cxxxii Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



Direct Control of the Retinal Field. 



Professor Ladd under this title cites some noteworthy cases in 

 the July number of The Psychological Review. He himself is able 

 by attentively willing for perhaps some three to five minutes to cause 

 a cross, or a circle, or two concentric circles, or some other simple 

 figure, to appear in the retinal field. He also found upon addressing 

 the question, " Can the retinal sensations which arise with the eyes 

 closed and motionless be made to respond to volition with respect to 

 the form and color which they assume ? " to a class of sixteen ad- 

 vanced students in Psychology, that four reported no success, nine 

 had a partial success which seemed to increase with practice, and with 

 the remaining three the success was marked and really phenomenal. 

 He concludes that we have here an experimental demonstration of 

 the unique and inexplicable power of the volition of the ego to induce 

 changes in the cerebral centres and the connected organs of sense — 

 and in this case, apparently, without any use of the muscular system 

 to control the nature of those changes. 



Psychology of Touch. 1 



The first study was directed to the Education of the Skin with 

 the ^Esthesiometer and lead to positive results in line with those of 

 Volkmann. A second series of experiments was made on open and 

 filled space for touch using the method of Professor James, i. e., by 

 passing the finger along lines on paper which had been bisected, one 

 half having been roughened by punctures through the paper. The 

 tests, which were varied in many ways, led to the general result that 

 the closed space was judged the longer. The psychological conclu- 

 sion reached is " that if we have given two trains of sense-perception 

 produced in the mind in equal duration of time, the one which is 

 made up of the greater number of distinct sensations requires of the 

 mind a greater amount of space in its reference to the external world." 

 Then follows a very interesting study on Illusion for Weights, a Study 

 in Association and Apperception. Eight hollow brass weights were 

 made varying from i^ to 5 inches in length, which were each made 

 to weigh 132 grams by filling with different substances. To external 

 appearance they were exactly alike except in length. In the numer- 

 ous experiments on school children and adults the subjects were told 

 to "arrange them in order of their weight." In the majority of cases 



^ressler, F. B. Studies in the Psychology of Touch. Am. Jour, of Psy- 

 chology, VI, 3, June, 1894. 



