recitation is done I make the following memoranda: (1) The effect was rhythmical and pleasing. (2) The rhythm was anapæstic, i. e., "rising." (3) I feel that rhythmic effect is based upon the rather regular recurrence of strong accents or beats followed by unaccented syllables. (4) I find the rhythm somewhat broken. Now so far as observation (1) is concerned there can be no difficulty. That is the statement of the presence of a phenomenon. But the other observations are attempts to analyze the situation, and, while they have a certain value, the psychologist knows that they are subject to contradiction both by other observers and by the same observer under slightly different circumstances. Thus if I listen to the same person reading the same verses another day, (the reading being as nearly as possible the same as before), I may very likely say the meter is dactylic, very regular, and based on groups of sounds of about equal time value. Such contradictory statements arise, of course, out of the fact that observers are subject to a vast complex of emotional states and intellectual prejudices which make their uncontrolled observations extremely unreliable. Thus I hear the rhythm as dactylic when the verse affects me so as to stimulate me; I hear it as anapæstic when it depresses me. I notice and emphasize the stress or time factors according to my interest or prejudice in favor of one or another theory of versification. The rhythm is smooth or rough to me according to the degree, perhaps, in which I enter into the swing of the verse and make it my own; or perhaps the roughness is only the result of poor muscle tonus which prevents a good motor response. In any case such observations are not to be depended on because we have no assurance that they can ever be got again. In so far as unaided observation pretends to arrive at quantitative results its pretensions must fail because of lack of measurement. Scientific observations are valid quantitatively only so far as the accuracy of the measurement can be determined. My mere observation of the length of time a word takes in utterance or of the relative durations of the syllables composing the word gives no measure that can be relied upon. So far then as rhythm in verse depends upon quantitative factors (time and stress), uncontrolled observation gives no real means of determining those factors. Such a method must ultimately give way to one offering conditions of experimental control. Meanwhile it is often the only method at hand, and weak or fallacious as its determinations of fact often are it is not to be despised utterly. Mere observation and emotional reaction is the favorite procedure of the poet, and the study of verse is so close to poetry that it is not surprising to find this simple method persisting long after more exact methods have made their appearance. (b) Phonographic Repetition An advance is made beyond uncontrolled observations like those of Sweet or Lanier by using the phonograph record as repeated by the machine. I am not sure that the increased accessibility of the record (due to the fact that it can be repeated at will) any more. than compensates for the inevitable distortion of the mechanical reproduction. In this respect there is no evident advantage over a frequent repetition of the same verses by the reciter. The process of reducing the speed of the repeated record, while it affords time for more accurate reactions, can not make the analysis any more reliable. This method is open to the same objection that must be made to mere listening observation in any form. The disposition and rhythmical tendencies of the listener are not measurable and too much trust is put in the testimony of the ear. Even if more than one listener records results, though this excludes individual distortions, it can not give anything like an objectively valid measurement of the sounds uttered. The main fact so often observed and carefully examined that we construct rhythms in series which are objectively uniform and that our estimates of intensity and of time. duration are beset with illusions, ought to make us mistrust all observations where such possibilities of illusion enter in. (c) Tapping There is another method of recording speech stress which is closely allied to the graphic method in technique but psychologically quite unrelated to it. It may be called the semi-graphic, or better, the tapping method. It permits of the use of a drum and time record and gives a permanent and indisputable account of certain movements. In this respect it is better than bare listening. But it does not record speech rhythms. Taps or other voluntary muscular movements which are supposed to fall upon the arsis of a verse foot or upon any designated accent are marked on the drum by direct lever, by pneumatic transmission, or by electric connection. It may be true as Brücke" claims 2 Sweet, H., " History of English Sounds," 1888. Lanier, S., "The Science of English Verse," 1880. Wallin, Yale Studies, 9, 1904; Scripture, E. W., mental Phonetics," 1902. "Elements of Experi Either a signal magnet or the well-known "spark method" may be used. that such a movement is coordinate with the vocal stress and not subordinate to it. But his attempt at finding a constant error which might be eliminated was doomed to failure as has been abundantly shown by subsequent experiments in which this method was combined with the graphic under the most favorable conditions. Miyake found that the spark set off by a tap movement might be located at widely different points in the voice curve under different conditions. Experiments of my own both by the spark method and with a pneumatic device for recording the taps show the same irregularities. No constant error was observable, the taps preceding or following the syllable with which they belonged. This is to be expected with motor functions so little connected as those of speech and hand movements. In part the disparity found between a tapped and a voice. record is accounted for by the fact that we are in the habit of tapping out rhythms with the hand or by nodding the head, etc., without regard to other rhythmic impressions. Most people have such motor rhythm habits well developed, as is abundantly testified to by the common observation of people as they "drum with their fingers" abstractedly. Such a habit being well established it becomes difficult to institute a controlled rhythmic movement of the same muscles, for