Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students Part 32

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All who have described this remarkable subject have attempted to explain it. The possession of such an explanation might put

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us in a position to account for a large number of practical difficulties. But certain as the facts are, we are still far from their *why and *how. We may believe that the phenomenon shown in Figs. 1 and 2 appears when the boundaries of a field come straight up to a street with parallel sides, with the result that at the point of meeting the street seems to be bent in. Probably we have observed this frequently without being aware of it, and have laid no particular stress on it, first of all, because it was really unimportant, and secondly, because we thought that the street was really not straight at that point.

In a like manner we may have seen the effect of angles as shown in Figs. 5 and 6 on streets where houses or house-fronts were built cornerwise. Then the line between the corners seemed longer or shorter, and as we had no reason for seeking an accurate judgment

we paid no attention to its status. We simply should have made a false estimate of length if we had been required to judge it. It is also likely that we may have supposed an actual or suppository line on the side of the gables of a house enclosed by angles of the gables, to be short,-but until now the knowledge of this supposition has had no practical value. Nevertheless, the significance of these illusions should not be underestimated. They mean most of all the fact that we really can be much deceived, even to the degree of swearing to the size of a simple thing and yet being quite innocently mistaken. This possibility shows, moreover, that the certainty of our judgment according to sensible standards is inadequate and we have no way of determining how great this inadequacy is. We have already indicated that we know only the examples cited by Zllner, Delboeuf and others. It is probable that they were hit upon by accident and that similar ones can not be discovered empirically or intentionally. Hence, it may be a.s.sumed that such illusions occur in great number and even in large dimensions. For example, it is known that Thompson discovered his familiar "optical circle illusion" (six circles arranged in a circle, another in the middle. Each possesses bent radii which turn individually if the whole drawing is itself turned in a circle) by the accident of having seen the geometrical ornament drawn by a pupil. Whoever deals with such optical illusions may see very remarkable ones in almost every sample of ladies' clothes, particularly percale, and also in types of carpets and furniture. And these are too complicated to be described. In the course of time another collection of such illusions will be discovered and an explanation of them will be forthcoming, and then it may be possible to determine how our knowledge of their existence can be turned to practical use.

Practical application is easier in the so-called inversion of the visual object. Fig. 7 shows the simplest case of it-the possibility of seeing the middle vertical line as either deeper or higher than the others. In the first instance you have before you a gutter,

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in the second a room. Similar relations are to be observed in the case of a cube in which the corner a may be seen as either convex or concave according as

you think it behind or before the background of the angles from which a proceeds. It is still clearer when, in a rhomboid, the line XY is drawn. Then x or y may be seen alternately as nearer or further and the figure can thereby be brought into a different position. (Fig. 9.) Done once it may be repeated voluntarily.

There are many practical examples of these illusions. Sinsteden saw one evening the silhouette of a windmill against a luminous background. The arms seemed now

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to go to the right, now to the left-clearly because he did not make out the body of the mill and might equally a.s.sume that he saw it from the front or from the rear, the wheels going toward the right in the first, and toward the left in the other case. An a.n.a.logous case is cited by Bernstein. If (Fig. 10) the cross made of the thin lines stand for the bars of a weather vane and the heavy lines represent the weather vane itself, it may be impossible under the conditions of illumination for an eye looking from N to distinguish whether the weather vane points NE or SW; there is no way of determining the starting point of motion. All that can certainly be said is that the weather vane lies between NE and SW and that

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its angle is at the crossing of the two lines, but the direction in which its heads point can not be determined at even a slight distance. Both forms of this illusion may occur in a criminal trial. If once a definite idea of some form of order has been gained, it is not abandoned or doubted, and is even sworn to. If asked, for example, whether the mill-wheel moved right or left, the observer will consider hardly one time in a hundred whether there might not have been an optical illusion. He will simply a.s.sure

us that the thing was as he thinks he saw it, and whether he saw it correctly is purely a matter of luck.

To all these illusions may be added those which are connected with movement or are exposed by movement. During the movement of certain bodies we can distinguish their form only under definite conditions. As their movement increases they seem shorter in the direction of movement and as it decreases they seem broader than normally. An express train with many cars seems shorter when moving directly near us, and rows of marching men seem longer. The illusion is most powerful when we look through a stationary small opening. The same thing occurs when we move quickly past bodies, for this makes them seem very short as we go by.

