Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

49´´ Dirty Red 3´ 27´´ 1´ 23´´ Blue 5´ 43´´ 4´ 17´´ Brown 4´ 55´´ 1´ 23´´ Light Blue 2´ 17´´ 1´ 23´´ Orange 1´   8´´ 0´ 39´´ Gray 4´ 17´´ 1´ 23´´ Rose 2´ 18´´ 3´ 49´´ Yellow 3´ 27´´ 0´ 39´´

It is interesting to notice that the angle for blue on a white background is almost nine times that for white, orange, or yellow on a black background. In cases where colors are of importance, therefore, it will be necessary to discover the color and the nature of its background before the accuracy of the witness can be established.

3. It is well known that in the diminution of brightnesses red disappears before blue, and that at night, when all colors have disappeared, the blue of heaven is still visible. So if anybody asserts that he has been able to see the blue of a man’s coat but not his red-brown trousers, his statement is possibly true, while the converse would be untrue. But there are no reliable or consonant accounts of the order in which colors disappear in increasing darkness. The knowledge of this order would help a great deal in the administration of criminal justice.

4. The retina will not see red at the periphery, because there are no red rods there. A stick of red sealing wax drawn across the eye from right to left, appears at the periphery of the visual field to be black. If, then, a witness has not looked right at a definitely red object, and has seen it askance, he has certainly not observed its color. The experiment may be made by anybody.

5. According to Quantz[181] objects in less refractable colors (red, orange, yellow, and purple) look 0.2 to 3.6% bigger against white, while blue, blue-green, and violet objects appear from 0.2 to 2.2% smaller. Dark and long-lined objects seem longer; bright and horizontal seem wider. And these facts are significant when witnesses judge of size.

6. If colors are observed through small openings, especially through very small holes, the nuances become essentially different and green may even seem colorless.

7. According to Aubert, sparkle consists of the fact that one point in a body is very bright while the brightness diminishes almost absolutely from that point; e.g., a glancing wire has a very narrow bright line with deep shadows on each side; a ball of mercury in a thermometer, a shining point and then deep shadow. When we see this we say it sparkles because we unite it with a number of similar observations. It is therefore conceivable that at a great distance, under conditions of sharp or accidental illuminations, etc., we are likely to see things as sparkling which do not do so in the least. With the concept “sparkling,” moreover, we tend to unite, at least under certain circumstances, definite images, and hence “glancing weapons” are often seen in places where there were only quite harmless dull objects. So also coins are seen to sparkle where really there are none.

Section 39. (3) The Blind Spot.

Everybody knows what the blind spot is, and every psychology and physiology text-book talks about it. But as a rule it is identified only with the little point and the tiny cross pictured in the text-books, and it is supposed that it does not much matter if the little cross, under certain circumstances, can not be seen. But it must not be forgotten that the size of the blind spot increases with the distance so that at a fairly great distance, possibly half the length of a room, the blind spot becomes so great that a man’s head may disappear from the field of vision. According to Helmholtz: “The effect of the blind spot is very significant. If we make a little cross on a piece of paper and then a spot the size of a pea two inches to the right, and if we look at the cross with the left eye closed, the spot disappears. The size of the blind spot is large enough to cover in the heavens a plate which has twelve times the diameter of the moon. It may cover a human face at a distance of 6´, but we do not observe this because we generally fill out the void. If we see a line in the place in question, we see it unbroken, because we know it to be so, and therefore supply the missing part.”

A number of experiments have been made with more or less success to explain the blind spot. It is enough for us to agree that we see habitually with both eyes and that the “spot as big as a pea” disappears only when we look at the cross. But when we fix our eyes on anything we pay attention to that only and to nothing else. And it is indifferent to us if an uninteresting object disappears, so that the moment we begin to care about the “spot as large as a pea,” it is immediately to hand and needs no imaginative completion. If it be objected that fixing with the eyes and being interested are not identical, we reply that a distinction is made only in experiment. You fix one point and are interested in the other because you expect it to disappear. And this experiment, as anybody will immediately recognize, has its peculiar difficulty, because it requires much concentration not to look at the point which interests us. This never happens in the daily life, and it will not be easy to fix a point which is not interesting.

At the same time there are conceivable cases in which objects seen askance may be of importance, and where the visual fixation of a single point will not reveal every reflection that fell on the blind spot. I have not met with a practical case in which some fact or testimony could be explained only by the blind spot, but such cases are conceivable.

