Psychology Part 39

Reactions that have been drilled in thoroughly and repeatedly fall off very slowly at first, and the further course of the curve of forgetting has not been accurately followed in their case. A typist who had spent perhaps two hundred hours in drill, and then dropped typewriting for a year, recovered the lost ground in less than an hour of fresh practice, so that the retention, as measured by the saving method, was over ninety-nine per cent.

Somewhat different from the matter of the curve of forgetting is the question of the _rate of forgetting_, as {353} dependent on various conditions. The rate of forgetting depends, first, on the thoroughness of the learning, as we have just seen. It depends on the kind of material learned, being very much slower for meaningful than for nonsense material, though both have been learned equally well. Barely learned nonsense material is almost entirely gone by the end of four months, but stanzas of poetry, just barely learned, have shown a perceptible retention after twenty years.

Very fortunately, the principles of economy of memorizing hold good also for retention. Forgetting is slower when relationships and connections have been found in the material than when the learning has been by rote. Forgetting is slower after active recitation than when the more pa.s.sive, receptive method of study has been employed.

Forgetting is slower after s.p.a.ced than after uns.p.a.ced study, and slower after whole learning than after part learning.

An old saying has it that quick learning means quick forgetting, and that quick learners are quick forgetters. Experiment does not wholly bear this out. A lesson that is learned quickly because it is clearly understood is better retained than one which is imperfectly understood and therefore slowly learned; and a learner who learns quickly because he is on the alert for significant facts and connections retains better than a learner who is slow from lack of such alertness. The wider awake the learner, the quicker will be his learning and the slower his subsequent forgetting; so that one is often tempted to admonish a certain type of studious but easy-going person, "for goodness' sake not to dawdle over his lessons", with any idea that the more time he spends with them the longer he will remember them. More gas! High pressure gives the biggest results, provided only it is directed into high-level observation, and does not simply generate fear and worry and a rattle-brained frenzy of rote learning.

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Recall

Having committed something to memory, how do we get it back when we want it? To judge from such simple cases as the animal's performance of a previously learned reaction, all that is necessary is a _stimulus_ previously linked with the response. How, for example, shall we get the cat to turn the door-b.u.t.ton, this being an act that the cat has previously learned? Why, we put the cat into the same cage, i.e., we supply the stimulus that has previously given the reaction, and trust to it to give the same reaction again. The learning process has attached this reaction to this stimulus. Now can we say the same regarding material committed to memory by the human subject? Is recall a species of learned reaction that needs only the linked stimulus to arouse it?

If you have learned and still retain a list of numbers or syllables, you can recite it on thinking of it, on hearing words that identify it in your mind, or on being given the first few items in the list as a start. The act of reciting the list became linked, during the learning, with the thought of the list, with words signifying this particular list, and with the first items of the list; therefore, these stimuli can now arouse the reaction of reciting the list. As you advance into the list, reciting it, the parts already recited act as stimuli to keep you going forward. In the same way, if you have memorized Hamlet's soliloquy, this t.i.tle serves as the stimulus to make you recall the beginning of the speech and that in turn calls up the next part and so on; or, if you have a.n.a.lyzed the speech into an outline, the t.i.tle calls up the outline and the outline acts as the stimulus to call up the several parts that were attached to the outline in the process of memorization. When one idea calls up another, the first acts as a stimulus and the second is a {355} response previously attached to this stimulus. In general, then, recall is a learned response to a stimulus.

There is an exceptional case, where recall seems to occur without any stimulus. This form of recall goes by the name of _perseveration_, and a good instance of it is the "running of a tune in the head", shortly after it has been heard. Another instance is the vivid flashing of scenes of the day before the "mind's eye" as one lies in bed before going to sleep. It appears as if the sights or sounds came up of themselves and without any stimulus. Possibly there is some vague stimulus which cannot itself be detected. Only a slight stimulus would be needed, because these recent and vivid experiences are so easily aroused.

Difficulties in recall.

