Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/506

IV. THE SPATIAL HARMONY OF TOUCH AND SIGHT. BY G. M. STBATTON. THE more recent investigation concerning touch and sight seems to indicate that the place in which any part of the body is persistently seen influences the localisation of the dermal and kindred sensations arising in that part. If one were to see his feet, for instance, in some direction different from their present visual position, he would in the end refer thither their kinsesthetic impressions also. This much, it seems to me, was implied in the results of my experiments on inverted vision, reported not long ago. 1 It has since occurred to me that the more general in- ference then drawn namely, that any position in the field of view could, under suitable conditions, be felt as identical with any tactual position whatever was not fully justified experimentally until one took into account a factor with which my experiments at that time were not concerned. For the conditions of the experiments were such that visual objects were thrown into new directions, while their apparent distances from the observer remained unchanged. Strictly speaking, then, the results showed how tactual localisation is affected by disturbance of the normal visual directions merely, and indicated that sensations of touch and movement may come to be referred to an entirely new direction in sight, but not necessarily to an entirely new distance as well. In other words, the experiments showed at most that a discord between touch and sight which was a mere matter of direction would necessarily be transitory ; but no direct evidence had been gained as to the possibility of harmonising these senses when the discord involved both direction and distance. An experiment was accordingly tried as to the effect of introducing this additional element. A mirror (AB in the 1 Psychological Review, vol. iii. (1896), p. 611, and iv. (1897), pp. 341, 463.