Of such cases sense-illusion does not const.i.tute an adequate explanation; it must be supplemented by a consideration of certain inferences which are, in most instances, comparatively complex.[1] We know, e. g., that objects which appear to us unexpectedly at night, particularly on dark, cloudy nights, seem inordinately magnified. The process is here an exceedingly complex one. Suppose I see, some cloudy night, unexpectedly close to me a horse whose environment, because of the fog, appears indistinct. Now I know from experience that objects which appear from indistinct environments are as a rule considerably distant. I know, further, that considerably distant objects seem much smaller, and hence I must a.s.sume that the horse, which in spite of its imaginary distance appears to retain its natural size, is really larger than it is. The train of thought is as follows: "I see the horse indistinctly. It seems to be far away. It is, in spite of its distance, of great size. How enormous it must be when it is close to me!" Of course these inferences are neither slow nor conscious. They occur in reflection with lightning-like swiftness and make no difference to the certainty of the instantaneous judgment. Hence it is frequently very difficult to discover the process and the mistake it contains.

[1] W. Larden: Optical Illusion. Nature LXIII, 372 (1901).

If, however, the observer finds an inexplicable hiatus in an event he happens to notice, he finds it strange because unintelligible. In this way is created that notion of strangeness which often plays so great a rle in the examination of witnesses. Hence when under otherwise uncomfortable conditions, I see a horse run without hearing the beat of his hoofs, when I see trees sway without feeling any storm; when I meet a man who, in spite of the moonlight, has no shadow, I feel them to be very strange because something is lacking

in their logical development as events. Now, from the moment a thing becomes strange to an individual his perceptions are no longer reliable, it is doubtful whether he knows what he has really experienced before his world became strange to him. Add to this that few people are unwilling to confess that they felt ill at ease, that perhaps they do not even know it,[1] and you get the complicated subst.i.tution of sensory illusions and uncanny sensation, the one causing the other, the other magnifying the one, and so on until the whole affair is turned into something quite unrecognizable. So we find ourselves in the presence of one of the inexplicable situations of the reality of which we are a.s.sured by the most trustworthy individuals.

[1] H. Gross: Lehrbuch fr den Ausforschungsdienst der Gendarmerie.

To magnify this phenomenon, we need only think of a few slightly abnormal cases. It has already been indicated that there are many such which are not diseased, and further, that many diseased cases occur which are not known as such, at least, as being so much so as to make the judge call in the doctor. This is the more likely because there are frequently, if I may say so, localized diseases which do not exhibit any extraordinary symptoms, at least to laymen, and hence offer no reason for calling in experts. If we set aside all real diseases which are connected with optical illusions as not concerning us, there are still left instances enough. For example, any medical text-book will tell you that morphine fiends and victims of the cocaine habit have very strong tendencies to optical illusions and are often tortured by them. If the disease is sufficiently advanced, such subjects will be recognized by the physician at a single glance. But the layman can not make this immediate diagnosis. He will get the impression that he is dealing with a very nervous invalid, but not with one who is subject to optical illusions. So, we rarely hear from a witness that he knows such people, and certainly not that he is one himself. A very notable oculist, Himly, was the first to have made the observation that in the diseased excitability of the retina every color is a tone higher. Luminous black looks blue, blue looks violet, violet looks red, red looks yellow. Torpor of the retina inverts the subst.i.tution.

Dietz[2] tells of color-illusions following upon insignificant indigestion; Foder of hysterics who see everything reversed, and Hoppe[3] says, "If the order of the rods and cones of the retina is somewhat disturbed by an inflammatory touch, the equilibrium of vision is

[2] ber die Quelle der Sinnestr Seelenkunde VIII.

[3] Erkl

altered and changes in size, in form, or appearance occur." Naturally the criminalist can not perceive slight indigestion, weak hysteria, or an inflamed area in the retina when he is examining witnesses, yet false observations like those described may have a definite influence upon the decision in a case.

