up by Hochberg again and again over the years, and we believe that a great deal can be learned from tracing the changes and continuities in these papers. The casual Introduction xvi
- 22. reader may have some impression of redundancy in Hochberg’s repeated treatments of such central topics, but a more careful reading will generally show that, when he takes up a topic again, it is with revised formulations, additional illustrations, and new insights. Third, we have included papers that show something of the range of Hochberg’s thinking and investigations. Although all of his work arguably springs from a few central concerns, he has pursued these in many differ- ent directions, and in doing so has often helped to open up new areas of research. Finally, as mentioned above, we have placed some emphasis on making available papers that are relatively inaccessible, either because they were published in books now out of print, because they appeared in journals not normally read or searched by researchers interested in visual perception, or because, although they appeared in well-known journals, their early dates put them beyond the horizon of online access. One effect of this emphasis on relative inaccessibility has been to place somewhat less emphasis on more recent papers, although a few are included. The selection of Hochberg’s papers included here is arranged chrono- logically by date of publication. Although it would have been possible to arrange some of his papers into categories (for example, on picture or face perception), many of Hochberg’s essays span a number of areas, so we chose to avoid the arbitrariness that would have been entailed in assigning each of the papers to a single category. Altogether, we have selected 20 of Hochberg’s previously published papers to include in the first part of this volume. Although many of the chapters are so broad in their theoretical concerns as to resist easy catego- rization, we may roughly say that four of the papers (chapters 1, 3, 4, and 13) are concerned with forms of visual information and their interaction in perception. Here, Hochberg introduces and develops the important concept of nonstimulus interresponse coupling and strives to develop strict criteria for an empirical definition of perception. Five important theoretical papers (chapters 2, 8, 16, 17, and 18) are clus- tered around Hochberg’s investigation of perceptual organization, beginning with his quest to find a more quantitative account for the Gestalt ‘‘laws’’ and progressing into his extensive development of a neo-Helmholtzian concept of ‘‘mental structures.’’ As Hochberg writes (chapter 16): ‘‘The class of theory proposed by J. S. Mill and Helmholtz—that we perceive by fitting the most likely or expected (global) object or event to the sampled (local) sensory component—remains the one best suited to the widest range of organiza- tional phenomena (including the Gestalt phenomena).’’ In another highly important and closely related theoretical paper (chapter 9), Hochberg ap- plies his approach to perceptual organization to the problem of selective attention. A series of five papers (chapters 5, 6, 12, 15, and 19) chronicles Hoch- berg’s long involvement with picture perception. Recognizing that much of Introduction xvii
- 23. the investigation of visual perception has long made use of pictures as stimuli, Hochberg has faced this situation squarely—trying to understand how it is that marks on paper can evoke perceptions so like those evoked in the perception of the world and drawing some of his most far-reaching conclusions about perceptual processes from his examination of this puzzle. In another two papers (chapters 14 and 20), Hochberg explores the per- ception of moving pictures. Adding the dimension of motion to the static realm of pictures raises a plethora of new issues, such as how we are able to successfully perceive the sudden shifts from one viewpoint, environment, or time to another that are produced by editing ‘‘cuts’’ in movies. Two papers (chapters 10 and 11) explore the process of reading, showing the productiveness of applying Hochberg’s broader theoretical ideas to this important problem and also showing how the more narrow strictures of the reading task can throw light on broader perceptual issues. Finally, one paper (chapter 7) gives an early example of Hochberg’s interest in face perception and recognition—a topic that is also taken up in the context of a number of his longer papers. This project was planned to honor Julian Hochberg on the occasion of his 80th birthday, July 10, 2003, but that date marks only an important milestone in an ongoing career, as evidenced by the new essay Hochberg wrote for this collection (chapter 21). This chapter contains new and in- sightful contributions to our understanding of visual perception in Hoch- berg’s discussions of his latest views on successive glances, attention, and the mind’s eye. For the other component of the book (part II: ‘‘Commentaries on Hoch- berg’s Work’’), we asked a combination of former Hochberg students1 and other leading figures in the field who had expressed an interest in or in- debtedness to Hochberg’s work whether they would like to write chapters. One of our authors, James Cutting, writes, ‘‘Julian Hochberg is our greatest synthesizer of theories and experimental results in the field of per- ception, and he has been so for a half century.’’ It is therefore not surprising that a volume based on Hochberg’s work and influence would be strongly theoretical in content, would have a broad scope, and would elicit views that do not always agree with each other. We gave our authors free rein to choose any aspect or aspects of Hochberg’s work about which to write, and we can judge fashion to some extent by the topics that have been chosen among the many that might have been. A similar book produced 10 years from now would undoubtedly focus on different topics to some extent. A relatively large number of people chose to write about Hochberg’s concepts of schema and schematic map and his related views on integra- tion across glances, especially in relation to change blindness and inatten- tional blindness (which Hochberg prefers to call ‘‘inattentional disregard’’). Simons and Levin (chapter 37) and Enns and Austen (chapter 24) show how Introduction xviii
- 24. Hochberg anticipated many current research developments, including the flicker method of measuring change blindness. Hayhoe’s essay (chapter 25) supports and extends Hochberg’s notion of schema as incorporating not only the gist of a scene (as suggested by several of the authors here) but also the consequences of actions with regard to the scene. Whether a visual stimulus is noticed depends very precisely on where it occurs in an action. Reisberg (chapter 27) relates active processing to the issue of imagery, ar- guing for example that imagery inevitably lacks some of the features of perception since it cannot be interrogated in the same way as perceptual input. Intraub (chapter 26) follows on from Hochberg’s work on aperture viewing, drawing on his concept of ‘‘the mind’s eye’’ to account for ‘‘boundary extension’’ in people’s descriptions of scenes. Enns and Austen extend Hochberg’s view ‘‘that our perception of objects is not everywhere dense’’ by showing how schemata may be important even in processing very simple stimuli. DeLucia (chapter 28) extends the notion of local processing to an analysis of how judgments are made concerning when an approach- ing object will make contact with the viewer, pointing out that explana- tions based on higher-order variables, such as ‘‘tau,’’ are inadequate. Mack (chapter 29) introduces some controversy by arguing that Hochberg’s idea that what is not encoded is lost fails to account for priming data, which suggest that even unseen content is processed for meaning. Klopfer (chapter 41) shows how the perception of dance is strongly influenced by schemata. Another topic of strong current interest in perceptual theory, particularly in the form of Bayesian approaches, is the role of rules in perception. Can perception be predicted on the basis of either the likelihood or simplicity of the possible outcomes? These issues have been a major preoccupation of Hochberg’s for many years, and he discusses them in his chapter here. Cutting (chapter 30) discusses Hochberg’s position and the general issue of rules in perception. Van der Helm (chapter 33) shows how simplicity can substitute for likelihood. Pizlo (chapter 34) discusses Hochberg’s account of the simplicity principle in relation to other versions of this principle and to likelihood. Other authors, such as Peterson (chapter 22) and Gillam (chapter 23), also comment on this issue. Gillam’s chapter is an attempt to place Hochberg’s ideas within cognitive and perceptual traditions. A strikingly original feature of Hochberg’s work is his discovery that depth processing is local and that inconsistencies are not perceptually re- jected if far enough apart. Todd (chapter 31) provides some striking new examples, and Pomerantz (chapter 32) discusses the local nature of pro- cessing in relation to grouping data. Peterson (chapter 22), in a broad treatment of Hochberg’s theories in relation to recent data, ties together the idea that perception is piecemeal with the role of schematic maps and expectancy in determining the response to a single glance and integration across glances. A number of other authors comment on the significance of the local nature of depth processing. Introduction xix
- 25. Film is an area in which Hochberg and his wife, Virginia Brooks, were almost alone in discerning profound perceptual significance, and this topic attracted comment and analysis from several of our writers, such as Tan (chapter 38) and Simons and Levin (chapter 37), and mentions by others. In a similar fashion, Hochberg has always been interested in picture perception both in its own right and for what it implies about normal perception. Sedgwick (chapter 39) analyzes Hochberg’s contributions here while Beer (chapter 40) shows among other things how Hochberg’s work indicates a greater role for pictorial cues than motion cues in many instances. Kellman and Garrigan (chapter 36) and Corballis (chapter 35) give accounts of their youthful encounters with Hochberg and go on to describe their own work on topics of interest to him: Kellman and Garrigan on what is a form and Corballis on the hemispheric basis of perceptual intelligence. Topics that could have been chosen and were not include Hochberg’s theory of figure-ground perception, his concept of percept-percept coupling (although Peterson discusses it as a methodological tool), and his work on reading. These are just as interesting and thought provoking as any of the ideas that have been written about. Fortunately, they and many other in- teresting ideas are present in the Hochberg chapters themselves. We have ordered chapters in the second part of this volume into the following four categories: A. Overviews: Peterson (chapter 22) and Gillam (chapter 23) B. Schematic maps and integration across glances: Enns and Austen (chapter 24), Hayhoe (chapter 25), Intraub (chapter 26), Reisberg (chapter 27), DeLucia (chapter 28), and Mack (chapter 29) C. Local processing, organization, and perceptual rules: Cutting (chapter 30), Todd (chapter 31), Pomerantz (chapter 32), van der Helm (chapter 33), Pizlo (chapter 34), Corballis (chapter 35), and Kellman and Garrigan (chapter 36) D. Pictures, film, and dance: Simons and Levin (chapter 37), Tan (chapter 38), Sedgwick (chapter 39), Beer (chapter 40), and Klopfer (chapter 41) The organization of the second part should be regarded as somewhat loose, however, because many of the authors touched on issues from more than one category. The last, short part of this volume includes a brief account of Hochberg’s career and a complete list of his publications. We are grateful to all of our authors for their enthusiastic participation in this project. We also thank Catharine Carlin, our editor, for appreciating the importance of making Julian Hochberg’s work more accessible to a wider audience and for supporting this project so wholeheartedly. Finally, and most important, we thank Julian Hochberg, who while expressing his dis- comfort at being made so much of, has nevertheless graciously allowed us to Introduction xx
- 26. reprint this selection of his papers and has added his own contribution to this volume (chapter 21). Note 1. Chapters by Hochberg’s students are those by Jeremy Beer, Patricia De- Lucia, Dale Klopfer, and Mary Peterson. Introduction xxi
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- 28. Part I Selected Papers of Julian Hochberg
