Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory by Hugo Münsterberg (100 books to read .txt) 📕

from the present one by many subsequent images. His memory was

capacious rather than selective. His eyesight was tested and found to

be normal for the range of the apparatus. Possibly his age (55 yrs.)

is significant, although one of the two subjects who showed the

greatest preference for objects and movements, Mo., was only six yrs.

younger. The ages of the other subjects were S. 36 yrs., Hu. 23 yrs.,

B. 25 yrs., Ho. 27 yrs.

That some if not all of the subjects did not have objective images in

many of the noun and verb couplets if they were left to their own

initiative to obtain them is evident from the image records in the A

set, in which the presence of the objective images was optional but

the record obligatory. The same subject might have in one noun or verb

series no visual images and in another he might have one for every

couplet of the series. After the completion of the A set, the effect

of the presence of the objective images in series of 10 nouns alone,

or 10 objects alone after two days’ interval, was tested. This was

merely a repetition of similar work by Kirkpatrick after three days’

interval, and yielded similar results. As a matter of fact some of the

subjects were unable wholly to exclude the objective images, but were

compelled to admit and then suppress them as far as possible, so that

it is really a question of degree of prominence and duration of the

images.

The presence of the objective images having been shown to be an aid in

the case of series of nouns, the subjects were henceforth requested to

obtain them in the noun and verb series of the B and C sets, and

the image records show that they were entirely successful in doing so.

2. The total number of couplets in any one or in several sets may be

divided into two classes: (1) Those in which indirect associations did

not occur in the learning, and (2) those in which they did occur. For

reasons already named we may call the first pure material and the

second mixed. We can then ascertain in each the proportion of

correctly recalled couplets after one, two, nine and sixteen days’

interval, and thus see the importance of indirect associations as a

factor in recall. This is what has been done in the following table.

The figures give the number of couplets correctly or incorrectly

recalled out of 64. In the case of the interval of one day the figures

are a tabulation of the III. test (twenty-one hours) of the C set,

which contained 16 series of 4 couplets each. The figures for the

intervals of two, nine and sixteen days are a tabulation of the B

set, which also contained 16 series of 4 couplets each. C denotes

correct, I incorrect.

TABLE VIII.

SHOWING GREATER PERMANENCE OF COUPLETS IN WHICH INDIRECT ASSOCIATIONS

OCCURRED.

Pure Material. Mixed Material.

Days. One. Two. Nine. Sixteen. One. Two. Nine. Sixteen.

C I C I C I C I C I C I C I C I

M. 40 22 23 39 22 40 2 0 2 0 3 0

Mo. 36 22 31 27 29 29 6 0 6 0 5 1

S. 27 34 6 55 2 59 1 60 2 1 3 0 3 0 3 0

Hu. 35 22 16 45 5 56 4 57 6 1 3 0 3 0 3 0

B. 48 16 17 43 9 51 7 53 0 0 4 0 1 3 1 3

Ho. 37 15 17 30 13 36 3 46 10 2 9 6 8 7 7 8

Total: 147 87 132 217 83 268 66 285 18 4 27 6 23 10 21 12

P’c’t.: 63 37 38 62 24 76 19 81 82 18 82 18 70 30 64 36

We see from the table that the likelihood of recalling couplets in

which indirect associations did not occur in learning is 63 per cent.

after one day, and that there is a diminution of 44 per cent. in the

next fifteen days. The fall is greatest during the second day. On the

other hand, the likelihood of recalling couplets in which indirect

associations did occur is 82 per cent. after one day, and there is a

diminution of only 18 per cent. during the next fifteen days. The

fading is also much more gradual.

It is evident, then, that in all investigations dealing with language

material the factor of indirect associations—a largely accidental

factor affecting varying amounts of the total material (in these six

subjects from 3 per cent. to 23 per cent.) is by far the most

influential of all the factors, and any investigations which have

heretofore failed to isolate it are not conclusive as to other

factors.

The practical value of the foregoing investigation will be found in

its bearing upon the acquisition of language. While it is by no means

confined to the acquisition of the vocabulary of a foreign language,

but is also applicable to the acquisition of the vocabulary of the

native language, it is the former bearing which is perhaps more

obvious. If it is important that one become able as speedily as

possible to grasp the meaning of foreign words, the results of the

foregoing investigation indicate the method one should adopt.

*

MUTUAL INHIBITION OF MEMORY IMAGES.

BY FREDERICK MEAKIN.

The results here presented are the record of a preliminary inquiry

rather than a definitive statement of principles.

The effort to construct a satisfactory theory of inhibition has given

rise, in recent years, to a good deal of discussion. Ever since it was

discovered that the reflexes of the spinal cord are normally modified

or restrained by the activity of the brain and Setschenow (1863)

attempted to prove the existence of localized inhibition centers, the

need of such a theory has been felt. The discussion, however, has been

mainly physiological, and we cannot undertake to follow it here. The

psychologist may not be indifferent, of course, to any comprehensive

theory of nervous action. He works, indeed, under a general

presumption which takes for granted a constant and definite relation

between psychical and cerebral processes. But pending the settlement

of the physiological question he may still continue with the study of

facts to which general expression may be given under some theory of

psychical inhibition not inconsistent with the findings of the

physiologist.

