extreme conditions, there is no “constancy of size,” etc. Ten yards
away a man is scarcely smaller than at a distance of five yards; but
fifty yards off he looks smaller, and 1,000 yards away he usually
becomes a tiny object, indeed. During most of our life we are
interested in objects rather near to us; so we learn little about
things far off and the consequence is that with increasing distance
the relation between the true sensory experience and the meaning
changes, to the advantage of the former. In all these arguments there
is great persuasive force and cogency. Most psychologists do not for
a moment doubt the truth of the explanation in terms of “meaning.” It
also seems to correspond to a very natural tendency in human thinking.
Physicists who have never studied psychology will tend to give the same
explanation, as soon as they become acquainted with the facts we are
considering. And if you demonstrate the phenomena to a freshman, he
will give the “meaning theory” at once.
The importance of this theory is not less considerable on this account.
There is practically no field of vision which does not exhibit some
of the facts we are discussing. When we open our eyes we behold
sizes, forms and brightnesses, and, of these appearances, only a very
few will be exempted from the verdict which, from the viewpoint of
introspection, must be imposed upon them. The facts themselves are
not exceptional; only the demonstration of their surprising deviation
from what one should expect them to be is something unusual. This
demonstration is a matter of psychological, one might almost say, of
laboratory, sophistication; the facts themselves are affairs of every
moment and of everybody.
Though the extent of objective experience which shall not be trusted
thus increases in scope, we have not yet reached its limits. The
simple localization of objects manifests similar properties. Looking
at a point before me I see the objects around it in different places,
corresponding to the different places which their images occupy on my
retina. If I now fixate another point, the same objects ought to appear
in other places according to the new positions of their retinal images.
But actually the objects do not seem to have moved. Their localization
in space is again relatively independent of retinal position. Or take
the speed of seen movement: the same physical movement may be seen from
many different distances. When I am ten yards away from the moving
object, retinal speed will be one-half of what it is at a distance of
five yards. In direct experience, however, there is no appreciable
difference of speed between the two cases of movement.[12] Obviously,
the same explanation can be given here which has heretofore been
applied to the constancy of size, form and brightness. Once more we are
dealing with meaning. And ultimately we recall that first illustration,
and indeed the most general case of the illusory character of direct
experience: if we seem to perceive “objects” in our visual field, even
those “objects,” from the standpoint of introspection, must also be
products of learning: _meaning transforms sensations into “things.”_[13]
From this it follows that of all objective experience, as both layman
and psychologist enjoy it in the visual field of everyday life, very
little is left as pure and genuine sensory fact. That such is the
consequence we must accept, if we go the ways of introspectionism, will
become clearer to us now at every step.
Introspection, however, draws a much more serious conclusion from
the foregoing analysis. Not only shall all those experiences which
are supposed to be influenced by meaning not be treated as primary
sensory experiences; but, in addition, they shall be excluded from
the subject-matter of psychology. Some introspectionists may hesitate
to acknowledge explicitly such a radical principle, but in their
researches most of them proceed as though they had completely accepted
it. After they have classified a given experience as one that must
be explained by the effects of meaning, they rest satisfied, and are
no longer any more interested in it than if it were found to belong
to astronomy. This means that most objective experience is excluded
from the introspectionist’s psychology as soon as he has found it
susceptible to his explanation in terms of meaning. In the following
chapters we shall see that wherever we touch upon a somewhat unusual
and therefore interesting observation, the introspectionist will
offer us this same explanation, and we shall always be urged to
_discard_ the observation because meaning is involved. Whether the
explanation is right or wrong, we continually face in common life
the kind of first-hand objective experience which is discarded by
introspectionism. Toward it all our interests are directed. There are
millions of people who will never transform the “objects” of their
environments into “true” sensations, who will always react to sizes,
brightnesses and speeds as they find them naïvely, who will like and
dislike forms as they appear to them in their objective world without
recourse to introspection, and what are held to be the true sensory
facts will never play an appreciable rôle in their lives. As long as
the introspectionist’s attitude prevails, however, psychology will
never seriously study those experiences which form the matrix of our
whole life. Instead, it will observe and discuss the properties of
rare and unusual experiences which, though they are supposed to be
continually present beneath our naïve experiences, seem to be so well
hidden most of the time that their existence has nothing to do with
life as we actually experience it. Even the best introspectionist will
not find or state these experiences unless he assumes the special
attitude which--fortunately for him--he does not assume except in
the laboratory. The enterprise of psychological observation is thus
undertaken, removed so far from common experience, that if we should
ever learn the laws of pure sensory process, all of them together
would not lead us back to the psychological world we live in; because
this world is one of direct and naïve experience, and utterly
foreign to these laws of pure sensory process. If, therefore, the
introspectionist’s psychology does not treat the facts we have to deal
with in life, if most of these facts are exiled from his science, he
cannot complain about his own fate. It is only to be expected that such
a psychology would not satisfy people for long. If you condemn interest
in the experience of daily life and define genuine experience as a rare
something only found by artificial procedure, it is inevitable that
your professional as well as your lay audience will tell you that they
do not care for your kind of psychology. And they will not stop there.