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- 30. 1 Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth Carol Barnes Hochberg and Julian E. Hochberg The Problem Among the ‘‘cues’’ of depth perception and the techniques for the rep- resentation of space on two-dimensional surfaces, familiar size (2, 9, 28) is unique, being the only one which by its very definition requires past ex- perience. Thus, while perspective might be a ‘‘learned cue,’’ it may instead be that symmetrical tridimensional objects are perceived, autochthonously, in place of less regular two-dimensional shapes (stimulus conditions permitting; cf. 20, pp. 159–160); interposition may be due to learning or, instead, to ‘‘completion’’ behind the overlapping object which prevented ‘‘good con- tinuation’’ in two dimensions (cf. 25, pp. 115–118). Such depth ‘‘cues’’ may, as well as not, be direct stimuli for perceived depth, with no need for past experience. This view is opposed by Berkeley’s famous ‘‘demonstration’’ that distance has no direct stimuli (‘‘ . . . being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter’’ [6, p. 13]), an argument which apparently makes the exceedingly dubious assump- tions (20, p. 85; 26, p. 33n) that we are aware of our retinal images,1 that a sensation must somehow share the quale of its stimulus, and, since there is nothing ‘‘depth-like’’ in the proximal stimulus, that ‘‘depth’’ must come from some nonsensorial source, i.e., inference based on adventitious asso- ciation (6, p. 201). Consider, on the other hand, a hypothetical case of pure familiar size, with a nearby boy and a distant man subtending the same visual angle and all other possible distance ‘‘cues’’ absent: if the man should be seen, not as a midget standing beside the boy, but of normal size at his true distance, the crucial factor must be the observer’s ‘‘knowledge’’ of the sizes of man and boy. Presumably, the perceived distances of man and boy would arise because of discrepancies between (a) unnoticed sensory data (the sizes and identi- fying characteristics of the retinal images) and (b) unnoticed nonsensory data (the recognition of the meaning of the images of man and boy, and the 3
- 31. knowledge of their average sizes)2 by means of (c) unnoticed inferential processes (the ‘‘trigonometry’’ which locates man and boy spatially).3 Such appeal to the unconscious prodigies of a multileveled human mind (cf. 21, p. 94) is not unfamiliar. If retinal images are compared with those of past experience to form ‘‘depth,’’ then the organism must functionally be able to ‘‘recognize’’ them before the percept itself, with its depth relation- ships, is aroused; this implied pre-perceptual homunculus (14) also appears in the ‘‘subception’’ (22) and pre-threshold recognition phenomena of ‘‘perceptual defense’’ (3, 23), and, above all, in psychoanalysis. It is a con- cept which, with its drastic import, its difficulties (20), and its ‘‘solution’’ by removal of the problem to another sphere, can neither be left hidden as ‘‘common sense,’’ nor accepted lightly. Most of the support for familiar size (11) comes from the many dem- onstrations (5, 8, 30) that a difference (or change) in retinal image size tends to be perceived as a difference (or change) in the distance of objects of constant size. Thus, if a giant playing card is compared to a physically nearer (but smaller) one, the larger card seems nearer than the smaller (1). However, such situations do not test pure familiar size, and while their results do show that larger objects tend to appear nearer than similar smaller ones, they do not show that past experience is at all responsible: there are two variables to be ‘‘untied’’ here (in Brunswik’s terminology [4]), the relative size of the stimuli, on the one hand, and their ‘‘associated meaning’’ on the other. It is unjustified (and unparsimonious [cf. 27, pp. 88, 102]) to attribute the results to one without controlling the other; only if we assume, with Berkeley, that we ‘‘see’’ our retinal image and that there can be no direct visual stimuli for depth (since they could not be ‘‘depth-like’’) are unconscious assumptions ‘‘inescapable’’ (18, p. 198). Otherwise, we are per- fectly free to note a ‘‘stimulus-bound’’ (cf. 27, p. 102) correlation between retinal size and perceived distance, or more elaborately, we can hypothe- size an autochthonous tendency toward homogeneity by which similar shapes ‘‘seek’’ similar size through appropriate distribution in perceived space (20, 25). Portions of recent experiments by Hastorf (11) and by Ittelson (17, 18) seem free of this objection. For example, Hastorf’s subjects viewed a variable- sized luminous disc monocularly, which the experimenter suggested at one time to be a ‘‘ping-pong ball’’ and, at another time, a ‘‘billiard ball’’; their reports of the disc’s distance (and their size settings) in terms of a well- structured binocular field were found to change appropriately with the ex- perimental suggestions. However, one can question first whether the effect was truly perceptual,4 since two-thirds of the subjects perceived that the disc was not really a ball (11, p. 208), and an unspecified number realized that two different names had been given to the same stimulus (and these subjects might even have contributed to the significance of the results, since they ‘‘ . . . still altered their settings when the suggestion as to the nature of the stimulus was changed’’ [11, p. 209]). Second, since Hastorf’s subjects were S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 4
- 32. told the meaning of the forms, the essential element of ‘‘pre-perceptual recognition’’ was absent, i.e., the subject was not required to recognize the object’s meaning prior to organization of the percept. (Ittelson’s procedure [17] was free from this second objection: the meaning of his stimulus objects was given by their form [normal and out-size playing cards, etc.], not by his suggestion.) Perhaps the same results could be achieved with no stimuli at all, with subjects indicating how large a billiard or ping-pong ball would have to be to appear at a given distance, etc. Pratt (27, p. 103) asks, ‘‘What else could the observers have said? . . . This shift in judgment . . . was pre- sumably no more than the kind of verbal displacement involved in saying, for example, that a 25 cent piece is smaller than a half-dollar but at the same time larger than a nickel. The object has not changed, but only the units or words used to describe the object in relation to other objects.’’ Some of the other situations used by Hastorf and by Ittelson seem to involve immediate perception (11, p. 208; 18), but these, on the other hand, are merely additional cases of change or difference in size of like shapes, which we have seen does not necessarily involve past experience. Since we do not know that such size effects and familiar size are the same ‘‘cues,’’ we cannot attribute the immediacy of one to the inferences of the other. To be sure, ‘‘judgmental’’ processes may modify, and be important to perception. However, if familiar size is to support an empiricistic theory of ‘‘primary’’ space perception, involving unconscious inference and pre-perceptual rec- ognition, it must be demonstrated as operative at or below the level of the immediate perception which it is trying to explain, not as some process which may very well be ‘‘secondary’’ or subsequently interacting (26, p. 341) with a prior percept which is organized in depth. Let us consider two experiments whose results5 are pertinent to this proposed distinction between familiar size, which logically requires past experience, and relative size or size difference, which does not. Experiment I On two-dimensional ‘‘reversible-screen’’ drawings (see Figure 1.1a) were drawn a man, 4¼ in. high, on one panel, and a boy of the same size and approximate contour, on the other.6 Subjects pressed one telegraph key when the left panel appeared nearer, another key when the right seemed nearer. With space errors controlled or equated (each of the two positions of man and boy on each of the two forms of the ‘‘screen’’ [Figures 1.1a and 1.1b] being presented to a separate group of subjects, no subject seeing more than one presentation), the problem is whether the panel with the boy ap- pears nearer more of the time than that with the man, as might be expected from familiar size. The ‘‘screen’’ presented a labile perceptual situation which at the same time was ‘‘structured’’ enough to yield definite, albeit reversible, depth; it Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth 5
- 33. was hoped that this would minimize judgmental processes. The instructions allowed gross qualitative responses of ‘‘right side nearer,’’ ‘‘left side nearer,’’ ‘‘both near,’’ and ‘‘neither near’’; it was hoped that such loose responses would tap primary depth perception rather than inspection (30). Each mem- ber of four groups of 15 college students viewed the figure monocularly through a reduction screen at a 70 cm. distance, was shown its reversibility, and asked to allow the screen to reverse as it would and to let his gaze move freely.7 Ten cycles of depth reversals were recorded on a polygraph; the total time the left panel seemed nearer was subtracted from that for the right panel, and this measure (‘‘d’’) was compared for the two arrangements on each form of the ‘‘screen.’’ Since the boy is on the left in Groups A and C, and on the right in Groups B and D, we would expect (if familiar size affects depth in this situation) ‘‘d’’ to be greater for Group B than for Group A, and for Group D than for Group C. Results: The differences between the mean ‘‘d’’ scores of Groups A and B, D and C in Table 1.1 indicate that familiar size was ineffective in this situation. Figure 1.1. Reversible ‘‘Screens’’ with Figures Drawn on the Panels. Table 1.1. Effect of Man and Boy on Reversible Figure Group (N ¼ 15) Screen Figure on Right Side d* A Fig. 1.1a Man –1.42 B Fig. 1.1a Boy –2.19 Difference: 0.77, t ¼ 0.2 C Fig. 1.1b Man 2.64 D Fig. 1.1b Boy –0.58 Difference: 3.22 t ¼ 0.9 *Mean of the difference: time that the right side seemed nearer minus the time that the left side seemed nearer. S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 6
- 34. Experiment II It could readily be argued that perspective reversal is unaffected by super- imposed content, so that the above data mean nothing. Against this, we know that the balance of figure-ground alternation can probably be changed by altering the relative size, complexity, and continuity of the parts and of the figures drawn on them (15, 20); by differential figural satiation (13); etc. However, to test whether the figure used here can be so affected, as well as to test the effectiveness of relative size as contrasted with familiar size, the procedure of Experiment I was repeated with the screen of Figure 1.1b, the boy being on one panel, with a reduced ( 3 ⁄4 in. high) version of the same boy on the other panel. Here the variable of relative size or size difference was tested, expecting that the panel with the larger boy would appear near more than that with the smaller boy. Results: Table 1.2 indicates that, as expected, the ‘‘d’’ score is sig- nificantly greater for Group E than for Group F; accordingly, the per- spective reversals can be affected, and the boy’s failure to seem nearer than a man of equal height, in Experiment I, suggests the inadequacy of familiar size, not the intractability of the reversals. These results also emphasize the need for a distinction between familiar size (or ‘‘meaning’’) and relative size, or size difference of similar objects. For example, if Experiment II had been presented alone it might very well have been adduced by Lawrence, Ittelson, or Hastorf as evidence for familiar size, although, taken with Experiment I, it serves rather as evidence against the operation of this ‘‘cue.’’ It is true that relative size was indeed effective here, as elsewhere, but relative size is not necessarily familiar size, has not been shown either to involve past experience or to ‘‘assume the subjective iden- tification of classes or types of similar objects’’ (18, p. 199), and may instead be a direct stimulus for the organization of perceived depth (cf. 27, p. 102), just as other variations of proximal stimulation with nothing ‘‘depth-like’’ about them may nevertheless serve as stimuli for perceived depth. For ex- ample, the authors (using the plastic eyecaps described by Hochberg, Triebel, Table 1.2. Effect of Large Boy and Small Boy on Reversible Figure Group (N ¼ 15) Screen Figure on Right Side d* E Fig. 1.1b Large boy 17.90 F Fig. 1.1b Small boy –2.98 Difference: 20.88 t ¼ 5.5 *Mean of the difference: time that the right side seemed nearer minus the time that the left side seemed nearer. Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth 7
- 35. and Seaman [16]) created a Ganzfeld of homogeneous visual stimulation which ‘‘untied’’ illumination intensity from ‘‘texture,’’ and obtained with intensity changes alone (12) the characteristic depth differences noted by Metzger (24); Gibson found that in aperture vision with only texture gra- dients varied, perceived ‘‘slant’’ changed with texture changes (10). It would not be surprising if relative size constituted another such depth stimulus. It is not contended here that familiar size is always powerless, even in immediate perception; certainly, qualifications are necessary as to general- izability to more ‘‘life-like’’ situations, and as to possible optimal differences in familiar size of the represented objects, etc. These problems of ‘‘ecological sampling’’ (4) are, however, also faced by proponents of this ‘‘cue’’ (cf. 27, p. 89), and it has yet to be shown that familiar size as opposed to relative size can be of any influence in ‘‘primary,’’ immediate space perception. It is premature, therefore, to employ this portmanteau in an empiricist-nativist controversy with such far-flung implications (7, 19). Summary Most of the ‘‘cues’’ for the immediate perception of space do not as yet require explanation in terms of past experience. Only if we assume that a stimulus for depth perception must have something ‘‘depth-like’’ about it are explanations in terms of inferences based on learning necessary; unless we then make the equally dubious assumption that we can see our retinal images, such ‘‘inferences’’ must be unconscious. Only the cue of familiar size requires past experience; most of the evidence for this cue actually involves, instead, relative size (which does not require pre-perceptual recognition of retinal images, past experience, and unconscious inference). An experimental separation of the two ‘‘cues’’ found the latter effective and the former in- effective. Notes Thanks are due to Professors E. C. Tolman, H. D. Carter, and L. J. Postman of the University of California at Berkeley, and to Professor J. S. Bruner of Harvard University, for helpful comments and criticisms. 1. The retinal image is probably never present in awareness, although under special attitudes (rotation to an assumed frontal-parallel plane, etc.) percepts having some formal similarity to the image may result; consider the facts of phenomenal constancy, the inability to see the blind spot or the two retinal components pre- sumably responsible for the perception of ‘‘yellow,’’ etc. Thus, any theory in which ‘‘depth’’ is based on recognition of retinal content would seem committed to call upon unconscious processes, not, as Hastorf says, ‘‘ . . . that some sort of judgment or interpretation, be it conscious or unconscious, must be made . . . if . . . size is to be used as a cue to distance’’ (11, p. 198). S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 8
