RECORDS OF MEETINGS OF 1906 301 



partly on a preference for small masses in the centre surrounded by large 

 masses, and partly on a preference for brightness surrounded by darkness. 

 The results could, however, be reversed by certain accessory figures. The 

 preference for a certain arrangement of colors did not depend on a pref- 

 erence for single colors ; the latter preference was also studied, with the re- 

 sult that different colors were preferred according as the background was 

 light or dark; on the whole the order of preference was red, blue, green 

 and yellow. The preferred combinations were red and green, yellow and 

 blue. 



Professor Pierce, in his paper described an interesting case of a new 

 form of synesthesia. The subject is a young lady, now a college senior, 

 and it is important to note that she has a slight and variable deafness and 

 apparently complete anosmia. She experiences gustatory and other mouth 

 qualities on the hearing of words. Each word feels as if some article of 

 food were in the mouth and giving the complex of buccal sensations which 

 its actual presence would arouse. The gustatory equivalents are perma- 

 nent, being found the same after a lapse of six months. It has been im- 

 possible to detect any system in the equivalencies, as the same sound, such 

 as a labial, produces very different gustatory feelings. There is more 

 agreement in regard to the vowels. Inarticulate sounds, excepting the 

 high notes of the piano, do not give gustatory experiences. Some facts 

 which point to the case being one of true synesthesia rather than of asso- 

 ciated imagery, are: that the experience comes unsought; that it often 

 precedes the name of the substance tasted, the name being found only after 

 search ; that some of the experiences are sharply located and located right, 

 according to the position of the corresponding end organs; and that when 

 in doubt the subject often presses the cheeks inward to strengthen the im- 

 pression. The case and its interpretation were discussed at some length 

 at the meeting. 



Dr. Carr presented the results of experimental work on the pendular 

 whip-lash illusion of movement. This illusion has been interpreted by 

 Dodge as depending on the non-perception of movement in an object which 

 is perfectly followed by the eyes, and consequently as indicating that the 

 feelings of eye movement do not furnish the basis for the perception of 

 movement. Dr. Carr's measurements show that the object followed by 

 the eyes is seen to move till nearly the end of its swing, and that the illusory 

 appearance of motion in the swinging object which is not regarded, after 

 the object which is regarded has apparently come to rest, is due to the 

 progressive disappearance of the after-image streak. An opposite and 

 very curious illusion can be produced by placing both objects on the same 

 arm of the pendulum and regarding the object whose swing is the longest. 



