Psychological Review (Volume 10)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...have a definite time relation because in experience they do not fuse into a single whole, but stand out separate and distinct. We conclude, therefore, that the grounds on which our descriptions rest are not logical, but positively and unequivocally psychological. 2. Problems Connected with the Psychology of Perception.--Two facts stand out quite clearly in our study in its bearing upon perception. The first is that perception is a mental process, not an act; and the second that the perceptual content undergoes a growth before it can be accurately defined. These facts, which may be taken as the commonplaces of current psychology, are the starting points of further questions which are still open to further investigation. These questions, all of them, relate to what takes place immediately before, and during the time the mind is coming to, its final position. But before suggesting anything along this line it may be well to point out that while there is a stage in the perceptual process which, from its elementary character, precludes its immediately issuing in a judgment, and which, if it be arrested, nothing could be said concerning the nature of the object which the whole process is intended to determine; yet so far as the process, as process, is concerned it is no different from that which goes on in the further development which is engaged particularly in defining more accurately the relations of the parts within the total complex which is the terminal point of the entire process. If we wish to designate by a distinct terminology what we have above called perceptual process and perceptual product, we may describe the former as a mental intent and the latter as a mental content. This brings the whole series of changes under a single point of view, and enable...