- 36. 2. This assumes (as yet without support) sufficient concomitance of a given object’s distance, its retinal image size, and some characteristic nonvisual proximal stimulus (since visual distance is not supposed to be directly perceived). 3. An alternative view might be that our minds hold a vast number of asso- ciations, pairing each retinal image directly with a perceived distance from the observer. This may sidestep ‘‘unconscious inference,’’ but it seems difficult to apply to pictures, views through lenses, etc., where relative rather than absolute depth is involved, and to breakdowns and inversions of size constancy (cf. 21, p. 89), etc. 4. Where observation is difficult, or when one is forced to consider magnitude as separately measurable entities and not as single integrated experience, inspection or close scrutiny tends to occur, using some concept of magnitude which is essentially ideational and cannot be directly perceived (30). Perception as an immediate and compelling experience of depth is not dependent upon deliberation and analysis. 5. The data reported were presented in a paper read at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, 1950. 6. The figures of the man and boy were modifications of drawings lent by Professor Jerome S. Bruner of Harvard University. 7. It is probable, however, that eye movements have no effect upon reversible perspective (cf. 29). References 1. Ames, A. Some demonstrations concerned with the origin and nature of our sensa- tions (what we experience). A laboratory manual (preliminary draft). Hanover, N.H., Hanover Institute, 1946 (mimeographed). 2. Boring, E. G., Langfeld, H. S., & Weld, H. P. Psychology: A Factual Textbook. New York: Wiley, 1935. 3. Bruner, J., & Postman, L. Perception, cognition, and behavior. J. Personal., 1949, 18, 14–32. 4. Brunswik, E. Systematic and Representative Design of Psychological Experiments. California: Univ. California Press, 1947. 5. Calavrezo, C. Über den Einfluss von Grössenänderungen auf die scheinbare Tiefe. Psychol. Forsch., 1934, 19, 311–365. 6. Calkins, M. (Ed.). Bishop Berkeley: Essays, Principles, Dialogues. New York: Scribner, 1929. 7. Cantril, H. Understanding Man’s Social Behavior (Preliminary Notes). Princeton: Office of Public Opinion Research, 1947. 8. Carr, H. An Introduction to Space Perception. New York: Longmans, Green, 1935. 9. Dudley, L., & Faricy, A. The Humanities. New York: McGraw Hill, 1940. 10. Gibson, J. J. The perception of visual surfaces. Amer. J. Psychol., 1950, 63, 367–384. 11. Hastorf, A. H. The influence of suggestion on the relationship between stim- ulus size and perceived distance. J. Psychol., 1950, 29, 195–217. 12. Hochberg, C. B., & Hochberg, J. E. Phenomenal depth and discontinuity of illumination in a modified ‘‘Ganzfeld.’’ Amer. Psychol., 1951, 6, 259–260 (Abstract). 13. Hochberg, J. E. Figure-ground reversal as a function of visual satiation. J. Exp. Psychol., 1950, 40, 682–686. Familiar Size and the Perception of Depth 9
- 37. 14. Hochberg, J. E., & Gleitman, H. Toward a reformulation of the perception- motivation dichotomy. J. Personal., 1949, 18, 180–191. 15. Hochberg, J. E., & Hochberg, C. B. Reversal as an objective index of ‘‘good Gestalt.’’ (In preparation.) 16. Hochberg, J. E., Triebel, W., & Seaman, G. Color adaptation under conditions of homogeneous visual stimulation (Ganzfeld ). J. Exp. Psychol., 1951, 41, 153–159. 17. Ittelson, W. H. Size as a cue to distance: Static localization. Amer. J. Psychol., 1951, 64, 54–67. 18. ———. Size as a cue to distance: Radial motion. Amer. J. Psychol., 1951, 64, 188–292. 19. Ittelson, W. H., & Kilpatrick, F. P. Perception. Sci. Amer., 1951, 185, 50–56. 20. Koffka, K. Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935. 21. Lawrence, M. Studies in Human Behavior. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1949. 22. McCleary, R. A., & Lazarus, R. S. Autonomic discrimination without awareness: An interim report. J. Personal., 1949, 18, 171–179. 23. McGinnies, E., & Bowles, W. Personal values as determinants of perceptual fixation. J. Personal., 1949, 18, 224–235. 24. Metzger, W. Untersuchungen am Ganzfeld: II. Zur Phänomenologie des homo- genen Ganzfelds. Psychol. Forsch., 1930, 13, 6–29. 25. Metzger, W. Gesetze des Sehens. Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1936. 26. Murphy, G., & Hochberg, J. Perceptual development: Some tentative hypotheses. Psychol. Rev., 1951, 58, 332–349. 27. Pratt, C. C. The rôle of past experience in visual perception. J. Psychol., 1950, 30, 85–107. 28. Richter, J. P. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1939. 29. Sisson, E. Eye-movements and the Schröder stair figure. Amer. J. Psychol., 1935, 47, 319–331. 30. Vernon, M. D. Visual Perception. London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1937. S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 10
- 38. 2 A Quantitative Approach to Figural ‘‘Goodness’’ Julian Hochberg and Edward McAlister Empirical study of the Gestalt principles of perceptual organization is, de- spite their great heuristic value, frequently made difficult by their subjective and qualitative formulation. We wish to suggest here that it may be possible to achieve parallels to these ‘‘laws’’ of organization through analysis of the objective stimulus pattern. This approach differs from similar ones (1, 6) in the orienting hypothesis that, other things being equal, the probabilities of occurrence of alternative perceptual responses to a given stimulus (i.e., their ‘‘goodness’’) are inversely proportional to the amount of information re- quired to define such alternatives differentially; i.e., the less the amount of information needed to define a given organization as compared to the other alternatives, the more likely that the figure will be so perceived.1 However, to make this hypothesis meaningful, it is necessary to determine empirically the stimulus dimensions in which such ‘‘information’’ is to be measured. Therefore, we are concerned here mainly with so-called ambiguous stimuli (which evoke no single response with a probability of 1.0), although we will consider a possible theoretical bridge to the conditions of what Gibson and Waddell (2) call ‘‘determining stimuli.’’ An objective definition of perceptual ‘‘goodness’’ requires some measure of S’s responses to stimulus figures. One such index might be the threshold (illumination, tachistoscopic, etc.), the ‘‘best’’ pattern having the lowest limen; however, this measure is too laborious for any really extensive sur- vey of stimuli, and restricts the variety of stimuli which can be tested, being highly sensitive to recognition effects. Instead, we propose to use as a measure of ‘‘goodness’’ the response frequency or the relative span of time devoted by S to each of the possible perceptual responses which may be elicited by the same stimulus. This seems close to the intuitive meaning of ‘‘goodness’’ (3), and its probabilistic nature may permit rapprochement between perceptual laws, on the one hand, and ‘‘information theory’’ (and, eventually, behavior theory) on the other (5). That the concept of ‘‘information’’ (here meaning the number of dif- ferent items we must be given, in order to specify or reproduce a given pattern or ‘‘figure,’’ along some one or more dimensions which may be 11
- 39. abstracted from that pattern, such as the number of different angles, number of different line segments of unequal length, etc.) may be useful in approx- imating figural ‘‘goodness’’ is suggested by almost any random selection of Gestalt demonstrations. The illusion of transparency obtains in Fig. 2.1a when less information is required to specify the pattern as two overlapping rectangles (number of different line segments: 8, plus one for notation of locus of intersection; number of angles to be specified: either 8, plus one for notation of angle of intersection or, more simply, one right angle plus the repetition implied in the notation of rectangularity, plus one for notation of angle of intersection; etc.) than, alternatively, as five irregular shapes (number of different line segments: 16; number of angles: 16; etc.). In Fig. 2.1b, less information is necessary to specify the symmetrical central black area as fig- ure (number of different angles or points of inflection: 10, plus notation of duplication by bilateral symmetry) than the irregular white areas (number of different angles: 17). Listing the organizational ‘‘laws,’’ from ‘‘good con- tinuation’’ and ‘‘proximity’’ to the more general ‘‘simplicity’’ or ‘‘homoge- neity,’’ one finds translation impressively easy; the eventual utility of such translation depends, however, upon empirical determination of the dimen- sions of abstraction along which ‘‘information’’ is to be scored (shall we use ‘‘number of angles,’’ ‘‘number of line segments,’’ a weighted combination of these, or entirely different dimensions?) and upon the demonstration of a quantitative dependence of response frequency on the ‘‘information scores.’’ Figure 2.1. Transparency, symmetry, and depth S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 12
- 40. But can we approach the study of determinate (2) perception in this manner? Consider the task of representing spatial depth in two dimensions (Fig. 2.1c). Stimulus part i requires less specification as two overlapping rectangles than as L and rectangle; part ii requires less specification as a rectangle at a given slant (say 458) than as a trapezoid at other slants; finally, in one way part iii requires less specification as three identical rectangles at the appropriate distances than as different-sized rectangles at other dis- tances (although here rather involved assumptions are necessary about a size- distance relationship ‘‘built in’’ to the specifying coordinate system, etc.). Now, although each part is ambiguous, if we take all the parts together and if the slant and depth relationships associated with the ‘‘best’’ response to each stimulus part should coincide, the probability of obtaining just these slants and depths will be reinforced. As we add more such ‘‘cues,’’ the probability of obtaining alternative depth responses approaches zero, and we may therefore consider determinate perception as different from the ambiguous variety, with which we are concerned at present, not in kind, but in degree. Method The approach outlined above is of little use unless it is possible to select dimensions for scoring ‘‘information’’ which are in correspondence with em- pirically obtained response-probabilities. The relative durations of alternate classes of response may be obtained by the usual method of pressing telegraph keys for each phase, but with this procedure Ss often report that the act of key-pressing altered the percept, which often fluctuated too rapidly to record; moreover, only one S can be used at a time. For these reasons, a sampling method was devised in which signal tones were presented by tape recording at ‘‘random’’ intervals and Ss indicated the phase they had perceived at the time each signal tone sounded. The frequency with which a given response is ob- tained is assumed to be proportional to the amount of time that response would have been obtained by ‘‘ideal’’ continuous recording. The problem here was to apply this method to the case of Kopfermann cubes (Fig. 2.2) which may all be seen either as bidimensional patterned hexagons, or as tridimensional cubes (4). Drawings of each cube were pre- sented in balanced order for 100 sec. each to 80 college students, providing Figure 2.2. The Kopfermann ‘‘cubes’’ A Quantitative Approach to Figural ‘‘Goodness’’ 13
- 41. a pool of over 2,600 responses for each stimulus; Ss indicated by pencil code marks which phase they had experienced just prior to each of the 33 signal tones presented at random intervals during the 100 sec. Results and Discussion The results obtained correspond roughly to Kopfermann’s more subjective findings: that figure which possesses the best phenomenal symmetry as a two-dimensional pattern was obtained least often as a cube (see Table 2.1). In terms of Gestalt theory, we would expect that the likelihood of seeing a figure in two dimensions would not only vary directly with its ‘‘goodness’’ in two dimensions but, in addition, would vary inversely with its ‘‘goodness’’ in three dimensions. However, in this study, we may consider the ‘‘good- ness’’ of the bidimensional patterns alone, since the tridimensional phase of each figure is more or less the same cube, the only appreciable differ- ence being the apparent angle with respect to S. That is, we take the relative duration of two-dimensional responses to be proportional to the ‘‘goodness’’ of the two-dimensional patterns, the ‘‘goodness’’ of the tridimensional phases being approximately constant. The bidimensional patterns may be analyzed for a large number of stimulus properties whose values will yield a relationship similar to that of the four points of bidimensional ‘‘goodness’’ response measures (Table 2.1), and the relationships fit quite well if these properties are differentially weighted. However, data are still needed on many other stimulus figures before a general system of factors and weights can be attempted, so that we are probably safer, at this stage, in merely noting stimulus variables which match the response relationships without employing differential weights. Two such stimulus dimensions fit the responses quite well, namely, the number of angles and the number of line segments (Table 2.1). (Note that Table 2.1. Bidimensional Responses to the Kopfermann ‘‘Cubes’’ and Some Two-Dimensional Stimulus Characteristics of the Cubes ‘‘Cubes’’ Bidimensional Responses (%) Stimulus Characteristics Line Segments Angles Points of Intersection W 1.3 16 25 10 X 0.7 16 25 10 Y 49.0 13 19 17 Z 60.0 12 17 7 S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 14
