RECORDS 41 



Mr. J. B. Miner spoke on " Involuntary Muscular Responses 

 to Rhythmic Stimuli." He described some experiments con- 

 ducted by himself at Columbia and Minnesota universities, in 

 which tracings were obtained for non-voluntaiy hand and head 

 movements when the subjects listened to a series of uniform 

 sounds. It has been noted by Thaddeus L. Bolton and others 

 in their investigation of rhythm that such a series of sounds ap- 

 pears not uniform, but as if coming in groups of two or more 

 sounds. The muscle responses obtained correspond with this 

 perception of rhythm, one wave coinciding with each rhythmic 

 group. The movements recorded strikingly agree with another 

 phenomenon of rhythm in that a motor wave shows for each 

 stimulus when the sounds came slowly (forty per minute), but 

 when the rapidity of the sounds was increased the wave encom- 

 passed two, three and even four sounds. This agrees with the 

 introspective observation that the subjective group includes 

 more units as the sounds come more rapidly. On the basis of 



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the data of muscular responses Mr. Miner believes that an ad- 

 equate physiological explanation of rhythm may be formulated, 

 while organic rhythms alone would not furnish a completely 

 correlated activity. 



Dr. Clark Wissler reported some ergograph experiments 

 showing that the contracting muscle presents a power series 

 which is constant, whether the resistance is applied by a spring 

 or by a weight. While this power series is weakened by fatigue, 

 the resistance value of any point in the muscle series is the same 

 for a weight or for a spring. In other words, there appears no 

 difference between the fatigue produced by weights and springs 

 when estimated in terms of the muscle series. 



R. S. WOODWORTH, 



Secretary. 

 BUSINESS MEETING. 

 March 3, 1902. 



Academy met at 8:25 P. M., Professor Hallock presiding. 

 The minutes of the last business meeting were read and 

 approved. 