If such abnormal occasions are lacking the reasons for optical illusions are of another nature. As a rule optical illusions occur when there is an interruption in the communication between the retina, the sense of movement, and the sense of touch, or when we are prevented from reducing the changes of the retinal image to the movement of our body or of our eyes. This reduction goes on so unconsciously that we see the idea of the object and its condition as a unit. Again, it is indubitable that the movement of the body seems quicker when we observe it with a fixed glance than when we follow it with our eyes. The difference may be so significant that it is often worth while, when much depends on determining the speed of some act in a criminal case, to ask how the thing was looked at.

Fechner has made a far-reaching examination of the old familiar fact that things on the ground appear to run when we ride by them rapidly.[1] This fact may be compared with the other, that when you look directly into swift-moving water from a low bridge, the latter seems all of a sudden to be swimming rapidly up stream, though the water does not appear to stand still. Here some unknown factor is at work and may exercise considerable influence on many other phenomena without our being able to observe the results. To this cla.s.s may be added the extraordinary phenomenon that from the train objects easily seem too near and hence appear smaller than they are. It may be, however, that the converse is true and objects appear smaller, or at least shorter, and that inasmuch as we are in the habit of attributing the diminution of size in objects to their distance, we tax the latter as false. So much is certain-that whenever we ourselves move quickly we make false judgments of size, distance, and even color. The last may be due to the fact that during a quick pa.s.sage, colors may so compose themselves, that green and red become white, and blue and yellow, green, etc. I believe that all these illusions are increasing in connection with the spread of bicycling, inasmuch as many observations are made from the fleeting wheel and its motion tends to increase the illusions considerably. Concerning the differences in movement Stricker[2]

[1] Elemente die Psychophysik. Leipzig 1889.

[2] Studien ber die Sprachvorstellung. Vienna 1880.

says: "If I lie on my back and see a bird fly in the uniformly blue heaven, I recognize the movement although I have no object with which to compare it. This can not be explained by the variety of points on the retina which are affected, for when the bird pauses and I turn my eye, I know that it is not moving." The last argument is not correct. If the bird is sitting on a branch I know, in spite of all my occipital movement, that it is quiet, but only because I perceive and observe the bird's immobility. If, however, I lie on my back like Stricker and see above me a bird of the cla.s.s that, so to speak, swim motionless in the air for minutes at a time, and if then I turn my head, I can not tell when the bird begins to move. Here then we have no exception to the general rule and can always say that we are speaking of movement optically perceived when the rays issuing from any body progressively touch various points on the retina. And since this occurs when we are in motion as well as when the object is in motion it happens that we can not locate the movement, we cannot say whether it be in us or in the object.

Of course, the possibility that fanciful images may appear during movement is familiar. If I sit quietly in the forest and at some distance see a stone or a piece of wood or a little heap of dried leaves, etc., it may be that, because of some illusion, I take it to be a rolled up hedgehog, and it may happen that I am so convinced of the nature of the object while I am looking at it that I see how the hedgehog stretches itself, sticks out its paws and makes other movements. I remember one winter when, because of some delay, a commission on which I was serving had failed to reach a village not far from the capital. We had gone to investigate a murder case and had found the body frozen stiff. The oven in the room was heated and the grave-digger placed the stiff body near the oven in order to thaw it out. We at this time were examining the place. After a while I was instructed by the examining justice to see about the condition of the corpse, and much to my disgust, I found it sitting near the oven, bent over. It had thawed out and collapsed. During the subsequent obduction I saw most clearly how the corpse made all kinds of movements, and even after the section, during the dictation of the protocol, my imagination still seemed to see the corpse moving a hand or a foot.

The imagination may also cause changes in color. Once, I saw on my desk, which stood next to a window, a great round drop of water on the left side of which the panes of the window were reflected. (Fig. 11). The whole business was about a meter

from my eye. I saw it repeatedly while working and it finally occurred to me to inquire how such a great drop of water could get there. I had sat at my desk for hours without moving. I must have observed it if it had dropped there. Refraining intentionally from going closer, I started, without avail, to consider how it could have

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come. Some time after I examined the drop of water FIG. 11. and found it to be an ink-blot, long ago completely dried, and bearing on its left side a few grains of white cigar ash. I had taken these to be the image of the window, and hence, had immediately attached to it the idea of the shining, raised drop of water. I had altogether overlooked the deep black color of the drop. On the witness stand I would have sworn that I had seen a drop of water, even if I had known the evidence on the matter to be important.