- 42. with the present figures, both dimensions represent the same geometrical fact.) Another dimension is the number of points of intersection required to define each bounded shape in the flat patterns. Any of these scores would be consistent with an inverse relationship between response probability and the amount of ‘‘information,’’ as discussed above, required to specify a given pattern; it is simple, however, to construct other figures whose relative strengths in alternate response phases may appear, at least intuitively, to be poorly handled by these dimensions, and we will need quantitative data from a wide sample of such figures before general stimulus dimensions can be chosen. Summary Probability of alternate perceptual responses is suggested as an approximate quantitative index of ‘‘goodness’’ of figure, and a group technique is pre- sented by which this score can be obtained for ambiguous stimuli. Using the technique to obtain group scores for relative duration of tri- and bi- dimensional phases of four Kopfermann cube figures, the resulting responses are not inconsistent with the working hypothesis, namely, that the proba- bility of a given perceptual response to a stimulus is an inverse function of the amount of information required to define that pattern. Notes A slightly shorter version of this paper was read at the April 1953 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association. 1. After preparation of this paper, we have been privileged to see the manu- script of a paper by Dr. F. Attneave, which contains a much more detailed theo- retical discussion of the tendency of the organism to perceive in terms of ‘‘maximum redundancy’’; although this formulation is probably not precisely equivalent to the one proposed here, and the experimental techniques employed are quite different in method and assumptions, we are agreed as to the basic similarity of our general approaches. References 1. Brown, J. F., & Voth, A. C. The path of seen movement as a function of the vector field. Amer. J. Psychol., 1937, 49, 543–563. 2. Gibson, J. J., & Waddell, D. Homogeneous retinal stimulation and visual per- ception. Amer. J. Psychol., 1952, 65, 263–270. 3. Koffka, K. Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935. A Quantitative Approach to Figural ‘‘Goodness’’ 15
- 43. 4. Kopfermann, H. Psychologische Untersuchungen über die Wirkung zweidi- mensionaler Darstellungen kôrperlicher Gebilde. Psychol. Forsch., 1930, 13, 293–364. 5. Miller, G. A. Language and communication. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. 6. Orbison, W. D. Shape as a function of the vector-field. Amer. J. Psychol., 1939, 52, 31–45. S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 16
- 44. 3 Apparent Spatial Arrangement and Perceived Brightness Julian E. Hochberg and Jacob Beck The problems of brightness constancy (e.g., the constancy of perceived object color under different illumination conditions) and of the perceptual con- stancies in general arise from the fact that changed sensory stimuli frequently elicit unchanged responses (and vice versa) which follow more closely the variations of distal stimuli (objects) than of the sensory-surface stimulus distributions. This raises difficulties for any formulation of a one-to- one correspondence between stimulus and experience (confusingly called the ‘‘constancy hypothesis’’ [5, p. 86]), which at first sight would seem essential to psychological prediction. Such findings have been used in attempted (‘‘nativistic’’) refutation of the constancy hypothesis and its associated stimulus-sensation units of anal- ysis (5) and to demonstrate the importance of nonstimulus organizational ‘‘forces.’’ Empiricist ‘‘inferential’’ explanations, on the other hand, retain the constancy hypothesis in sensation, and ascribe the obtained discrepancies to the effects of past experience in perception. Objections to the nativistic po- sition are (a) some evidence suggests that the accuracy of the perceptual constancies depends on past experience (1); (b) no well-defined analytic units have been presented to supplant the old ‘‘sensations,’’ and in their absence precise prediction is difficult despite the considerable heuristic value of the more or less intuitive Gestalt ‘‘laws.’’ General objections to the em- piricist positions have been (a) it is not possible to distinguish between ‘‘sensation’’ and ‘‘perception’’; (b) there is some awkwardness involved in the doctrine of ‘‘unconscious inference’’ and its derivatives, especially when referring to the lower animals in which the constancies appear (7, pp. 605– 607); (c) any attempt at precise prediction from this viewpoint must await as yet unperformed ‘‘ecological surveys’’ to determine what the past experi- ences of an organism are likely to have been; (d) the constancies also appear to exist without opportunity for past experience (3), and while demonstrated effects of past experience on the constancies do not necessarily refute the Gestalt position, evidence of the reverse seriously injures a thoroughgoing empiricist explanation. 17
- 45. An alternative formulation is appealing: responses may occur in one-to- one correspondence not to what we had previously taken to be the stimuli but to their relationship, without regard to central factors, whether of as- sociation or organization. In considering this possibility, we do not have to postulate innate knowledge; we need only seek new dimensions for ana- lyzing the physical stimuli which are in correspondence with experience (or response). Gestaltists most frequently sought such invariant relationship not in the stimulus distribution, but in the as yet largely unmeasurable psy- chophysiologically isomorphic cortical processes; however, one may instead direct attention to the reanalysis of the proximal stimulus pattern as do Gibson (2), Helson (4), and Wallach (6). Thus, Wallach (6) suggests that we may understand brightness percep- tion by taking as the stimulus not the intensity of illumination falling on a given retinal region, but the relationship of the intensities of illumination falling on adjacent regions. The relationship approximated a ratio of inten- sities in the situations he studied; i.e., the stimuli in the perception of brightness appeared to be the ratios of illumination intensities on adjacent areas, rather than the illumination intensities themselves. Thus, if Ss viewed a variable disk surrounded by a ring of 180 illumination intensity units— degrees of episcotister opening—and were asked to match the variable disk to a disk of 90 units surrounded by a ring of 360 units, they set the variable disk to a mean value of 47 units, only 2 units away from the proportionate 4:1 intensity ratio, which would here be 90 7 360 180, or 45 units. If this redefinition of the stimulus will explain all of brightness constancy, we can again effect a one-to-one psychophysical formulation of perceived brightness. The constancy hypothesis was shaken since the same absolute stimulus intensities aroused different brightness responses (and vice versa); can con- ditions also be found in which the same distributions or relationships of stimulus intensity arouse different brightness responses? The object of the present experiments was to determine whether a change in the apparent position of a target surface relative to an illumination source results in a change in the perceived brightness of that surface (cf. 7, pp. 600, 612), even though the actual illumination conditions remain constant. Experiment I The apparatus1 is shown in Fig. 3.1: the main illumination (100 w.) came from above (a), this being ‘‘indicated’’ to Ss by the shadow distribution on several cubes (d). These ‘‘cues’’ are of considerable importance since, in preliminary experiments, little or no success was achieved without them. The Ss looked monocularly through a reduction screen (Sc) at an upright cardboard trapezoid target (t) covered with Number 8 Hering gray paper, cut so that its retinal image would be the same as that of a square (Sq) lying S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 18
- 46. flat on the black cloth surface (V ). All Ss (N ¼ 13) reported seeing a hori- zontal square, whose brightness they were then (Judgment I) asked to match quickly and unanalytically to a scale (H) of Hering gray paper patches (Nos. 1, 3, 5, . . . 19). A round rod, r, ½ in. in diameter, 22 in. long, painted white for Group A and black for Group B, was then waved behind the target (trying to avoid any cast shadows visible to S). This was kept up for some seconds, as it was difficult not to ‘‘see’’ the horizontal square (Sq) instead of the upright trapezoid (t); indeed, one S was dropped at this point, unable to see the target as upright. The Ss again compared the target’s brightness with the gray scale (Judgment II). The results (Table 3.1) indicate that the target when apparently upright is reported as brighter than when apparently horizontal. Two questions may, however, be asked: First, while illumination of the rod is not likely to have been responsible for the brightness change since it was black for some Ss and white for others, might not inadvertently cast shadows, or even the motion itself, have been the important factor? Second, if a stimulus is perceived as parallel to the line of regard, it should have a greater apparent area than when perceived as perpendicular to the line of regard (Fig. 3.1); may not the lower reported brightness in the former case be due to the smaller amount of retinal illumination per unit of perceived surface? The next two experiments were undertaken to test the first question by varying the means whereby the Figure 3.1. Apparatus for presenting the same target at different apparent slants and illumination conditions. Apparent Spatial Arrangement and Perceived Brightness 19
- 47. apparent shift in the target position is brought about, and to test the second by changing the direction of illumination while, of course, holding the apparent size change constant. Experiment II The procedure of Exp. I was modified here in three ways: (a) When at- tempting to make the target appear upright, it was moved through short horizontal arcs (R) instead of having a rod (r) waved behind it. (b) The 15 Ss (Group C) of this experiment ran through the procedure with the illumi- nation coming from above (a), and then repeated the experiment with the illumination coming horizontally from in front of the trapezoid (b1), with a concealed supplementary source (b2) to remove the shadow of the target (t) from the cues. (c) The Ss were alternated in each part of the experiment as to the condition to which they were first subjected, the upright target or the horizontal square. The results (Table 3.1) under illumination from above are the same as those in Exp. I: when seen upright, the target appears brighter than when seen flat. Under illumination from in front (b1), the results are the reverse: with horizontal illumination, the target appears less bright when seen as upright than when flat. Since the change in perceived area consequent upon the change in perceived target position would be the same both when illumination comes from above and from the front, we can reject the amount-of-illumination-per-perceived-surface-area as a determining factor. This suggests that the brightness changes are due either largely or solely to the perceived change in target position with respect to the direction of illumination; this is supported by the results of the next experiment. Table 3.1. Relative Apparent Brightnesses of the Target with Different Apparent Positions and Illumination Conditions Exp. Group N Light Source (Fig. 3.1) S’s Responses Trapezoid Brighter Square Brighter I A 6 a 5 0 B 6 a 6 0 II C 15 a 14 0 b1 0 14 III D 5 a 5 0 E 5 b1 0 5 F 5 c 0 0 S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 20
