Stratton, G. M. (1898). Zur theorie der räumlichen gesichtswahrnehmungen. [Review of the book Zur Theorie der raumlichen Gesichtswahrnehmungen. V. W. Wundt]. Psychological Review, 5(5), 536-538.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0064122
Reviews the article "Zur theorie der räumlichen gesichtswahrnehmungen" by Von W. Wundt. The reviewer notes that the question as to the origin of the spatial character of sight is here treated in an article which is indeed attractive and certain to stimulate considerable discussion. The mode of procedure is, in the main, strictly empirical; the author devotes himself to a leisurely review of certain facts which seem to him to put us in a position where a decisive answer can be given to the problem in hand. As part of the data on which his conclusions are based, Wundt gives the history of his own remarkable case of retinal disturbance, due to a diseased condition of the underlying tissues (choroiditis disseminata). His own case leads to his conclusion that there is no hard and fast spatial meaning attached to a particular retinal element; and since an element can thus acquire a new spatial meaning, there is every reason to suppose that its primary local signification was also acquired and not received as a native endowment. The more important experiments on the perception of depth are also discussed, along with retinal sensations, visual localization, and his theory of complex local signs. The reviewer notes that the facts which Professor Wundt brings out seem sufficient to convince one that extra-retinal sensations have an influence on the total visual result. During the reading one feels that this has been so abundantly supported that more ought to have been said for the other side of the theory, namely, that each local sign has also a retinal factor in its composition. The author has nearly left us to our own resources in regard to this, whereas at the present day it is exactly here that doubts are most ready to assail. As for the general theory of visual extension proposed, it is perhaps the one which on the whole seems best to accord with the known facts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)