SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 437 
extent, the psychogalvanic reflex, have been used as indicators. Some 
30,000 observations have been collected. 
Statistical analysis of the data shows that the method is competent to give 
a set of measurements characteristic of the personality studied, and that 
significant differences are observable in many cases between the normal 
medium and the trance personalities. It was at first believed that the dis- 
covery of such differences would support the claims to autonomy made by 
the personalities themselves, but control experiments on a normal person 
in two different ‘ poses ’ have shown that this is not the case. 
In two typical instances studied, the kind of personality usually styled a 
‘control’ has been found to be related to the normal personality in an 
inverse fashion (described as ‘ countersimilarity ’) such that there is a nega- 
tive correlation between the two sets of reaction times. 'This leads to the 
conclusion that such ‘ controls ’ are secondary personalities of the medium 
probably developed round a nucleus of repressed material, or perhaps 
representing a mood antithetic to the normal. 
This is not true of ‘ communicators ’ proper, which accordingly represent 
a different type of personality. Certain considerations regarding the 
association between reaction time and reproduction seem to indicate the 
influence of two components in these cases, which is not easily explicable 
in terms of existing theory. 
Friday, September 6. 
PRESIDENTIAL AppreEss by Dr. LL. WyNN Jones on Personality and Age 
(10.0). (See p. 157.) 
Prof. E. Rusin.—A problem of pictorial art arising from the psychological 
nature of vision (11.0). 
(1) It is a well-known fact that, in connection with different visual 
attitudes, one and the same outer object can condition visual perceptions 
which differ in a quite elementary way. Instances of this are demonstrated. 
(2) The left-to-right reading habit involves a special left-to-right visual 
attitude. This attitude can be shown to have a marked influence on the 
composition of pictures. Only in so far as the Japanese, with their vertical 
reading habit, acquire our left-to-right visual attitude or we acquire their 
vertical attitude do they understand our and we understand their paintings. 
(3) There are some experimental data which make it seem probable 
that the technique which the painter uses in making his pictures conditions 
some very special visual attitudes with elementary influences in his visual 
perceptions. ‘Therefore, there can be quite a difference between that which 
the painter, on account of his special visual attitudes, sees in—and wishes 
to be seen in—his pictures and that which the public sees in them. 
Prof. B. EDGELL.—Consideration of the immediate and delayed recall of 
four tasks differing in structure (12.0). 
The aim of these experiments was to see how the formal characteristics 
of a short task influenced its recall. The material used in two of the tasks 
consisted of five such clues as might be used in a crossword puzzle together 
with the solutions. In one case all the solutions involved a play upon 
words, in the other the solutions were all names of fish. In a third task the 
clues were given, but the solutions, all five-letter words, were indicated by 
the initial letter only. The material for the fourth task was a short passage 
