by a vague feeling of uneasiness, any error we have made, as though from the obscure depths of consciousness we received a sort of warning.[1] Concentrate your mind on that sensation, and you will feel that the complete image is there, but evanescent, a phantasm that disappears just at the moment when motor activity tries to fix its outline. During some recent experiments (which, however, were undertaken with quite a different purpose),[2] the subjects averred that they felt just such an impression. A series of letters, which they were asked to remember, was held before their eyes for a few seconds. But, to prevent any accentuating of the letters so perceived by appropriate movements of articulation, they were asked to repeat continuously a given syllable while their eyes were fixed on the image. From this resulted a special psychical state; the subjects felt themselves to be in complete possession of the visual image, although unable to produce any part of it on demand: to their great surprise the line disappeared. 'According to one observer, the basis was a Gesammtvorstellung, a sort of all-embracing complex idea in which the parts have an indefinitely felt unity.'[3]
- ↑ See, on the subject of this sense of error, the article by Müller and Schumann, Experimentelle Beiträge zur Untersuchung des Gedäcthtnisses (Zeitschr. f. Psych. u. Phys. der Sinnesorgane (Dec, 1893, p. 305).
- ↑ W. G. Smith, The Relation of Attention to Memory. (Mind, Jan. 1895.)
- ↑ Ibid. loc. cit., p. 23.
