1897.) Psychotogy. 87 
inversion? There have been attempts to explain the situation in two 
different ways; either on one of the theories mentioned above, which 
assume the subjective space-scheme to be something absolute and rigid, 
and which postulate a cortical or projective re-inversion of the visual 
figure to conform with the uninverted tactile figure; or else by suppos- 
ing the space-scheme plastic, so that it is capable of being determined, 
or at least “oriented,” by experience. According to the latter view 
the visual and tactile “spaces” are not necessarily the same in origin; 
they have come to coincide only through habitual association. 
Dr. G. M. Stratton, of the University of California, reported at the 
recent Psychological Congress at Munich an experiment of his own, 
which was, so far as it went, a crucial test between these two lines of 
theory. The details have since been published in the Psychological Re- 
view, (Vol. III, pp. 611-617), from which I quote. By means of a 
pair of convex lenses, he succeeded in inverting the field of vision with- 
out otherwise altering its relations. The effect of this contrivance, 
when placed to the eye, was to give a re-inverted (or upright) retinal 
image. For the experiment, the apparatus was bound to the face in 
such a way as to exclude from the right eye all light except that pass- 
ing through both lenses, and the visual field of the other eye was dark- 
ened. The observer wore the apparatus constantly for two days, 
except at night, when his eyes were carefully bandaged; so that dur- 
‘ing all this time he saw only the inverted field of vision. 
“ The course of experience,” says the author, in reporting the results, 
“ was something as follows: All images at first appeared to be in- 
verted ; the room and all in it seemed upside down. The hands when 
stretched out from below into the visual field seemed to enter from 
above. Yet although all these images were clear and definite, they did 
not at first seem to be real things, like the things we see in normal 
vision, but they seemed to be misplaced, false, or illusory images between 
the observer and the objects or things themselves. For the memory- 
images brought over from normal vision still continued to be the stand- 
ard and criterion of reality. The present perceptions were for some 
time translated involuntarily into the language of normal vision; the 
present visual perceptions were used simply as signs to determine how 
and where the object would appear if it could be seen with restored nor- 
mal vision. Things were thus seen in one way and thought of in a far 
different way. This held true also of my body. * 
“ As I moved about in the room, the movement of the visual images 
of my hands or feet were at first not used, as in normal vision, to decide 
what tactual sensations were to be expected. Knocks against things 