Since you have asserted that your experience is the only genuine one,
they will interpret your procedure as the only possible scientific
approach to the problems of experience. Thus they will condemn _all_
direct experience as material of psychology, after you have given away
the greater part of it for the artefacts of sophisticated and sterile
introspection. This reaction had to come. It has come in the form of
behaviorism.
I do not feel justified in calling those artefacts _unreal_. When I
apply the introspectionist’s methods I myself can get those special
experiences which corroborate his findings. But I do not attribute
to them a rare value as though they were worth more, as though they
were more “true” than everyday experience. If that common experience
involves meaning, the experiences given by introspection depend upon
the attitude of introspecting and cannot be shown to exist without
it, as we shall see later on. Moreover, for actual life, common
experience is found to be incalculably more important than any of the
introspectionist’s “true sensations.” Let us grant for a moment that
all the facts mentioned above are what they are for us because of the
influence of meaning. Do they become less real or less significant
psychologically because of this genesis? Is a certain amount of H_{2}O
which I have before me no real chemical substance because I know that
it has been formed by the oxidation of hydrogen? Would that hydrogen
be a “true” chemical substance, but not the water? Is the water not
worth the chemist’s investigation? I do not see why an experience which
contains acquired meaning should be less interesting and important
for psychology than experiences not so composed. Take the case of the
symbol +, which every one will agree is a product of meaning. When seen
between figures it _looks_ like “plus,” i.e., _its meaning appears
localized in the visual field_. A strange fact, indeed, which may
entail some very important questions! Why should such problems not be
investigated in psychology? It is the same situation with regard to
all the other cases which are explained by meaning. Why should we lose
our interest in the problems they engender, because the fatal word
“meaning” has been uttered?
Furthermore there is positive reason why, instead, we should examine
these problems with particular attention. We have to discriminate
between two types of cases among the examples considered. One,
represented by the symbol +, is distinguished by the fact that child
psychology offers an adequate account of the growth of meaning in
this concrete case. For the second type, represented by most of the
other cases, such an account has not yet been given. It has been in
no way demonstrated that the objectivity of things, the localization
of weights, the constancy of size, form, speed, localization and
brightness, the variation of after-images, and so forth, are really
produced by the influence of meaning. It may seem extremely plausible
to most of us that such is the case, but none of the experiments and
observations I have mentioned in this connection can be regarded by
an unprejudiced psychologist as satisfactory proof. In our present
situation it is merely an hypothesis that the second group of facts
quite properly belongs together with the first class, and as an
hypothesis it is to be treated.
The customary thing to do with an hypothesis is to test it. Does
introspectionism test this hypothesis? Quite the contrary, since
all interest in the experiences which it is intended to explain, is
destroyed for the introspectionist by the explanation itself. Thus
we have before us an assumption which would never be examined at
all, if all psychologists were extreme introspectionists. If this be
strange, it becomes the more surprising when you realize that at this
point most psychologists would not listen calmly to our discussion of
“meaning theory” as an hypothesis. At first they might express only an
incredulous smile, as though they had been asked to believe something
fantastical; but if you insisted upon this point they would grow
impatient, because in their opinion you were disturbing the sound basis
of careful science by an obtrusive paradox.
When a scientific argument tends to become rather emotional it
undoubtedly prods some deep-rooted presupposition, the discussion of
which is felt to be offensive. No one enjoys the discussion of what
for him is secure beyond discussion. In the face of this exhibition
of temper, the more calmly should we realize that the attitude of
introspectionism, if taken so piously, becomes a real danger. Let us
suppose for a moment that in the cases of objectivity, size, form,
speed, localization, brightness, etc., the explanation by meaning is
incorrect. We should then immediately draw the conclusion that all the
facts in question are a part of genuine sensory experience. But these
facts would tell quite a different story about sensory experience
than that given by the introspectionists. Hence it would follow that
what we learn about “true” sensations from them has to be regarded
as distorted truth. Whether or not this be really the case, depends
therefore upon the validity of the general explanation by meaning. And
this explanation is not to be tested; it _shall_ not even be examined!
