Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (top rated ebook readers .TXT) 📕

settings, we end by separating him from his surroundings and responding to him alone, and therefore the familiarity feeling disappears.

Complete recognition, or "placing" the object, involves something more than these feelings and rudimentary reactions. It involves the recall of a context or scheme of events, and a fitting of the object into the scheme.

Memory Training

The important question whether memory can be improved by any form of training breaks up, in the light of our previous analysis, into the four questions, whether memorizing can be improved, whether the power of retention can be improved, whether recall can be improved, and whether recognition can be improved. As to recognition, it is difficult to imagine how to train it; the process is so elusive and so direct. It has been found, however, that practice in recognizing a certain class of objects improves one's standards of judgment as to whether a feeling of familiarity is reliable or not; it enables one to distinguish between feelings that have given correct recognitions and the vaguer feelings that often lead one astray.

As to recall, certain hints were given above as to the efficient management of this process, and probably practice in recalling a certain sort of facts, checked up by results, would lead to improvement.

As to retention, since this is not a performance but a resting state, how could we possibly go about to effect an improvement? One individual's brain is, to be sure, more retentive than another's; but that seems a native trait, not to be altered by training.

On the other hand, the process of committing to memory, being a straightforward and controllable activity, is {361} exceedingly susceptible to training, and it is there, for the most part, that memory training should be concentrated in order to yield results. It does yield marked results. In the laboratory, the beginner in learning lists of nonsense syllables makes poor work of it. He is emotionally wrought up and uncertain of himself, goes to work in a random way (like any beginner), perhaps tries to learn by pure rote or else attempts to use devices that are ill-adapted to the material, and has a slow and tedious job of it. With practice in learning this sort of material, he learns to observe suitable groupings and relationships, becomes sure of himself and free from the distraction of emotional disturbance, and may even come to enjoy the work. Certainly he improves greatly in speed of memorizing nonsense syllables. If, instead, he practises on Spenser's "Faery Queen", he improves in that, and may cut down his time for memorizing a twelve-line stanza from fifteen minutes to five. This improvement is due to the subject's finding out ways of tackling this particular sort of material. He gets used to Spenser's style and range of ideas. And so it is with any kind of material; practice in memorizing it brings great improvement in memorizing that particular material.

Whether practice with one sort of material brings skill that can be "transferred", or carried over to a second kind of material, is quite another question. Usually the amount of transfer is small compared with the improvement gained in handling the first material, or compared with the improvement that will result from specific training with the second kind. What skill is transferred consists partly of the habit of looking for groupings and relationships, and partly in the confidence in one's own ability as a memorizer. It is really worth while taking part in a memory experiment, just to know what you can accomplish after a little training. Most persons who complain of poor memory would be {362} convinced by such an experiment that their memory was fundamentally sound. But these laboratory exercises do not pretend to develop any general "power of memory", and the much advertised systems of memory training are no more justified in such a claim. What is developed, in both cases, is skill in memorizing certain kinds of material so as to pass certain forms of memory test.

One who suffers from poor memory for any special material, as names, errands, or engagements, probably is not going to work right in committing the facts to memory; and if he gives special attention to this particular matter, keeping tab on himself to see whether he improves, he is likely to find better ways of fixing the facts and to make great improvement. It was said of a certain college president of the older day that he never failed to call a student or alumnus by name, after he had once met the man. How did he do it? He had the custom of calling each man in the freshman class into his office for a private interview, during which, besides fatherly advice, he asked the man personal questions and studied him intently. He was interested in the man, he formed a clear impression of his personality, and to that personality he carefully attached the name. Undoubtedly this able scholar was possessed of an unusually retentive memory; but his memory for names depended largely on his method of committing them to memory.

Contrast this with the casual procedure of most of us on being introduced to a person. Perhaps we scarcely notice the name, and make no effort to attach the name to the personality. To have a good memory for names, one needs to give attention and practice to this specific matter. It is the same with memory for errands; it can be specifically trained. Perhaps the best general hint here is to connect the errand beforehand in your mind with the {363} place where you should think, during the day, to do the errand.

Often some little mnemonic system will help in remembering disconnected facts, but such devices have only a limited field of application and do not in the least improve the general power of memory. Some speakers, in planning out a speech, locate each successive "point" in a corner of the hall, or in a room of their own house; and when they have finished one point, look into the next corner, or think of the next room, and find the following point there. It would seem that a well-ordered discourse should supply its own logical cues so that such artificial aids would be unnecessary.