- 48. Experiment III Two changes were here made in the procedures of Exp. I: (a) The target was changed from flat to upright appearance by shifting from monocular vision to binocular vision (through a larger hole, L). (b) Illumination was main- tained from above (a), as in Exp. I, for Group D (N ¼ 5); from in front horizontally (b1), as in the second part of Exp. II, for Group E (N ¼ 5); and horizontally from the side (c), for Group F (N ¼ 5). The results of Groups D and E show the same changes in brightness as were found in Exp. II. There is no evidence of any perceived brightness changes in Group F, in which there is no change in perceived orientation of the target with respect to the illumination, since the illumination is parallel to the target surface in either of the two perceived positions. These results again suggest that the brightness changes are obtained due to the change in the relationship of the perceived direction of illumination and the perceived position of the surface it falls upon. Discussion In general, the results of these experiments suggest that when a surface of a given illumination is perceived as being perpendicular to the direction of illumination, it appears less bright than when the same surface, with the same illumination, seems parallel to the direction of illumination. How does this fit the various approaches to brightness constancy? A simple one-to-one correspondence of illumination and perceived brightness must as usual be rejected, since the same stimulus arouses dif- ferent responses. Likewise, any attempt to bring the perception of brightness into one-to-one correspondence with illumination ratios is inadequate, since differing responses are here obtained with the same illumination relation- ships. Either we must view Wallach’s ratio formulation (or, for that matter, Helson’s ‘‘adaptation level’’ explanation) as incomplete, or hold that there are at least two different kinds of brightness constancy, one bound to the illumination conditions and the other not, an unparsimonious position. The general viewpoint may, however, be retained (as may also a Gestalt organizational one) if the determinants of perceived brightness include not only the peripheral illumination relationships but the ‘‘cues’’ to spatial position and the illumination direction (cf. 7, p. 612). The empiricist or ‘‘inferential’’ position, disconcertingly enough, seems well able to ex- plain the findings, at least by hindsight: thus, to reflect a given amount of light to the eye, a surface parallel to the incident illumination would have to have a higher albedo or brighter object color than would a surface per- pendicular to the incident illumination, and would therefore be ‘‘inferred’’ to be brighter. Apparent Spatial Arrangement and Perceived Brightness 21
- 49. Summary In order to determine whether perceived brightnesses can be brought into one-to-one correspondence with stimulus illumination relationships any more than with absolute illumination intensities, Ss made judgments of the brightness of a target which, under constant or controlled conditions of illumination, was made to appear to be either perpendicular or parallel to the apparent direction of illumination. Since substantially the same illu- mination distributions produced different perceived brightnesses, analyses of brightness constancy in terms of stimulus illuminations cannot at present be considered complete explanations. Note 1. Modified from one devised by Professor J. J. Gibson to study the re- lationship between perceived slant and perceived form. References 1. Brunswik, E. Über Farben-, Grossen- und Gestaltkonstanz in der Jugend. In H. Volkelt (Ed.), Bericht € U Uber den XI. Kongress exp. Psychol. Jena: Fischer, 1930. Pp. 52–56. 2. Gibson, J. J. The perception of the visual world. Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1950. 3. Gogel, W. C., Hess, E. H. A study of color constancy in the newly hatched chick by means of an innate color preference. Amer. Psychologist, 1951, 6, 282. (Abstract) 4. Helson, H. Adaptation-level as frame of reference for prediction of psychological data. Amer. J. Psychol., 1947, 60, 1–29. 5. Koffka, K. Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935. 6. Wallach, H. Brightness constancy and the nature of achromatic, colors. J. Exp. Psychol., 1948, 38, 310–324. 7. Woodworth, R. S. Experimental psychology. New York: Holt, 1938. S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 22
- 50. 4 Perception Toward the Recovery of a Definition Julian Hochberg Perception, a word which once had a fairly limited meaning, has recently acquired a host of new (and frequently mutually contradictory [e.g., 26, 27]) ones. The shattering of the taxonomy of sensation, image, and percept (15, 30) made it difficult to maintain the older definitions (e.g., perception equals sensations plus images). Since then, usage has ranged from a narrowing of ‘‘perception’’ almost to the previous connotations of ‘‘sensation’’ (27), to a widening which includes almost all cognition—e.g., ‘‘Symbolization makes possible perception at a distance where the immediate percept is only a symbol of a distant event’’ (26). So loose has the term become that today Murray might call his battery the Thematic Perception Test, and not arouse any great comment. This diffuseness renders the term almost meaningless, and, even if there were no more serious consequences, it tends to promote a feeling of false unity and community of subject matter among diverse disciplines which really use the word in quite different fashions (cf. 29). When the different definitions of the term are allowed to shift and interact in a single argument, however, serious confusion may result. When pre-, sub-, and unconscious perceptual processes are postulated (1, 17), when the results of presumably ‘‘perceptual’’ demonstrations are the occa- sion of profound epistemological conclusions (6, 12), and when questions are raised as to whether it is ‘‘really’’ perception (18, 21, 11) that is being investigated—at such points, it is not mere pedantry to ask questions about definitions. ‘‘Perception’’ frequently carries with it the various connotations of ‘‘awareness,’’ of a ‘‘discrimination’’ between stimuli, of a conviction of the ‘‘real’’ environmental presence of the perceived object, etc. These con- cepts are quite complex and as yet ill defined, and their casual intermixture may have methodological as well as theoretical consequences. For example, Bruner, Postman, and Rodrigues (4) attempted to demonstrate that the effect of the previously experienced normal color of an object on its pres- ently perceived color increased as the ambiguity was increased by increasing the time elapsed between the presentation of the stimulus and the matching of that stimulus to a color wheel—a procedure more appropriate to the investigation of memory than to the traditional usage of perception. This is 23
- 51. not to say that we must adhere to the old structuralist methods of slicing mental processes, but memorial effects in memory are not quite as critical a phenomenon as would be memorial effects in perception, and the distinc- tion seems worth retaining when the existence of such effects is itself the question at hand. For most purposes such distinctions may actually be as unnecessary as the tendency to ignore them suggests, but this really depends upon the use to which the definition will be put. It seems to me that there are at present at least two purposes for which a definition of perception is needed: (a) to delimit certain characteristics (phenomenal properties) of the experience of the subject, and (b) to distin- guish between the immediate (primary) and less immediate (secondary) functional determinants we assume to be underlying the overt discriminal response. Few attempts have been made recently at explicit definitions for either purpose, and this is what has generated the delightful Freudian paradoxes about ‘‘subceptual recognition,’’ the ambiguity about motiva- tional determinants in perception, and the confusion about ‘‘ambiguity.’’ Programs for the Definition of Perception Perceptual Experience. One aspect of classical consensual usage is given in a definition by MacLeod: Perception is that process by which things, events, and relationships become phenomenally ‘‘here,’’ ‘‘now,’’ and ‘‘real.’’ Some might object to the ‘‘private’’ and ‘‘subjective’’ nature of the construct; however, aside from such metaphysical objections, the actual problems of applying such definitions experimentally have largely been ignored. Since a ‘‘percept’’ is a construct and not ‘‘directly measurable,’’ its definition can be approached with different indices and at various levels. At the most primitive level, a considerable gain in information could be achieved in many supposedly ‘‘perceptual’’ experiments (cf. 8) simply if subjects were asked whether their reports concerned objects ‘‘really seen’’ as present, rather than inferred or imagined. This is particularly important where the experimental findings are intended to reveal the fundamental dependence of perceptual experience in general upon some set of variables other than those immediately involved, e.g., dependence upon learning, upon motivation, etc. Thus, Hastorf (8) attempts to support the empiricist explanation of depth perception by showing that the known size of an object can determine its apparent distance: He instructs subjects that a rectangular stimulus, presented so that its visual distance is indeterminate, is a calling card, an envelope, etc., and obtains different distance matches; the relevance of his findings would be considerably increased, however, by some assur- ance (in the face of some evidence to the contrary [10]) that his subjects’ performance actually entailed perceiving the stimulus as instructed and perceiving the distances as reported. Again, if we have attempted to dem- onstrate the effects of needs on the perception of length by rewarding lon- ger lines (22), we require some assurance that the subjects are not merely S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 24
- 52. reporting, without seeing, greater length (18). Where needed, greater cer- tainty as to the degree to which ‘‘immediacy’’ characterizes the experience and as to the uni- or multidimensionality of the response system could be achieved by the use of psychophysical and scaling procedures. Whether or not a given response is perceptual in this sense is an empirical matter (cf. Perky’s demonstration of the continuity of image and percept [19]). Since it seems unlikely that very many modern American experimental psychologists feel quite comfortable when brought face to face, in such bald fashion, with a construct of ‘‘conscious perceptual experience,’’ the second purpose for which definition is required is probably more important at the moment (although it cannot be completely untied from this first problem). The Temporal Primacy of ‘‘Perceptual’’ Processes. A recurring theme (by no means new) is the helpless dependence of perception on internal non- exteroceptive factors of motivation and past experience. Thus, our percep- tions of the world—its spatial fabric (16), the objects within it (3), and their dimensions (13) and attributes (4)—are supposedly determined by desire and habit. A percept becomes merely a normal hallucination and, with all knowledge based upon the senses, all our cognitive processes are contami- nated and deluded. In extreme cases (6), solipsistic epistemologies—each man being viewed as in an independent, monadic universe produced by the projection of his trigonometric judgments (16) or of his unconscious desires (1) or memories (9)—have been offered as psychological ‘‘findings’’ with great energy and persuasiveness. We are not concerned here, however, with either the philosophical or the factual aspects of this matter, but rather with the definitions of perception involved, implicit or explicit. By the old structuralist definition of perception, all of this is trivial and at least as old as Bishop Berkeley—by definition, a percept is not in corre- spondence with proximal stimulation, but is compounded of sensations and remembered images. Sensations alone would be in expected correspondence with the physical world of proximal stimulus energies, while the nature of the world of objects and space would by definition be determined by (in fact, composed of) the associated images of past experience and the judg- ment-like processes of unbewusstersschluss. The Princeton demonstrations of purported experiential determinants in perception should occasion no great amazement to anyone who has the traditional definition in mind, with its temporal primacy of sensation and associated memory trace arousal before the arousal of the perceptual process. Similarly, there is little occasion for pleased surprise at the ‘‘perceptual defense’’ claims that unconscious rec- ognition processes intervene between what, in classical terms, would be sensation (itself not always conscious [2]) and conscious perception or overt recognition. Another class of implicit definitions has evidently been under attack here, one which ignores the old sensation-perception dichotomy (14). However, if we wish to establish anything concerning the effects of, say, judgment as an independent variable upon perception as a dependent var- iable, we must be sure that the process we have observed as a dependent Perception 25