It will be obvious then that, used by the introspectionist in this
manner, _the meaning theory serves as a defensive bulwark for his quite
definite and special ideas about sensory facts_.
This makes us suspicious of the meaning theory. Introspectionists
may be so utterly convinced of it, not because independently it is
particularly attractive in itself, but because their prior firm belief
about the nature of sensory facts will not permit them to acknowledge
certain experiences. If these “irregular” experiences can be explained
away by meaning, the belief will be reassured.
In order to show that such is the case, we have only to consider the
arguments brought forward in favor of the meaning theory. They have
little indeed to do with meaning, but very much with convictions about
the world of pure sensory experience.
Take the “constancy of brightness” as an example. A white paper in the
shadow appears as white, a black one in bright illumination as black,
though the white may reflect less light actually than the black. Is
there anything in this experience, in the white and the black _as
such_, which tells us directly that we have to do with an effect of
meaning? Nothing at all. The argument is of an indirect kind, viz.,
our observation in this case cannot be reduced to “pure sensation”; it
must, therefore, be a product of meaning.
First of all, one can _change_ the experience by looking at the
papers in a special manner. Therefore, it is not a true sensory
experience. A primitive conviction, then, which paradoxically both
needs and supports the meaning theory is this: _True sensory facts are
independent of changes in subjective attitude_. Evidently, however,
such a statement is not a sufficient support of the theory. If, in the
attitude of introspection, I can transform the apparent white into a
dark shade, and the apparent black into a rather bright nuance, the
opposite change will occur spontaneously as soon as I forsake that
attitude and behold the papers as other people do. From the viewpoint
of experience the “true” brightnesses, appearing during the period of
my experimental attitude, are as changeable, then, as those which I
had before and which I customarily have. Logically, I might as well
condemn the experiences found during “introspection” and refuse to call
them “true,” because they disappear whenever I return to the everyday
attitude. The introspectionist, however, is far from treating both
experiences with the same measure. He thinks that what he experiences
in his special manner is true experience, that, hidden somehow, it
ever exists behind the veil of meaning whenever he falls back into a
more naïve attitude. Thus it becomes clear that there is still another
belief which makes him prefer his special and rare experiences.
His other belief is easy to find. Why should we be surprised by all
these observations on size, form, localization, speed, brightness,
etc.? Why not take them quietly and as a matter of course? Obviously,
because under the given experimental conditions of stimulation we
expect to have experiences quite different from those which we really
have. Naturally, we say, seen size should be proportional to retinal
size, to changes in retinal form there should correspond changes in
seen form, localization in the visual field should vary with retinal
localization, seen speed with retinal speed, and seen brightness
should follow the variations of retinal intensity. While the everyday
experience of the layman contradicts these expectations in the most
shocking manner, the special attitude cultivated by introspectionism
succeeds in obtaining precisely those other experiences which,
according to the introspectionist, we ought “naturally” to have
always; or we at least _approach_ that state of affairs which our
understanding considers the appropriate one. _This_ is the fact which
makes the introspectionist prefer the special and rare experiences
found by an artificial attitude, and which also makes him believe
in a permanent, though hidden, existence of these “pure sensations”
under the opaque cover of naïve experience. It becomes apparent, then,
that the procedure and the results of introspection acquire a special
sanction through their agreement with definite presuppositions about
the relation between stimulation and sensory experience. The same
suppositions lead to the condemnation of everyday experience. No one
can understand the scientific trend of introspectionism who has not
discovered, who does not see, this decisive point. How many times, as
a student, have I read and heard that the Müller-Lyer phenomenon does
not represent a “true” sensory fact, because by analytical observation
and practice we can destroy the “illusion”! If this be taken as a
proof, obviously one kind of experience is given a _higher value_ than
another. If you ask, why? you will ultimately get no other reason than
the one already stated: that one experience agrees with the properties
of peripheral stimulation whereas the other does not. Those that do not
are discarded with the aid of the meaning theory.