In training the memory for the significant facts that constitute the individual's knowledge of his business in life, the best rule is to systematize and interrelate the facts into a coherent whole. Thus, a bigger and stronger stimulus is provided for the recall of any item. This, along with the principles of "economy" in memorizing, is the best suggestion that psychology has to make towards memory improvement.

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EXERCISES

1. In outlining the chapter, regroup the material so as to separate the practical applications from the description of memory processes. This gives you two main heads: A. Memory processes, and B. The training and management of memory. Each of these main heads should be divided into four sub-heads: Memorizing, retention, etc., and the information contained in the chapter grouped under these sub-heads.

2. Disorders of memory can be classified under the four heads of disorders of learning, of retention, of recall and of recognition. Where would you place each of the following?

(a) Aphasia, where, through brain injury, the subject's vocabulary is very much reduced.

(b) The condition of the very old person, who cannot remember what has happened during the day, though he still remembers experiences of his youth.

(c) The "feeling of having been there before", in which you have a weird impression that what is happening now has happened in just the same way before, as if events were simply repeating themselves.

(d) The loss of memory which sometimes occurs after a physical or emotional shock, or after a fever, and which passes away after a time.

3. How fully can you recall what happened on some interesting occasion when you were a child of 5-8 years? Dwell on the experience, and see whether you get back more than at first seemed possible. Try the same with an experience of five years ago.

4. If a student came to you for advice, complaining of poor memory, and said that though he put hours and hours on a lesson and read it over many times, still he failed on it, what questions would you ask regarding his method of study, and what suggestions would you offer?

5. An experiment on memorising lists of numbers. Prepare several lists of 20 digits, and shuffle them; draw out one and take your time for learning it to the point of perfect recitation. Write an introspective account of the process. Repeat with a second list

6. An experiment in memorizing word-pairs. Prepare 20 pairs of words as follows: take 20 cards or slips of paper, and write a different word on each. Then turn them over, shuffle, and write another word on the back of each. Thus, though you may know what words you have written, you do not how how they are paired; and now your job is to learn the pairs. Note starting time, take the first card and look at both {365} sides, and study the pair of words on this card for about 5 seconds, passing then to the second card, and so on through the pack. Shuffle the pack, take the top card and give yourself about 5 seconds to recall the word on the reverse, then turning the card over and reading it. Proceed in this way through the pack, shuffle again, and repeat. Continue thus till you score 100 per cent. Note total time required, and report on process of memorizing.

7. Memorizing a series of related words. Prepare a list of 40 words, as follows: first write the numbers 1 to 40 in a column; then write any word for No. 1; for No. 2, write some word closely related to No. 1; for No. 3 some word closely related to No. 2; and so on. Your list, for example, might begin like this: house, roof, chimney, soot, fire, coal, mine, miner, strike, arbitration, etc. Having finished writing your list, cover it and see how much of it you can recite without further study, and how long it takes you to complete the memorizing. Explain the results obtained.

8. Plot the curve of forgetting from the following data, which give the per cent, of retention of stanzas of a poem at different intervals after the end of memorizing.

after 1 day 79%
after 2 days 67%
after 6 days 42%
after 14 days 30%
after 30 days 24%

REFERENCES

Ebbinghaus, On Memory, 1885, translated by Ruger and Bussenius, 1918. This is the pioneer experimental study of memory, and is still worth reading, and is not specially hard reading.

James's chapter on Memory, in Vol. I of his Principles of Psychology, 1890, is still one of the best references, and contains some important remarks on the improvement of memory.

Of the numerous special studies on memory, mention may be made of that by Arthur I. Gates, Recitation as a Factor in Memorizing, 1917, which, on pp. 65-104, gives a valuable account of the various devices used by one who is memorizing.

For the psychology of testimony, see G. M. Whipple's article on "The Obtaining of Information: Psychology of Observation and Report", in the Psychological Bulletin for 1918, Vol. 15, pp. 217-248, especially pp. 233-248. See also a popularly written account of the matter by Münsterberg, in On the Witness Stand, 1908, pp. 15-69.

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CHAPTER XV

ASSOCIATION AND MENTAL IMAGERY

SOMETHING ABOUT THINKING AS RELATED TO MEMORY

Memory plays a part, not only in "memory work", and not only in remembering particular past experiences, but in all sorts of thinking. Recall furnishes the raw material for thought. A large share of any one's daily work, whether it be manual or mental, depends on the recall of previously learned reactions. Most of the time, though we are not exactly trying to remember facts committed to memory, we are recalling what we have previously learned, and utilizing the recalled material for our