In many cases it is possible to control the imagination, but only when it is known that the images can not be as they are seen. Everybody is aware how a half-covered object at a distance, or objects accidentally grouped in one way or another, are taken for G.o.d knows what. Thus once, looking from my desk to my smoking table, I saw an enormous pair of tailor's scissors half-covered by a letter. It remained identical under a number of repeated glances. Only when I thought vigorously that such a thing could not possibly be in my room did it disappear. A few scales of ashes, the lower round of the match safe, the metal tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of two cigar boxes half- covered by a letter and reflected by the uncertain light breaking through the branches of a tree, were all that the tailor's scissors was composed of. If there had been such a thing in the house, or if I had believed something like it to exist in the house, I should have sought no further and should have taken my oath that I had seen the thing. It is significant that from the moment I understood the phenomenon I could not restore the image of the scissors. How often may similar things be of importance in criminal trials!

The so-called captivation of our visual capacity plays a not unimportant part in distinguishing correct from illusory seeing. In order to see correctly we must look straight and fully at the object. Looking askance gives only an approximate image, and permits the imagination free play. Anybody lost in a brown study who pictures some point in the room across the way with his eyes can easily mistake a fly, which he sees confusedly askance, for a great big bird. Again, the type of a book seems definitely smaller if the eyes are fixed on the point of a lead pencil with a certain distance

before or above the book. And yet again, if you stand so that at an angle of about 90 degrees from the fixation point, you look at a white door in a dark wall, observing its extent in indirect vision, you will find it much higher than in direct vision.

These examples indicate how indirect vision may be corrected by later correct vision, but such correction occurs rarely. We see something indirectly; we find it uninteresting, and do not look at it directly. When it becomes of importance later on, perhaps enters into a criminal case, we think that we have seen the thing as it is, and often swear that "a fly is a big bird."

There are a number of accidents which tend to complete illusion. Suppose that the vision of a fly, which has been seen indirectly and taken for a big bird happens to be synchronous with the shriek of some bird of prey. I combine the two and am convinced that I have seen that bird of prey. This may increase, so much so that we may have series of sense-illusions. I cite the example of the decorative theatrical artist, who can make the most beautiful images with a few, but very characteristic blots. He does it by emphazising what seems to us characteristic, e. g., of a rose arbor, in such a way that at the distance and under the conditions of illumination of the theatre we imagine we really see a pretty rose arbor. If the scene painter could give definite rules he would help us lawyers a great deal. But he has none, he proceeds according to experience, and is unable to correct whatever mistakes he has committed. If the rose arbor fails to make the right impression, he does not try to improve it-he makes a new one. This may lead to the conclusion that not all people require the same characteristics in order to identify a thing as such, so that if we could set the rose arbor on the stage by itself, only a part of the public would recognize it as properly drawn, the other part would probably not recognize it at all. But if, of an evening, there is a large number of decorations on the stage, the collective public will find the arbor to be very pretty. That will be because the human senses, under certain circ.u.mstances, are susceptible to sympathetic induction. In the case of the rose arbor we may a.s.sume that the artist has typically represented the necessary characteristics of the arbor for one part of the audience, for another part those of a castle, for another part those of a forest, and for a fourth those of a background. But once an individual finds a single object to be correct, his senses are already sympathetically inductive, i. e., captivated for the correctness of the whole collection, so that the correctness pa.s.ses from one object to the total

number. Now, this psychic process is most clear in those optical illusions which recently have been much on public exhibition (the Battle of Gravelotte, the Journey of the Austrian Crown Prince in Egypt, etc.). The chief trick of these representations is the presenting of real objects, like stones, wheels, etc., in the foreground in such a way that they fuse unnoticeably with the painted picture. The sense of the spectator rests on the plastic objects, is convinced of their materiality and transfers the idea of this plasticity to the merely pictured. Thus the whole image appears as tri-dimensional.

The decorations of great parks at the beginning of the last century indicate that illumination and excited imagination are not alone in causing such illusions. Weber tells ecstatically of an alley in Schwetzing at the end of which there was a highly illuminated concave wall, painted with a landscape of mountains and water-falls. Everybody took the deception for a reality because the eye was captivated and properly inducted. The artist's procedure must have been psychologically correct and must have counted upon the weakness of our observation and intellection. Exner points to the simple circ.u.mstance that we do not want to see that things under certain conditions must terminate. If we draw a straight line and cover an end with a piece of paper, every one wonders that the line is not longer when the paper is removed.

