Here, too, every element may be isolated and may be brought
under psychotechnical rules. The most external question would refer to
the mere quantity of the presented material. The psychologist would
ask how the mere mass of the offering influences the attention, how
far the feeling of pleasure in the fullness, how far the aesthetic
impression of repetition, how far the associative thought of a
manifold selection, how far the mere spatial expansion, affects the
impression. In any case, as soon as it is acknowledged as desirable to
produce with certain objects the impression of the greatest possible
number, the experimental psychologist stands before the concrete
problem of how a manifoldness of things is to be distributed so that
it will not be underestimated, perhaps even overestimated as to
quantity. Again, the laboratory experiment would not proceed with real
window displays or real exhibitions, but would work out the principle
with the simplified experimental means.
An investigation in the Harvard laboratory, for instance, tested the
influence which various factors have upon the estimation of a number
of objects seen.[52] The question was how far the form or the size or
the distribution makes a group of objects appear larger or smaller.
The experiment was started by showing 20 small cards on a black
background in comparison with another group of cards the number of
which varied between 17 and 23.
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