A question of definition, however, confronts us here. Can we, it may

be asked, speak of psychical inhibition at all? Does one conscious

state exercise pressure on another, either to induce it, or to expel

it from the field? ‘Force’ and ‘pressure,’ however pertinent to

physical inquiries, are surely out of place in an investigation of the

relations between the phenomena of mind. Plainly a distinction has to

be made if we are to carry over the concept of inhibition from the

domain of nervous activity to the conscious domain. Inhibition cannot,

it should seem, have the same sense in both. We find, accordingly,

that Baldwin, who defines nervous inhibition as ‘interference with the

normal result of a nervous excitement by an opposing force,’ says of

mental inhibition that it ‘exists in so far as the occurrence of a

mental process prevents the simultaneous occurrence of other mental

processes which might otherwise take place.’[1]

[1] Baldwin, J.M.: ‘Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology,’

New York and London, 1901, Vol. I., article on ‘Inhibition.’

Even here, it may be said, there is in the term ‘prevents’ an

implication of the direct exercise of force. But if we abstract from

any such implication, and conceive of such force as the term

inhibition seems to connote, as restricted to the associated neural or

physiological processes, no unwarranted assumptions need be imported

by the term into the facts, and the definition may, perhaps, suffice.

Some careful work has been done in the general field of psychical

inhibition. In fact, the question of inhibition could hardly be

avoided in any inquiry concerning attention or volition. A. Binet[2]

reports certain experiments in regard to the rivalry of conscious

states. But the states considered were more properly those of

attention and volition than of mere ideation. And the same author

reports later[3] examples of antagonism between images and sensations,

showing how the latter may be affected, and in some respects

inhibited, by the former. But this is inhibition of sensations rather

than of ideas. Again, Binet, in collaboration with Victor Henri,[4]

reports certain inhibitory effects produced in the phenomena of

speech. But here again the material studied was volitional. More

recently, G. Heymans[5] has made elaborate investigation of a certain

phase of ‘psychische Hemmung,’ and showed how the threshold of

perception may be raised, for the various special senses, by the

interaction of rival sensations, justly contending that this shifting

of the threshold measures the degree in which the original sensation

is inhibited by its rival. But the field of inquiry was in that case

strictly sensational. We find also a discussion by Robert Saxinger,[6]

‘Ueber den Einfluss der Gefühle auf die Vorstellungsbewegung.’ But the

treatment there, aside from the fact that it deals with the emotions,

is theoretical rather than experimental.

[2] Binet, A.: Revue Philosophique, 1890, XXIX., p. 138.

[3] Binet, A.: Revue Philosophique, 1890, XXX., p. 136.

[4] Binet, A., et Henri, V.: Revue Philosophique, 1894,

XXXVII., p. 608.

[5] Heymans, G.: _Zeitschrift f. Psych. u. Physiol. d.

Sinnesorgane_, 1899, Bd. XXI., S. 321; Ibid., 1901, Bd.

XXVI., S. 305.

[6] Saxinger, R.: _Zeitschrift f. Psych. u. Physiol. d.

Sinnesorgane_, 1901, Bd. XXVI., S. 18.

In short, it appears that though much has been said and done upon the

general subject of psychical inhibition, experimental inquiry into the

inhibitory effect of one idea upon another—abstraction made, as far

as possible, of all volitional influence—virtually introduces us to a

new phase of the subject.

The term ‘idea,’ it should be noted, is here used in its broadest

sense, and includes the memory image. In fact, the memory image and

its behavior in relation to another memory image formed the material

of the first part of the research, which alone is reported here.

Apparatus and method were both very simple.

The ideas to be compared were suggested by geometrical figures cut out

of pasteboard and hung, 25 cm. apart, upon a small black stand placed

on a table in front of the observer, who sat at a distance of four

feet from the stand. The diagrams and descriptions which follow will

show the character of these figures.

Before the figures were placed in position, the subject was asked to

close his eyes. The figures being placed, a few seconds’ warning was

given, and at the word ‘look’ the subject opened his eyes and looked

at the objects, closing his eyes again at the word ‘close.’ The time

of exposure was five seconds. This time was divided as equally as

possible between the two figures, which were simultaneously exposed,

the observer glancing freely from one to the other as in the common

observation on which our ideas of objects are founded. At the end of

the exposure the subject sat with closed eyes and reported the several

appearances and disappearances of the ideas or mental images of the

objects just presented. The conditions required of him were that he

should await passively the entry of the rival claimants on his

attention, favoring neither and inhibiting neither; that is to say, he

was to remit all volitional activity, save so far as was