A second fundamental conviction, then, underlying this theory and the
whole scientific viewpoint of introspectionism is this: _The main
properties of “true” sensory experiences follow the corresponding
properties of peripheral stimulation._
The introspectionist’s belief takes a form still more concrete. How
did he proceed in order to find the true sensory facts in the case of
brightness, for instance? He tried to isolate the white and the black
paper under observation so that they were taken out of their context as
far as possible. The same thing is done by those who try to destroy the
Müller-Lyer illusion, and similarly in all the other cases. Such an
analytical and isolating attitude will have effects similar to those
of a perforated screen, which, concealing the particular surroundings
of the objects, gives them a new _homogeneous_ environment. If now the
“illusions” disappear, this effect of isolation is explained in terms
of the exclusion of all those secondary factors, and in particular
meaning, which before had distorted the true sensory experience. But
the possibilities of pertinent explanation are not exhausted with
this. The effect produced by isolation proves at least that objective
experience in one part of the field does not develop, independently of
its neighborhood, as a function of local stimulation alone. If this be
taken as a description of facts, we may explain the facts in one of two
ways: (1) _Either_ “true” experience depends upon local stimulation
exclusively, whereas the meaning which almost always adheres to it
depends upon (is reproduced by) the properties of the environing
field; (2) _Or_ natural sensory experience _itself_ is not determined
locally; i.e., the properties of any one part of the field depend
normally upon the conditions given in the whole field, or, at least,
in a larger area of it. In _both_ cases isolation, or the introduction
of a homogeneous environment, would make local experience correspond
better to local stimulation. The introspectionist, however, does not
consider the alternative. He only seems to see that one horn of the
dilemma, according to which isolation gives the “true” sensation, and
naïve experience is a product of meaning. Again we find him partial
to an astounding degree; he _prefers_ that hypothesis (although
unwilling to regard it _as such_) which gives him local sensory facts
determined by local stimulation. In a well-known example, when our
subjects make eye-movements along the main lines of the Müller-Lyer
figures, these movements are shown to have different extents for
the two figures, corresponding to the difference of their apparent
lengths. There you have it, we are told! The illusion is not an
optical fact; it is produced by the accompanying motor phenomena, or
at least by innervation tendencies if overt movements do not occur.
This is an altogether partial statement because, supposing that the
two lines _have_ different lengths in “true” vision, nothing would
be more natural than that the eye-movements should be different
correspondingly. Only by prejudice can the fact in question be
interpreted as though it proved the indirect genesis of the Müller-Lyer
effect. It may prove instead that sensory experience is influenced
by stimulation in a larger area and that, therefore, eye-movements,
depending upon sensory experience, will also vary when surroundings are
changed.
Recapitulating the foregoing analysis, we may conclude that: _A
decisive motive in introspectionism is the belief that true sensations
are independent of subjective attitude and depend only upon local
stimulation as purely local experiences._[14] This is the only rule
which helps us to understand on what occasions the introspectionist
begins to introspect. Very seldom will you find him introspecting
where, without any technique, he obtains certain simple relations
between local stimulation and experience. But where these relations
do not seem to exist _prima vista_, you will find him taking recourse
simultaneously to the introspective procedure and to the theory of
meaning.
Here is the remarkable result of our inquiry. The whole procedure of
present introspectionism seems at first to be in full contrast to
behaviorism’s purely physiological viewpoint. If the introspectionist
is not the advocate of direct experience, who else should be able to
play that rôle? But we have found that there is some restriction upon
his enthusiasm for direct experience. A foreign judge has the chair.
He examines direct experience beforehand, convicts most of it, and
sends it away for correction by a special procedure. This judge is a
_physiologist!_ His ideas about the sensory part of the nervous system
are extremely definite. When the introspectionist mentions physiology,
he seems to talk about a helpful servant; but when we look at the
facts, the servant rules the introspectionist.
If introspectionism is much less guided by direct experience than
by definite physiological principles which decide what shall be
called “true” sensations, its viewpoint is not so very far from that
of behaviorism. And this similarity of general ideas becomes even
more striking if we compare in detail the physiological creed of
introspectionism with that of behaviorism.
The main concepts of behaviorism are those of reflex and conditioned
reflex. What is the characteristic trait of reflex action? That from
a definite receptor organ nervous excitation is conducted along a
definite path, through definite “centers” and along other definite
paths towards a definite effector organ. The _order_ of organic
reactions in their dependence upon definite stimulation is explained
by this conception: a preëxisting arrangement of more or less isolated
conductors enforces that order. It is true that behaviorists do
not suppose the anatomical arrangements to be _absolutely_ rigid
and constant. But, though a certain “irradiation” of excitation
is admitted, almost the only biological value attributed to this
plasticity consists in the fact that, if some other factor can make
the connections practically rigid, this other factor will have a
certain range of different possibilities to work upon. Hence, order of
functions is enforced fundamentally in the reflex arc, but, at a higher
level of the nervous system, connections may be built (or blocked) by
another factor. This other factor is “conditioning.”