I know of no case in criminal procedure where illusions of this kind might be of importance, but it is conceivable that such illusions enter in numberless instances. This is especially susceptible of observation when we first see some region or object hastily and then observe it more accurately. We are astonished how fundamentally false our first conception was. Part of this falseness may be adduced to faults of memory, but these play little or no part if the time is short and if we are able to recall that the false conception appeared just as soon as we observed the situation in question. The essential reason for false conception is to be found only in the fact that our first hasty view was incorrectly inducted, and hence, led to illusions like those of the theatre. Thus, it is possible to take a board fence covered at points with green moss, for a moss-covered rock, and then to be led by this to see a steep cliff. Certain shadows may so magnify the size of the small window of an inn that we may take it to be as large as that of a sitting room. And if we have seen just one window we think all are of the same form and are convinced that the inn is a mansion. Or again, we see, half-covered, through the woods, a distant pool, and in memory we then see the possibly,

but not necessarily, present river. Or perhaps we see a church spire, and possibly near it the roof of a house rises above the trees; then we are inducted into having seen a village, although there really are visible only the church and the house.

These illusions again, I must repeat, are of no importance if they are at all doubted, for then the truth is ascertained. When, however, they are not doubted and are sworn to, they cause the greatest confusion in trials. A bar-room quarrel, a swung cane, and a red handkerchief on the head, are enough to make people testify to having seen a great brawl with b.l.o.o.d.y heads. A gnawing rat, a window accidentally left open through the night, and some misplaced, not instantaneously discovered object, are the ingredients of a burglary. A man who sees a rather quick train, hears a shrill blowing of the whistle, and sees a great cloud, may think himself the witness of a wreck. All these phenomena, moreover, reveal us things as we have been in the habit of seeing them. I repeat, here also, that the photographic apparatus, in so far as it does not possess a refracting lens, shows things much more truly than our eye, which is always corrected by our memory. If I permit a man sitting on a chair to be photographed, front view, with his legs crossed and stretched far out, the result is a ludicrous picture because the boots seem immensely larger than the head of the subject. But the photograph is not at fault, for if the subject is kept in the same position and then the apparent size of head and boot are measured, we get accurately the same relation as on the photograph. We know by experience how big a head is. And hence, we ordinarily see all relations of size in proper proportion. But on the photograph we can not apply this "natural" standard because it is not given in nature, and we blame the camera.

If, in a criminal case, we are dealing with a description of size, and it is given as it is known from experience, not as it really appears, then if experience has deceived us, our testimony is also wrong, although we pretend to have testified on the basis of direct sense- perception.

The matter of after-images, probably because of their short duration, is of no criminalistic importance. I did once believe that they might be of considerable influence on the perception of witnesses, but I have not succeeded in discovering a single example in which this influence is perceptible.

On the other hand, the phenomenon of irradiation, the appearance of dark bodies as covered with rays of light by adjacent luminosities,

is of importance. This phenomenon is well-known, as are Helmholtz's and Plateau's explanations of it. But it is not sufficiently applied. One needs only to set a white square upon the blackest possible ground and at the same time a similar black square of equal size on a white ground, and then to place them under a high light, to perceive how much larger the white square appears to be. That such phenomena often occur in nature need not be expounded. Whenever we are dealing with questions of size it is indubitably necessary to consider the color of the object and its environment with respect to its background and to the resulting irradiation.

Section 100. (3) Auditory Illusions.

From the point of view of the criminalist, auditory illusions are hardly less significant than visual illusions, the more so, as incorrect hearing is much more frequent than incorrect seeing. This is due to the greater similarity of tones to each other, and this similarity is due to the fact that sound has only one dimension, while vision involves not only three but also color. Of course, between the booming of cannons and the rustling of wings there are more differences than one, but the most various phenomena of tones may be said to vary only in degree. For purposes of comparison moreover, we can make use only of a cla.s.s of auditory images on the same plane, e. g., human voices, etc. Real acoustic illusions are closely connected with auditory misapprehension and a distinction between these two can not be rigorously drawn. A misapprehension may, as a rule, be indicated by almost any external condition, like the relations of pitch, echo, repet.i.tion, false coincidence of waves of sound, etc. Under such circ.u.mstances there may arise real illusions.