they tend to relapse into the habitual movement. The tapping rhythm under such circumstances is likely to go on without respect to the voice rhythm. At any rate it is not to be expected that it will adequately represent the latter. On the other hand the claim is justly mades that the tapped rhythm, which is remarkably regular and probably very nearly automatic, exercises a considerable control over vocal expression. The tapping thus becomes an objective control like an instrumental accompaniment and the proper voice rhythm is made unduly regular in obedience to this control, thereby losing its peculiar characteristics. Whether it is possible for a practised experimenter to avoid this difficulty by careful attention need not be discussed here. There is certainly no way of determining whether the internal coordination is regular in the first place, and still less is there any objective measure of the control exercised over the voice rhythm by the tapping movements. When the object, however, is to examine the mechanical scansion of verses the tapping method can not be objected to since extreme 1900. 'Miyake, Studies from the Yale Psychol. Laboratory, 10, 1902. Wallin, op. cit. 'Hurst and McKay, University of Toronto Studies. Psychol. Series, 1, regularity is a desideratum in mechanical scansion and beating time contributes directly to this end. I must confess, however, that I fail to see what is to be gained for the study of verse by an examination of strictly scanned rhythms. They do not represent any normal rhythmical phenomenon of speech. On the other hand they do not have the characteristics of freely tapped rhythms. The latter are highly significant in the study of rhythms and nothing which has been said above is intended as derogatory of the study of them.10 Such pure motor rhythms, devoid as they are of ideatonal content, come nearer perhaps than any other one set of phenomena to giving a reliable instance of pure rhythm." A rhythm, however, which is produced by a set of movements not directly concerned in the production of speech sounds has correspondingly no direct connection with the rhythm of those sounds. The two things are irrelevant to each other. And desirable as it is to know all about the different forms of rhythmical expression, those of the hand as well as those of the voice, nothing can be gained and all is risked by assuming that the one can be substituted for the other. (d) Reaction Methods Taps may be made by an observer in response to accents which he hears in a series of sounds. When such a procedure is adopted all the previous difficulties are complicated by the addition of those peculiar to the reaction time experiment. The most serious objection to the application of the reaction method in the case of a series of rhythmical sounds is that expectation enters in an extreme degree; and there is no way of discovering whether the observer is really reacting to what accents he hears or merely recording the beat of a rhythmical series of his own.12 When the sounds vary considerably in intensity and energy as they do in speech there is no way of ascertaining the effect of those variations upon the reaction time. The expectation is that the reaction time will be shorter for the more intense sounds13 but no very close correction can be made with the data at hand in such an experiment. The occurrence of the sounds being quite irregular and each preceding sound serving as a signal for the succeeding 10 McDougall, R., Psychol. Rev. Mon. Sup., Vol. IV. "Compare Meumann's discussion of the effect of content or meaning upon rhythms, Philos. Studien, 10, 393, 1894. 12 66 Compare, for instance, the anticipatory reactions in the ordinary complication experiment." "Froeberg, "The Relation of the Magnitude of Stimulus to the Time of Reaction," these Archives, No. 8, 1907. one complicates the situation very seriously and inevitably leads to great variability in the reaction times. 14 In point of fact this method when applied to actual verses is only a better form of the method of observation with which this kind of study began. In that it supplies an accurate measure of the variability of the observations it has certain advantages. But what it gains in mathematical accuracy it loses in psychological reliability through the interference of the observer's own rhythmical tendencies as an indeterminate factor.15 (e) Determination of Subjective Rhythms If, however, the object of an experimenter is to ascertain these very rhythmical tendencies of his subject he is abundantly justified in the use of a reaction method.16 It should be understood, however, at the outset that the determination of the subjective tendencies of a subject to rhythmize certain auditory or other sensations has little or nothing to do with a determination of that subject's rhythmic utterances or movements. This point has been too often lost sight of. Psychologically it makes all the difference whether I hear the supposedly similar ticks of a clock and group them into some such rhythmical order as tick-tock, tick-tock, or whether on the other hand, I amuse myself by repeating the words tick, tock in a rhythmical series. In the one case there is a very complicated perceptive or affective situation (psychologists differ in their analysis of it) where the observer groups certain discrete impressions into fresh units supplied by himself while he is all the while subject to illusions of time and accent which make him feel that the ticks he hears are unequal in force and separated by unequal intervals of time. That is the one case; perceptive or affective, or both, and difficult of analysis. In the other case I simply make certain movements which some one else or I myself call rhythmical. In this case all we need to do is to measure those movements. We do not have to enquire further how and why the movements give rise to a rhythmical impression. It is sufficient that they do so. To refuse to recognize the distinction here drawn is to ignore the division between deMcDougall, Psychol. Rev. Mon. Sup., Vol. IV., 393, 1903. 14 15 There is a distinct difference between this method-where the sound is heard and reacted to-and the tapping method, where two movements are coordinated. 16 Bolton, T. L., Amer. Jour. of Psychol., 6, 1893; Miner, Psychol. Rev. Mon. Sup., No. 21, 1903; Ebhardt, K., Ztschr. f. Psychol., 18, 1898; Bücker, Abh. d. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss., 17, 1896. |