Section 40. (c) The Sense of Hearing.

We have two problems with regard to sound—whether the witnesses have heard correctly, and whether we hear them correctly. Between both witnesses and ourselves there are again other factors. Correct comprehension, faithful memory, the activity of the imagination, the variety of influences, the degree of personal integrity; but most important is the consideration, whether the witness has heard correctly. As a general thing we must deny in most cases completely accurate reproduction of what witnesses have heard. In this connection dealing with questions of honor is instructive. If the question is the recall of slander the terms of it will be as various as the number of witnesses. We discover that the sense, the tendency of slander is not easily mistaken. At least if it is, I have not observed it. The witness, e.g., will confuse the words “scamp,” “cheat,” “swindler,” etc., and again the words: “ox,” “donkey,” “numbskull,” etc. But he will not say that he has heard “scamp” where what was said was “donkey.” He simply has observed that A has insulted B with an epithet of moral turpitude or of stupidity and under examination he inserts an appropriate term. Often people hear only according to meanings and hence the difficulty of getting them to reproduce verbally and directly something said by a third person. They always engage upon indirect narration because they have heard only the meaning, not the words. Memory has nothing to do with this matter, for when in examination, a witness is requested to reproduce directly what he has just heard, he will reproduce no more than the sense, not the words. Not to do so requires an unusual degree of intelligence and training.

Now if the witnesses only reproduced the actual meaning of what they heard, no harm would be done, but they tell us only what they suppose to be the meaning, and hence we get a good many mistakes. It does seem as if uneducated and half-educated people are able to shut their ears to all things they do not understand. Even purely sensory perception is organized according to intelligent capacity.

If this is kept in mind it will be possible correctly to interpret testimonies in those difficult instances in which one man narrates what he has heard from another concerning his own statement, and where it might be quite impossible to judge the nature and culture of this third person. There are a few other conditions to consider besides.

If we have to discover a person’s hearing power or his hearing power under definite conditions, it is best never to depend, in even slightly important cases, on vocal tests merely. The examination must be made by experts, and if the case is really subtle it must be made under the same circumstances of place and condition, and with the same people as in the original situation. Otherwise nothing certain can be learned.

The determination of auditory power is, however, insufficient, for this power varies with the degree any individual can distinguish a single definite tone among many, hear it alone, and retain it. And this varies not only with the individual but also with the time, the place, the voice, etc. In my bed-room, e.g., and in three neighboring rooms I have wall-clocks each of which is running. The doors of the room are open right and left. At night when everything is quiet, I can sometimes hear the ticking of each one of these clocks; immediately isolate one completely and listen to that so that the ticking of the other three completely disappears. Then again I may kindly command myself not to hear this ticking, but to hear one of the other three, and I do so, though I fail to hear two clocks together at just the same instant. On another day under similar circumstances I completely fail in this attempt. Either I hear none of the clocks in particular, or only for a short time, which results in the ticking’s being again lost in the general noise; or I do hear the ticking of one clock, but never of that which I have chosen to hear.

This incident is variously explicable and the experiment may be repeated with various persons. It indicates that auditory capacity is exceedingly differentiated and that there is no justification for aprioristic doubt of especial powers. It is, however, admittedly difficult to say how experiments can be made under control.

There are still a few more marvels. It is repeatedly asserted, e.g., by Tyndall, that a comparatively large number of people do not hear high tones like the chirping of crickets, although the normal hearing of such people is acute. Others again easily sense deep tones but distinguish them with difficulty because they retain only a roll or roar, but do not hear the individual tones.[182] And generally, almost all people have difficulty in making a correct valuation of the direction of sound. Wundt says that we locate powerful sounds in front of us and are generally better able to judge right and left than before and behind.[183] These data, which are for us quite important, have been subjected to many tests. Wundt’s statement has been confirmed by various experiments which have shown that sound to the right and the left are best distinguished, and sounds in front and below, in front to the right and to the left, and below, to the right and to the left, are least easily distinguished. Among the experimenters were Preyer, Arnheim, Kries, Münsterberg.

All these experiments indicate certain constant tendencies to definite mistakes. Sounds in front are often mistaken for sounds behind and felt to be higher than their natural head-level. Again, it is generally asserted that binaural hearing is of great importance for the recognition of the direction of sound. With one ear this recognition is much more difficult. This may be verified by the fact that we turn our heads here and there as though