- 53. variable was not, itself, the judgmental one whose effect we were presumably investigating (11, 21). Postman (20) seems to tell us that the perceptual response—and, therefore, everything useful we can say about ‘‘percep- tion’’—follows the ‘‘laws of associative learning.’’ However, the main point has been glossed over by Postman, and tends to return us to the earlier problem of conscious experience: not every behavior measured is an index of the perceptual nature of the response, and not all indices are equally good. Let us look, therefore, at some examples of perceptual research in which implicit or explicit attempts were made to answer this question. 1. If we reward differently the two alternates of a simple reversible figure- ground pattern, the situation is vastly different from that of rewarding different line lengths. Schafer and Murphy (24) coupled monetary re- ward with one, monetary loss with the other of two sets of half-faces, which were then combined to form single reversible figure-ground units and presented for tachistoscopic recognition. Here, subjects who report recognition of the previously rewarded half-face cannot be ‘‘judging’’: If we assume (23) that only one of the two faces can be figure at one time (there is some doubt about this, however; see 27, 25) and that the tachistoscopic exposure employed does not allow time for a reversal of figure and ground, the subject cannot correctly report a face other than the one he first sees, since he cannot (except by chance) know which it is. The subject cannot be giving a report which could equally well have been made in the absence of the stimulus. 2. Wallach, O’Connell, and Neisser (28) found that the shadow of a static wire form, originally reported to be two-dimensional, appeared three- dimensional after viewing the shadow cast by the same wire form in rotation. This would constitute a clear demonstration of the effect of past experience on depth perception if we could be sure that this was not merely recollection by the subjects that ‘‘this pattern is one which was cast by a three-dimensional form.’’ The experimenters therefore had the subjects continue to view the same static shadow pattern, and when reversals of perspective were reported with appropriate changes in rela- tive sizes of the parts, concluded that they were dealing with perceived, rather than just judged, depth. The criterion of reversal has been used before (for example, by Hochberg and Hochberg [10] in testing the perceptual effects of ‘‘familiar size’’ on ‘‘represented’’ depth). Why is perspective reversal considered evidence that the response is perceptual? (a) For one thing, spontaneous perspective reversal is known to occur in the presence of certain kinds of stimuli and has not yet been reported to occur in cognitive processes which take place in the absence of the specific stimulus. (b) More important is the element of ‘‘additional infor- mation’’ already noted to be implicit in the Schafer-Murphy criterion: the second (reversed) description of the wire form is only one of an unlimited number of responses which the subject could make, but the one which he S E L E C T E D P A P E R S O F J U L I A N H O C H B E R G 26
- 54. does make is a specific and appropriate function of the distal stimulus. As with figure-ground reversal, but in considerably more complex fashion, the patterns of (proximal) stimulation on the retina must change their function in the delineation of the object (distal stimulus): what were seen as the opposite edges of the same surface become edges of two different ones, etc. The subject must abandon in its entirety his first description of the distal stimulus, yet the second report cannot be made independently of the distal stimulus and depends upon its presence. Even more striking are the related changes in length accompanying the three-dimensional form reversal. If some wire side a was previously seen as equal to and nearer than b, it now appears longer and farther away than b. This is to be expected in terms of the laws of perspective, but the speed with which this occurs, the ignorance most subjects display with respect to such laws, and their inability to compute such trigonometric relationships (5) make it very doubtful that the response has been a judgmental one. To summarize, one set of implicit criteria of the perceptual nature of any given response appears to be that the experimenter has some reason to believe that the presence of the stimulus, and its excitation of neural processes, are necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) for at least certain aspects of that response. The experimenter should not, in principle, be able to predict the response completely without knowledge of the specific stimulus, else we are dealing neither with sensation nor with perception. To distinguish between the latter requires definition of another concept—that of ambiguity. Perception, Sensation, and Ambiguity Thus, we have a continuum in place of the older dichotomy between sen- sation and perception. At one extreme, complete psychophysical corre- spondence (7) obtains (including most of the area known as sensation), and our knowledge of the variance of some aspect of the stimulus object is necessary and sufficient to predict completely the response variance of the subject; here, considerations of needs and past experience are at present gra- tuitous. At the other extreme, subjects’ responses are completely indepen- dent of the presented stimulus, knowledge of which is neither necessary nor sufficient for prediction of response, and we are not dealing with perception at all, but with other psychological processes such as judgment, imagery, etc. Between these two extremes lies an important domain (corresponding to some extent to the classical area of perception) in which the stimulus ac- counts for some but not all of the response variance, and here it may be fruitful to inquire as to how much of the residual variance may be sought in factors of motivation and habit. The criterion underlying this continuum is a concept of ambiguity, i.e., the degree of the inter- and intra-individual variability of relationship be- tween stimulus and perceptual response we considered above. (Another Perception 27
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- 56. JOHNSON’S CORNER. THE CHESHIRE CHEESE. Here, then, you have a varied and intimate series of pictures, a sort of panoramic view of the life that Johnson lived in his Gough Square house, and amid his old surroundings are able to recreate him for yourself in all his varying circumstances and changing moods— working there at his Dictionary and his multifarious writings; sorrowing for his wife; entertaining his friends; sallying forth morning and evening to walk along Fleet Street to the church of St. Clement Danes, in the Strand, assuming that he kept the resolution to do so that is entered at this date in his journal; and, almost every Sunday afternoon, coming staidly down the steps with Mrs. Williams, and setting out to dine with Mr. Diamond, the apothecary of Cork Street; on many evenings strolling along Wine Office Court, to forgather with friends in the parlour of the “Cheshire Cheese,” where
- 57. the seat traditionally occupied by him and Goldsmith is still to be seen; or going farther to a meeting of his club in Ivy Lane. There is a capital story told by Hawkins of how one night at that club a suggestion was made that they should celebrate the publication of Mrs. Lennox’s first novel, The Life of Harriet Stuart, with a supper at the Devil Tavern, in Fleet Street. Johnson threw himself heart and soul into the proposal, and declared that they would honour the event by spending the whole night in festivity. On the evening fixed, at about eight o’clock, Mrs. Lennox and her husband, and some twenty friends and members of the club, gathered at the Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, and, by Johnson’s orders, a magnificent hot apple-pie adorned with bay leaves formed a principal item of the menu. He himself crowned Mrs. Lennox with laurel; and, true to his resolve, he kept the feast going right through the night. “At 5 a.m.,” says Hawkins, “Johnson’s face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade.” The day was beginning to dawn when they all partook of a “second refreshment of coffee,” and it was broad daylight and eight o’clock before the party broke up, and Johnson made his way back up Fleet Street, round into Gough Square, and to the prosaic resumption of work on the Dictionary. Soon after starting The Idler, Johnson left Gough Square and took rooms in Staple Inn, where he presently wrote Rasselas in the evenings of one week, and so raised £100, that “he might defray the expenses of his mother’s funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left.” All these things had happened, and Johnson had risen into fame and become “the great Cham of letters,” before Boswell had made his acquaintance. The historic meeting between these two did not come about until 1763, and then it took place at No. 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden—another famous house that is fortunately still in existence. It was then occupied by Thomas Davies, the actor, who had retired from the stage and opened a bookseller’s shop there. He knew Johnson, who frequently visited him, and on his invitation
- 58. Boswell was there several times in hopes of meeting the great man; again and again it happened that on the days when he was in waiting Johnson failed to appear, but in the end his patience was rewarded, and this is his own account of the interview, taken from notes he made of it on the very day of its occurrence:— “At last, on Monday, the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies’s back parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies, having perceived him through the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us, he announced his awful approach to me, somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father’s ghost: ‘Look, my lord, it comes!’ I found that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson’s figure, from the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after he had published his Dictionary, in the attitude of sitting in his easy-chair in deep meditation. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, ‘Don’t tell where I come from.’ ‘From Scotland,’ cried Davies roguishly. ‘Mr. Johnson,’ said I, ‘I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.’ He retorted, ‘That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.’ This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed and apprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed himself to Davies: ‘What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings.’ Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, ‘O sir, I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you.’ ‘Sir,’ said he, with a stern look, ‘I have known David Garrick longer than you have done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject.’ Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt
- 59. myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted.” But he sat on resolutely, and was rewarded by hearing some of Johnson’s conversation, of which he kept notes, that are duly reproduced in the Life. WHERE BOSWELL FIRST MET JOHNSON. “I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his conversation,” he concludes his account of the meeting, “and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an engagement at another place. I had for a part of the evening been left alone with him, and had ventured to make an observation now and then, which he received very civilly; so I was satisfied that, though there was a
- 60. roughness in his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies followed me to the door; and when I complained to him a little of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly took upon him to console me by saying, ‘Don’t be uneasy; I can see he likes you very well.’” Davies’s shop is kept nowadays by a Covent Garden salesman. Instead of being lined with books, it is filled with baskets of fruit and sacks of potatoes, and the parlour wall and that glass-panelled parlour door are thrown down, and parlour and shop are all one. But the upper part of the house remains practically unaltered, and with a little imagining you can restore the lower to what it was when these walls held the gruff rumbling of the Doctor’s voice, and looked down on the humiliation of Boswell under the roguish eyes of Davies and his pretty wife. Another house that has glamorous associations with Johnson is No. 5 Adelphi Terrace, where Garrick lived, and where he died, in a back room on the first floor, in 1779. Two years later Johnson was one of a party that dined there with Mrs. Garrick, and one cannot do better than repeat the indispensable Boswell’s report of the event:— “On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was: Mrs. Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him ‘who gladdened life.’ She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said that ‘death was now the most agreeable object to her.’... We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, ‘I believe this is as much as can be
- 61. made of life.’” After recording the conversation of Johnson and divers of the others, Boswell goes on: “He and I walked away together. We stopped a little by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him, with some emotion, that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. ‘Ay, sir,’ said he tenderly, ‘and two such friends as cannot be supplied.’” BOSWELL’S HOUSE. GREAT QUEEN STREET. In the summer of 1784 Boswell was in London as usual, and saw Johnson, then an old man of seventy-five, for the last time. On the 30th June, he and Johnson dined with Sir Joshua Reynolds in Leicester Square, and when Johnson went home Boswell
- 62. accompanied him in Sir Joshua’s coach to the entry of Bolt Court, in Fleet Street, and was so affected at parting that he would not accompany him to the house, and they bade each other an affectionate adieu in the carriage. Johnson stepped out on to the pavement, and, walking briskly, vanished into the yawn of Bolt Court, and, for Boswell, into the jaws of death, for he never saw him again. He went home to the north two days after, and in December Johnson died. On his annual visits to London Boswell lived in various lodgings; but in or about 1786 he rented the house, still standing, at 56 Great Queen Street, and brought his wife to town with him. They occupied this place for some two years; and it is evident from his letters to Bishop Percy and the Rev. T. W. Temple that, whilst residing there, he wrote most of the last seven years of his Life of Johnson. Boswell died in London, in 1795, at No. 122 (formerly 47) Great Portland Street.