The study of auditory illusions is rendered especially difficult by the rarity of their repet.i.tion, which makes it impossible reliably to exclude accidents and mistakes in observation. Only two phenomena are susceptible of accurate and sufficient study. For three summers a man used to ride through the long street in which I live. The man used to sell ice and would announce himself by crying out, "Frozen," with the accent on the Fro. This word was distinctly audible, but if the man came to a definite place in the street, there were also audible the words "Oh, my." If he rode on further the expression became confused and gradually turned into the correct, "Frozen." I observed this daily, got a number of others to do so, without telling them of the illusion, but each heard

the same thing in spite of the distinct difference between "frozen," and "oh, my."

I made a similar observation at a bicycle school. As is known, beginners are able frequently to ride by themselves but need help in mounting and dismounting their machines. To do so they call a teacher by crying out: "Herr Maier." At a certain place this sound would seem distinctly to be "mamma." I was at first much surprised to hear people of advanced age cry cheerfully, "mamma." Later I discovered what the word really was and acquaintances whose attention I called to the matter confirmed my observation. Such things are not indifferent, they show that really very different sounds may be mistaken for one another, that the test of misunderstandings may often lead to false results, since only during the test of an illusion are both auditor and speaker accurately in the same position as before. Finally, these things show that the whole business of correcting some false auditions is very difficult. Yet this work of correction may be a.s.sumed to be much more easy with respect to hearing than with respect to seeing. If, e. g., it is a.s.serted that the revolver has been seen somewhere, and if it has been known that the sight was impossible, it becomes just as impossible, almost, to determine what the object seen really was. In the rarest cases only will it be something altogether similar, e. g., a pistol; most of the time it will be an object which could not be inferred from no matter what combinations. In hearing, on the contrary, if once it is determined that there has been a false audition, the work of placing it, though difficult, need not be unprofitable. This work is often compulsory upon the criminalist who receives protocols which have not been read aloud, and in which mistakes of hearing and dictation have been made. Such mistakes are considerably disturbing, and if the case is important their source and status must be inferred. This may almost always be done. Of course, strange, badly heard proper names can not be corrected, but other things can.

As regards the general treatment of auditory illusions, it is necessary, first of all, to consider their many and significant differences. In the first place, there are the varieties of good hearing. That normal and abnormal hearers vary in degree of power is well known. There are also several special conditions, causing, e. g., the so called hyper-auditive who hear more acutely than normal people. Of course, such a.s.sertions as those which cite people who can hear the noise of sulphur rubbed on the poles of quartz crystals and so on are incorrect, but it is certain that a little attention will reveal a

surprising number of people whose hearing is far acuter than that of normal individuals. Apart from children, the cla.s.s is made up of musicians, of young girls, and of very nervous, excitable, and sickly persons. The musicians in fact have become so because of their ears; the young girls hear well largely because of their delicate organization and the very fine construction of their ears; and the nervous people because of their sensibility to the pain involved in loud noises. Many differences of perception among witnesses are to be explained by differences of audition, and the reality of apparent impossibilities in hearing must not be denied but must be tested under proper conditions. One of these conditions is location. The difference between hearing things in the noisy day and in the quiet night, in the roar of the city, or in the quiet of the mountains, is familiar. The influence of resonance and pitch, echo and absorption of tones, i. e., the location of the sound, is of great importance. Finally, it must not be forgotten that people's ability to hear varies with the weather. Colds reduce the power, and not a few people are influenced by temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. These considerations show the degree in which auditory illusions can be of importance even in tests of their nature and existence. They show above all that the same object of comparison under the same circ.u.mstances must be used in every test. Otherwise much confusion inevitably results.

The presence of auditory illusions in diseases, fever, hysteria, nervousness, alcoholism and its a.s.sociates, mental disturbances, hyper

by anemia, or by a strong carotid pulse and a distention of the bloodvessels, as happens in alcoholism. Many people become abnormally sensitive to sound at the beginning of fevers. Women at the time of their climacterium hear all kinds of voices. Inasmuch as this soon stops, the abnormality and incorrectness of their audition is hard to establish. Childbirth, too, makes a difference. Old, otherwise conscientious midwives claim to have heard unborn children breathe and cry.