igoS] OF SUBLIMINALLY COLORED STIMULI. 375 



20 sec. : we did not once, in the course of the principal experiments, 

 obtain a record of color in the after-image. Sometimes the after- 

 image failed to appear at all ; more often it appeared, and obstmately 

 remained, as gray. 



The duration of a single observation varied between the limits of 2 min. 

 30 sec. and 5 min. ; most of the exposure;s were about 3 min. The number 

 of taps varied from to 7; the average for all observers was 4. The color 

 was thus much more insistent than in Exp. IL — partly, no doubt, because the 

 range of possible movement was only about one-third of that allowed by the 

 Marbe mixer. In the control experiments, T and P obtained the colored 

 after-image fairly easily ; G, N and B often failed to secure it. 



Experiment V.: Colored Papers. — These observations were also 

 made in the dark-room and with dark-adaptation. A number of 

 Milton-Bradley colored papers, 4 by 8 cm., were pasted upon white, 

 neutral gray and black grounds. The Hering wdndow was so ad- 

 justed that, for the experimenter, the color of the particular paper 

 exposed was just subliminal. The observers {T, P, G, A^ and occa- 

 sionally B) fixated the colored strip at a distance of i m. for 40 

 sec, and projected the after-image upon a white, neutral gray or 

 black surface. All possible combinations of stimulus-ground and 

 projection-ground w^ere employed. 



The observer was instructed to report the quality of the stimulus 

 as it appeared at first fixation, and to mention any qualitative change 

 that it might undergo in the course of an observation. In most 

 cases the color was subliminal ; and the subliminally colored stimulus 

 never gave a colored after-image. In the cases in which the color 

 of the strip was seen, the after-image was sometimes colored, some- 

 times gray. 



The direct judgment of color under these conditions is extremely 

 difficult, and the observer is sorely tempted to avail himself of 

 secondary criteria — brightness, velvetiness, depth, shimmer, etc. An 

 observer of the objective type soon learns, however, to distinguish 

 between vision and imagination : " I can see nothing," he will say, 

 " but I should guess that it is red " or what not. The guesses were 

 confined — probably from the analogy of the immediately preced- 

 ing Exp. III.— to the four colors R, Y, G, B ; and, as we had the 

 full set of Milton-Bradley papers at our disposal, they were more 