- 63. CHAPTER VII BLAKE AND FLAXMAN Ten years before Boswell went to live at 56 Great Queen Street, William Blake was serving an apprenticeship to James Basire, the well-known engraver, whose house was close by at No. 31 in the same street. Basire’s residence has gone the way of all bricks and mortar; but happily Soho still preserves the corner house at No. 28 Broad Street, in which Blake was born. He was born there on the 28th November 1857, over his father’s hosiery shop, and it was there that the first of his strange visions came to him; for he used to say that when he was only four years old he one day saw the face of God at the window looking in upon him, and the sight set him a- screaming. When he was four or five years older, you hear of him taking long rambles into the country; and it was on Peckham Rye that other visions came to him. Once he saw a tree there “filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars”; and once, on a summer morning, he saw “the haymakers at work, and amid them angelic figures walking.” In his matter-of-fact fashion he recounted the first of these two visions on his return home, and his mother had to intervene to prevent the honest hosier and conscientious Nonconformist, his father, from thrashing him for telling a lie. At the age of ten Blake was journeying to and from the house in Broad Street to Mr. Paris’s academy in the Strand, taking drawing lessons. He was already writing poetry, too, and before he was fourteen had written one of the most beautiful and glitteringly imaginative of his lyrics:—
- 64. “How sweet I roamed from field to field, And tasted all the summer’s pride, Till I the Prince of Love beheld Who in the sunny beams did glide. He showed me lilies for my hair, And blushing roses for my brow; He led me through his gardens fair Where all his golden pleasures grow. With sweet May-dews my wings were wet, And Phoebus fired my vocal rage; He caught me in his silken net, And shut me in his golden cage. He loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; Then stretches out my golden wing, And mocks my loss of liberty.” In a preface to his first published volume, the Poetical Sketches, which contains this lyric, his Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter verses, “My Silks and fine Array,” and other lovely songs, he says that all the contents were “commenced in his twelfth, and occasionally resumed by the author till his twentieth year.” From fourteen till he was twenty-one Blake was living away from home with his master, Basire, the engraver; then he went back to his father’s, and commenced to study at the recently formed Royal Academy, and in 1780 exhibited his first picture there, “The Death of Earl Godwin.” Marrying in 1782, he set up housekeeping for himself at 23 Green Street, Leicester Square, and began to move abroad in literary society. Flaxman, already his friend, introduced him to Mrs. Mathew, a lady of blue-stocking tendencies, who held a sort of salon at 27 Rathbone Place; and here, in 1784, “Rainy Day” Smith made his acquaintance. “At Mrs. Mathew’s most agreeable conversaziones,”
- 65. he says, “I first met the late William Blake, to whom she and Mr. Flaxman had been truly kind. There I have often heard him read and sing several of his poems. He was listened to by the company with profound silence, and allowed by most of his listeners to possess original and extraordinary merit.” He knew nothing of musical technique, but sang some of his verses to airs that Smith describes as “singularly beautiful.” His republican opinions and general unorthodoxy and daring outspokenness, however, did not make for social amenity, and it was not long before he dropped out of these elegant circles, and withdrew to his mystic dreamings and the production of paintings and poetry that the majority could not understand. A strangely beautiful and wonderful Bird of Paradise to break from the nest over that hosier’s shop at the corner of Broad Street, Soho!
- 66. BLAKE’S HOUSE. SOHO. When his father died, in 1784, Blake’s brother James took over and continued the business; and in the same year Blake himself opened the shop next door (No. 27) as an engraver and printseller, in partnership with James Parker, who had been one of his fellow- apprentices under Basire. Here he had his younger brother, Robert, with him as a pupil; and he used to say that when Robert died, in 1787, he saw his soul ascend through the ceiling, “clapping its hands for joy.” Falling out with Parker, Blake removed, in this year of his brother’s death, to 28 Poland Street, near by, where he said Robert’s spirit remained in communion with him, and directed him, “in a nocturnal vision, how to proceed in bringing out poems and designs in conjunction”; and the Songs of Innocence, published in 1789, was the result of this inspiration. The method, as Alexander Gilchrist has it, “consisted in a species of engraving in relief both words and designs. The verse was written, and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the copper with an impervious liquid. Then all the white parts, or lights (the remainder of the plate, that is), were eaten away with aquafortis or other acid, so that the outline of letter and design was left prominent, as in stereotype. From these plates he printed off in any tint required to be the prevailing (or ground) colour in his facsimiles; red he used for the letterpress. The page was then coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing, with more or less variety of detail in the local hues.” A process of mixing his colours with diluted glue was revealed to him by St. Joseph. Mrs. Blake often helped him in tinting the designs, and it was her work to bind the books in boards. In the same year (1789) he put forth the finest of his long mystical poems, The Book of Thel. Leaving Poland Street in 1793, Blake moved across London to Lambeth, and made himself a new home at 13 Hercules Buildings. Gilchrist, one of his earliest biographers, made a mistake in his identification of this house, and until a year or two ago it was
- 67. believed that Blake’s residence in that place had been pulled down. On a recent investigation of the Lambeth rate-books by the County Council authorities, however, it became clear that, instead of being on the west side of the street, as Gilchrist supposed, No. 13 was on the east side, next door but one to Hercules Hall Yard. Somewhere between 1830 and 1842 the whole road was renumbered, and Blake’s house had become No. 63, and was in 1890 renumbered again, and became, and is still, No. 23 Hercules Road. Whilst he was living here, Mr. Thomas Butts, of Fitzroy Square, became his most liberal and most constant patron; and on calling at Hercules Buildings one day, Mr. Butts says he found Blake and his wife sitting naked in their summer-house. “Come in!” Blake greeted him. “It’s only Adam and Eve, you know.” But Mr. Butts never took this as evidence of Blake’s madness: he and his wife had simply been reciting passages of Paradise Lost in character.
- 68. BLAKE. 23 HERCULES ROAD. At Hercules Buildings Blake did a large number of paintings and engravings, including the 537 coloured drawings for Young’s Night Thoughts, and some of the greatest of his designs, such as the “Job” and “Ezekiel” prints; and here, too, he completed certain of his Prophetic Books, with their incomprehensible imagery and allegory, and what Swinburne has called their “sunless and sonorous gulfs.” From Hercules Buildings also came “Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night,” and the rest of the Songs of Experience. Then, in 1800, Hayley, the poet of the dull and unreadable Triumphs of Temper, persuaded him to move into the country and settle down in a cottage at Felpham; from which, because he said “the visions were angry with me at Felpham,” he returned to London early in
- 69. 1804, and took lodgings on the first floor of 17 South Moulton Street, Oxford Street. BLAKE’S HOUSE. SOUTH MOULTON ST. Nevertheless, at Felpham he must have been working on his Jerusalem, and on Milton, A Poem in Two Books, for these were issued shortly after his arrival in South Moulton Street. He writes of Jerusalem in one of his letters: “I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve, or sometimes twenty or thirty, lines at a time, without premeditation, and even against my will”; and in a later letter, speaking of it as “the grandest poem that this world contains,” he excuses himself by remarking, “I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary—the authors
- 70. are in eternity.” Much of Jerusalem is turgid, obscure, chaotic, and so impossible to understand that Mr. Chesterton declares that when Blake said “that its authors were in eternity, one can only say that nobody is likely to go there to get any more of their work.” But it is in this poem that Blake introduces those verses “To the Jews,” setting forth that Jerusalem once stood in— “The fields from Islington to Marybone, To Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood,” and that then— “The Divine Vision still was seen, Still was the human form divine; Weeping in weak and mortal clay, O Jesus! still the form was Thine. And Thine the human face; and Thine The human hands, and feet, and breath, Entering through the gates of birth, And passing through the gates of death”; and in Jerusalem you have his lines “To the Deists,” the first version of his ballad of the Grey Monk, with its great ending:— “For a tear is an intellectual thing, And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King, And the bitter groan of a martyr’s woe Is an arrow from the Almighty’s bow.” For my part, I wish it were possible for some of our living poets to go again to those authors in eternity and get some more of such stuff as this, even if we had to have it embedded in drearier lumps of nonsense than you find in Jerusalem.
