Page 359 - Wilhelm Wundt zum siebzigsten Geburtstage

Eye-Movements and the Aesthetics of Visual Form. 347

the latter at best are apparently so colorless that they can utterly
belle the form we enjoy, without interfering with that enjoyment.
It may perhaps be well to speak briefly of certain experiments in
check and control of the results already given, The suspicion readily
occurs that the experimental conditions might make it pecuKarly
difficult for the eyes to follow a set line, and that the irregularities
in the records might be due either to these unusual difficulties er
possibly to some over-anxiety on the part of the subjects of the ex-

Fig. 22.

Fig. 23.
K

^ Fig. 25.
n

periment. Some additional records were taken to throw Hght on a
natural question of this kind. In the first place, if the subject were
bidden to run his eye rapidly over an imaginary form, then he would,
to a considerable extent, be free from any constraint that a set,
objective line might impose upon the free action of the eye. And
some photographs were accordingly taken of such movements. In
place of the usual white ground on which the diagrams were given
in India ink, a sheet of dead-black German Tuchpapier was placed
so that the person would have as little as possible in the field of
view to serve as attractive points of fixation. He was then told to