Abstract
Senders has put forward a very relevant criticism of our experiments in so far as they are attempts to reproduce her findings. It is fair to say, however, that our primary interest was to discover whether the “Senders' effect” is a common one likely to turn up and confuse the results of any unwary research worker. This it would seem is now obviously not the case.
The apparently convincing argument, however, about the effect of fixation does not appear to hold. In February 1960 a simple experiment was carried out to test just this point. The equipment used was that described in Experiment 3 with repetition rate of 5.26 cps., except that:—
The fixation system was a sheet of glass reflecting an illuminated “cross” with the centre removed in which lay the rectangular grill, the subject being told to fixate the point where the centre of the cross should be. The open cross was used rather than crossed hairs or a point source as it was thought that these might interfere with the stimulus light at the point of fixation. A chin rest was used and the subject was fitted into a “skin diving mask” from which the face plate had been removed and replaced with a piece of wood with a hole opposite the left eye and the whole of the contraption was attached very firmly to a retort stand, which in turn was clamped to the bench. A cylindrical tube fitted into the hole in the mask and this again was attached to the bench via supports. Into the tube was let in the “fixation” glass reflector.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.