- 71. Blake’s wife, daughter of a market-gardener, a woman so uneducated that she had to sign the marriage register with her mark, was not only an excellent housekeeper and domestic drudge, but was in perfect sympathy with him in his work, and had the greatest faith in his visions. Moses, Julius Cæsar, the Builder of the Pyramids, David, Uriah, Bathsheba, Solomon, Mahomet, Joseph, and Mary—these were among Blake’s spiritual visitants at South Moulton Street. They came and sat to him, and he worked at their portraits, “looking up from time to time as though he had a real sitter before him.” Sometimes he would leave off abruptly, and observe in matter- of-fact tones, “I can’t go on. It is gone; I must wait till it returns”; or, “It has moved; the mouth is gone”; or, “He frowns. He is displeased with my portrait of him.” If any one criticised and objected to the likeness he would reply calmly, “It must be right. I saw it so.” In all probability he meant no more than that he conjured up these sitters to his mind’s eye; but his friends took him literally, and he acquiesced in their doing so, and has been dubbed a madman in consequence. Many times his wife would get up in the nights “when he was under his very fierce inspirations, which were as if they would tear him asunder, while he was yielding himself to the Muse, or whatever else it could be called, sketching and writing. And so terrible a task did this seem to be that she had to sit motionless and silent, only to stay him mentally, without moving hand or foot; this for hours, and night after night.” It is not easy to realise that this burning, fiery spirit did once live in these South Moulton Street rooms, surrounded by his vivid and terrific imaginings, and then could pass out of it and leave it looking so dull and decorous, so ordinary, so entirely commonplace. But here he indubitably lived, so discouraged by neglect and hampered by poverty that he could not afford to issue any more large books like the Jerusalem, and in 1809 made a desperate attempt to appeal to the public by holding an exhibition of his frescoes and drawings on the first floor of his brother’s hosiery shop in Broad Street. Very few visitors attended; but among the few was Lamb’s friend, Crabb Robinson, and when he went he had the
- 72. room to himself. He paid for admission, recognised that these pictures were the work of no ordinary artist, and bought four of the catalogues, one of which he sent to Lamb; and when, on leaving, he asked the custodian whether he might come again free, James Blake, delighted at having a visitor, and one, moreover, who had bought something, cried, “Oh yes—free as long as you live!” But the exhibition was a failure. The popular painters of Blake’s day were Reynolds, Gainsborough, and men of their schools. Blake was born out of his time, and contemporary society had nothing in common with him—no comprehension of his aim or his outlook—and dismissed him as an astonishing lunatic. When some drawings of his were shown to George III., his Majesty could only gaze at them helplessly and ejaculate a testy “Take them away! take them away!” The noble designs for Blair’s Grave, and the frescoes of The Canterbury Pilgrimage, were among the important works done at South Moulton Street, which Blake quitted in 1821, making his last change of residence to 3 Fountain Court, Strand—a house kept by his brother-in-law, Baines. Here he occupied a room on the first floor for some six years, and when he was nearing his seventieth year, died, after a short illness, on Sunday, the 12th August 1827. He lay dying in his plain back room, serene and cheerful, singing songs to melodies that were the inspiration of the moment; towards evening he fell silent, and passed quietly away, a poor woman, a neighbour who had come in to sit with his wife, saying afterwards, “I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.” You have only to look at the portraits of Blake, at the broad forehead —the forehead of a revolutionary, as he himself said—the sensitive mouth, the large, intent, vision-haunted eyes, to know that his outward appearance fairly adequately revealed the manner of man that he really was. He was under five feet six in height and thick-set, but so well proportioned that he did not strike people as short. “He had an upright carriage,” says Gilchrist, “and a good presence; he bore himself with dignity, as not unconscious of his natural claims. The head and face were strongly stamped with the power and character of the man. There was a great volume of brain in that
- 73. square, massive head, that piled-up brow, very full and rounded at the temples, where, according to phrenologists, ideality or imagination resides. His eyes were fine (‘wonderful eyes,’ some one calls them), prominently set, but bright, spiritual, visionary—not restless or wild, but with a look of clear, heavenly exaltation. The eyes of some of the old men in his Job recall his own to surviving friends. His nose was insignificant as to size, but had that peculiarity which gives to a face an expression of fiery energy, as of a high- mettled steed—a little clenched nostril, a nostril that opened as far as it could, but was tied down at one end. His mouth was wide, the lips not full, but tremulous, and expressive of the great sensibility which characterised him. He was short-sighted, as the prominence of his eyes indicated—a prominence in keeping with the faculty for languages, according to phrenologists again. He wore glasses only occasionally.” His poverty forced him to study economy in the matter of dress. Indoors he was not slovenly, but generally wore a threadbare old suit, the grey trousers of which had been rubbed black and shiny in front like a mechanic’s. When he walked abroad he was more careful, and dressed plainly but well, something in the style of an old-fashioned tradesman, in black knee-breeches and buckles, black worsted stockings, shoes that tied, and a broad- brimmed hat. But for a memorable description of Blake in his habit as he lived, you must read this letter that was written to Gilchrist by Samuel Palmer, who knew him intimately in his latter years:— “Blake, once known, could never be forgotten.... In him you saw at once the maker, the inventor; one of the few in any age; a fitting companion for Dante. He was a man ‘without a mask’; his aim single, his path straightforwards, and his wants few; so he was free, noble, and happy. His voice and manner were quiet, yet all awake with intellect. Above the tricks of littleness, or the least taint of affectation, with a natural dignity which few would have dared to affront, he was gentle and affectionate, loving to be with little
- 74. children and talk about them. ‘That is heaven,’ he said to a friend, leading him to a window and pointing to a group of them at play. “Declining, like Socrates, whom in many respects he resembled, the common objects of ambition, and pitying the scuffle to obtain them, he thought no one could be truly great who had not humbled himself ‘even as a little child.’ This was a subject he loved to dwell upon and to illustrate. His eye was the finest I ever saw; brilliant, but not roving, clear and intent, yet susceptible; it flashed with genius, or melted in tenderness. It could also be terrible.... Nor was the mouth less expressive, the lips flexible and quivering with feeling. I can yet recall it when, on one occasion, dwelling upon the exquisite beauty of the parable of the Prodigal, he began to repeat a part of it; but at the words, ‘When he was yet a great way off his father saw him,’ he could go no further; his voice faltered, and he was in tears. “He was one of the few to be met with in our passage through life who are not in some way or other double-minded and inconsistent with themselves; one of the very few who cannot be depressed by neglect, and to whose name rank and station could add no lustre. Moving apart, in a sphere above the attraction of worldly honours, he did not accept greatness, but conferred it. He ennobled poverty, and, by his conversation and the influence of his genius, made two small rooms in Fountain Court more attractive than the threshold of princes.” One of Blake’s warmest friends for many years was the great sculptor, John Flaxman. With none of Blake’s lawless, glowing imagination, Flaxman’s drawings in his illustrations to Homer, and his designs on some of the Wedgwood pottery, have a classical correctness—a cold, exquisite beauty of outline—that are more suggestive of the chisel than of the pencil or the brush; and it is in the splendid sculptures with which he has beautified Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, and many other of our cathedrals and churches that his genius found its highest expression. In his work as an artist Blake was largely influenced by Flaxman. They and Stothard used to
- 75. meet at Mrs. Mathew’s; but there came a day when the friendship between these three was broken. Blake thought Flaxman had appropriated one of his designs, and there seems no doubt that Stothard did so, on the prompting of an unscrupulous picture-dealer; and you have Blake lampooning them both, as well as Hayley, with whom he had also fallen out, in epigrams that were not always just, and probably represented nothing worse than a passing mood, as thus:— “My title as a genius thus is proved: Not praised by Hayley, nor by Flaxman loved.” “I found them blind, I taught them how to see, And now they know neither themselves nor me.” To Flaxman. “You call me mad; ’tis folly to do so,— To seek to turn a madman to a foe. If you think as you speak, you are an ass; If you do not, you are but what you was.” To the same. “I mock thee not, though I by thee am mocked; Thou call’st me madman, but I call thee blockhead.” Flaxman was not, like Blake, a born Londoner, but his family came from York, and settled down in London when he was six months old. His father had a shop in New Street, Covent Garden, where he made and sold plaster casts. Flaxman emerged from a sickly childhood, and developed into a sufficiently wiry and energetic man, though he remained feeble in appearance, so high-shouldered as to seem almost deformed, with a head too large for his body, and a queer sidelong gait in walking. He married in 1782, and, after living for five years in a very small house at 27 Wardour Street, Soho—where he
- 76. was elected collector of the watch-rate for the parish—he and his wife went to Italy, and spent seven years in Rome. Whilst he was there he fulfilled a commission for Romney, and collected and sent over to England a selection of casts from the antique, that Romney required for the use of students in his Hampstead painting-room. Returning from Italy in 1794, Flaxman took up residence at 17 Buckingham Street, Euston Road, and lived here through all his most famous years, till he died in 1826. Blake visited him here, and Haydon, and other of his artistic circle; for though he went little into society, he was unpretentiously hospitable, fond of entertaining his chosen friends, greatly esteemed and beloved by his pupils, models, and servants, and the poor of the neighbourhood, especially the children. He went about among the latter habitually, filling his sketch-book with drawings of them, and invariably carrying a pocketful of coppers to drop into the small grubby hands that were ready to receive them. The district hereabouts has degenerated since Flaxman’s day. His house was dull, insignificant, rather mean-looking, and now it looks more so than ever, amid its grimy surroundings—a pinched, old, dreary little house, that is yet transfigured when you remember the glorious visitors who have crossed its threshold, and that it was at this same dead door the postman knocked one day near the end of September 1800 and delivered this letter from Blake, who was then newly gone out of London and had not had time to begin to grow tired of his cottage at Felpham:— “Dear Sculptor of Eternity,—We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient.... Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace....
- 77. FLAXMAN’S HOUSE. BUCKINGHAM STREET. EUSTON ROAD. “And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life; and these works are the delight and study of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches and fame of mortality? The Lord our Father will do for us and with us according to His divine will, for our good. “You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime archangel—my friend and companion from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient
- 78. days, before this earth appeared in its vegetable mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eternity, which can never be separated, though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of heaven from each other. “Farewell, my best friend. Remember me and my wife in love and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold.” Later, when they quarrelled, Flaxman was not an archangel, but a blockhead and an ass; but that quarrel is not to be taken too seriously. Their houses of eternity were not separated, though their mortal vehicles were estranged; and it was on hearing Flaxman was dead that Blake said finely, “I can never think of death but as a going out of one room into another.”
- 79. CHAPTER VIII A HAMPSTEAD GROUP Out at Hampstead you may still visit what was once that studio of Romney’s to which Flaxman sent his collection of plaster casts from Italy. It had been a favourite idea of Romney’s, his son tells us, “to form a complete Gallery of Casts, and to open it to any youths of respectability,” and in his closing years, after he had removed to Hampstead, he carried out his wish, to some extent, with Flaxman’s aid, and had three pupils working in his studio there, copying the casts and studying under him. The house he occupied from 1796 to 1799 is now the Holly Bush Inn; he bought a piece of land at the back of it, and on this built himself a studio and gallery, which now form part of the Hampstead Constitutional Club. “It was to Hampstead that Hayley’s friend Romney, the painter, retired in the decline of his life,” writes J. T. Smith, in Nollekens and his Times, “when he built a dining-room close to his kitchen, with a buttery hatch opening into it, so that he and his friends might enjoy beef- steaks, hot and hot, upon the same plan as the members of the Beef-steak Club are supplied at their room in the Lyceum.”
- 80. ROMNEY’S HOUSE. HAMPSTEAD. Though Romney was then in the decline of his life, he was at the height of his fame. He had married at the age of nineteen, and six years later set out for London, leaving his wife behind at Kendal. He had no intention of deserting her, but in London his genius soon won recognition, he began to move in good society, and partly because Sir Joshua Reynolds had once said that “marriage spoilt an artist,” partly because he became infatuated with Nelson’s enchantress, Lady Hamilton, he neither brought his wife to London, nor visited her, nor ever saw her again until he was dying. On April 28, 1799, Hayley called on him for the last time at Hampstead, and thought that “increasing weakness of body and mind afforded only a gloomy prospect for the residue of his life.” Then in July Flaxman saw him, and says in one of his letters, “I and my father dined at Mr.
- 81. Romney’s at Hampstead last Sunday, by particular invitation, and were received in the most cordial manner; but, alas! I was grieved to see so noble a collection in a state so confused, so mangled, and prepared, I fear, for worse, and not better.” Very soon after this Romney left London for ever, and returned to Kendal and the wife he had neglected since the days of his obscure youth, and early in 1801, by his directions, “the collection of castes from the antique, a very fine skeleton, and other artistic properties of George Romney, at his late residence, Hollybush Hill, Hampstead,” were sold by Messrs. Christie. Meanwhile, his wife had pardoned him and was caring for him. “Old, nearly mad, and quite desolate,” writes Fitzgerald, “he went back to her, and she received him and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney’s pictures!—even as a matter of art, I am sure.” It is this beautiful devotion of hers that gave Tennyson a subject for one of his later poems, Romney’s Remorse; in which the dying painter, rousing out of delirium, says:—
- 82. “There—you spill The drops upon my forehead. Your hand shakes. I am ashamed. I am a trouble to you, Could kneel for your forgiveness. Are they tears? For me—they do me too much grace—for me?... My curse upon the Master’s apothegm, That wife and children drag an artist down! This seemed my lodestar in the Heaven of Art, And lured me from the household fire on earth.... This Art, that harlot-like, Seduced me from you, leaves me harlot-like, Who love her still, and whimper, impotent To win her back before I die—and then— Then in the loud world’s bastard judgment day One truth will damn me with the mindless mob, Who feel no touch of my temptation, more Than all the myriad lies that blacken round The corpse of every man that gains a name: ‘This model husband, this fine artist!’ Fool, What matters! Six feet deep of burial mould Will dull their comments! Ay, but when the shout Of His descending peals from Heaven, and throbs Thro’ earth and all her graves, if He should ask ‘Why left you wife and children? for My sake, According to My word?’ and I replied, ‘Nay, Lord, for Art,’ why, that would sound so mean That all the dead who wait the doom of Hell For bolder sins than mine, adulteries, Wife-murders—nay, the ruthless Mussulman Who flings his bowstrung Harem in the sea, Would turn and glare at me, and point and jeer And gibber at the worm who, living, made The wife of wives a widow-bride, and lost Salvation for a sketch.... O let me lean my head upon your breast. ‘Beat little hea t ’ on this fool b ain of mine
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