In my paper on • The Complication Experiment and Related Phenomena' 2 I stated my conclusion that the typical illusion of the so-called ' complication experiment' depends on a rhythmic reaction which the subject makes mechanically : that the result of this reaction (the tolerably clear vision of the pointer) seems to the subject to be synchronous with the sound or whatever discrete stimulus is used, but is really achieved previous to the said stimulus (giving negative error), or subsequent thereto (giving positive error), in all cases in which the typical error is found.Further work, with definite sorts of rhythmic reactions seems desirable, as I have already stated, 3 and the present paper is a report of a beginning in this work.The phenomena of the ' complication experiment' depend on an indirect attempt to synchronize reaction with stimulus. Indirect, because the subject is little, if at all, conscious through muscular or tactual sense of the reaction, but apprehends the result, i. e., the visual ' picking out' of the moving pointer and attempts to make this result synchronize with the rhythmically repeated stimulus. It would be possible to arrange an experiment with a definite rhythmic reaction (e. g., a finger movement) which should be controlled by the consciousness of its visual or auditory results; but it has seemed advisable to work first with attempts at direct synchronization (that is, of the stimulus with the tactual and muscular content of the reaction consciousness). So far as I can see now, either method is equally good; for the difference between what I here designate as ' direct' and ' indirect' is after all a matter of degree. Actual comparison of the two methods will however be made later.

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Catching up with the world. Collier's, January 15, 1927. Dodge has expressed in conversation the same opinion regarding the pigeon. Mickesh's opinion that other domestic fowls show the same phenomenon does not hold for ducks and geese.

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In August of 1895 I entered the University of California with a maximal outfit of failures and conditions in entrance subjects. Why I was let in at all is still a puzzle to me, as my preparation was mostly lacking. I had attended the usual district school, in which thirty or more pupils were instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history (and sometimes bookkeeping), by one teacher. There was, however, one study by which I profited immensely: "Word Analysis," using Swinton's text. I suspect that from this book I received an impetus towards exact usage of words and precise thinking, and the roots of an impatience (which still grows) with messy thinking which proceeds from the nebulous use of terms. Fortunately, the school year was seldom more than six months in length. Having exhausted the local possibilities, I had attended a newly organized "high school" in the county seat, riding a horse daily from the ranch. This alleged high school was presided over by an amiable ex-Wells-Fargo express messenger, who, finding his travelling occupation was ruining his kidneys, took to the easier occupation of teaching. There were about forty of us in the single room of this "high school," in which the Principal was the whole of the teaching staff. What we of the upper age group studied in to to was negligible, except for algebra and plane geometry. Our instructor knew no more of these subjects than we did, but we were interested in them, and dug something out of them.To enter the university, I took entrance examinations in most of the subjects required for admission to the only division it was possible for me to squeeze into (social science): I flunked several, including algebra, but passed in the elementary English. (The examination bore down heavily on the "Cotters' Saturday Night," which I had read, for the first time, the night before.) My freshman year was therefore burdened with the need of "making up" deficiencies; I spent my Saturday afternoons with a Latin tutor, to whom I owe much.Naturally, I had little idea of what I was preparing for, but I hoped to get a teacher's certificate as an anchor to windward, so it was necessary, under the regulations, for me to take two courses in pedagogy.