Sometimes recall fails to materialize when we wish it and have good reason for expecting it. We know this person's name, as is proved by the fact that we later recall it, but at the moment we cannot bring it up. We know the answer to this examination question, but in the heat of the examination we give the wrong answer, though afterwards the right answer comes to mind. This seldom happens with thoroughly learned facts, but frequently with facts that are moderately well known. Some sort of inhibition or interference blocks recall.

One type of interference is emotional. Fear may paralyze recall.

Anxious self-consciousness, or stage fright, has prevented the recall of many a well-learned speech, and interfered with the skilful performance of many a well-trained act.

Distraction is an interference, since it keeps the stimulus from exerting its full effect. Sometimes the stimulus that is present has been linked with two or more responses, and these get in each other's way; as you will sometimes hear a speaker hesitate and become confused from having two ways {356} of expressing the same thought occur to him at almost the same instant.

Helps in recall.

There are no sure rules for avoiding these intricate interferences; and, in general, recall being a much less manageable process than memorizing, we do not have anything like the same ma.s.s of practical information regarding it. One or two suggestions have some value, however.

(1) Give the stimulus a good chance. Look squarely at the person whose name you wish to recall, avoiding doubt as to your ability to recall it; for doubt is itself a distraction. Put yourself back into the time when you formerly used this person's name. In extemporaneous speaking, go ahead confidently, avoid worry and self-consciousness, and, full of your subject, trust to your ideas to recall the words as needed. Once carried away with his subject, a speaker may surprise himself by his own fluency.

(2) Drop the matter for a while, and come back to it afresh.

Sometimes, when you cannot at once recall a name, it does no good to keep doggedly hunting, while half an hour later you get it without the least trouble. The explanation of this curious phenomenon is found in interference and the dying out of interference. At your first attempt to recall the name, you simply got on the wrong track, and thus gave this wrong track the "recency" advantage over the right track; but this temporary advantage fades out rapidly with rest and leaves the advantage with the track most used in the past.

The rule to drop a matter when baffled and confused, and take it up again when fresh, can be used in more complex cases than hunting for a name. When, in trying to solve any sort of problem, you find yourself in a rut, about the only escape is to back off, rest up, and make an entirely fresh start.

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Recognition

The fourth question propounded at the beginning of the chapter, as to how we can know that the fact now recalled is what we formerly committed to memory and now wish to recall, is part of the larger question of how we recognize. What we recognize includes not only facts recalled, but also facts not recalled but presented a second time to the senses. Recognition of objects seen, heard, touched, etc., is the most rudimentary form of memory. The baby shows signs of recognizing persons and things before he shows signs of recall. A little later, he recognizes and understands words before he begins to speak (recall) them; and everybody's vocabulary of recognized words remains much greater than his speaking vocabulary. We recognize faces that we could not recall, and names that we could not recall. In short, recognition is easier than recall.

Consequently any theory of recognition that makes it depend on recall can scarcely be correct. One such theory held that an object is recognized by recalling its original setting in past experience; an odor would be recognized by virtue of recalling the circ.u.mstances under which it was formerly experienced. Now sometimes it does happen that an odor which seems familiar, but cannot be identified, calls up a past experience and thus is fully recognized; but such "indirect recognition" is not the usual thing, for direct recognition commonly takes place before recall of the past experience has time to occur.

You see a person, and know him at once, though it may require some moments before you can recall where and when you have seen him before.

Recognition may be more or less complete. At its minimum, it is simply a "feeling of familiarity" with the object; at its maximum it is locating the object precisely in your autobiography. You see a man, and say, "He looks {358} familiar, I must have seen him somewhere", and then it dawns on you, "Oh! yes, now I know exactly who he is; he is the man who . . ." Between these extremes lie various degrees of recognition. This man seems to be some one seen recently, or a long, long time ago, or at the seash.o.r.e, or as a salesman in a store; or as some one you looked up to, or felt hostility towards, or were amused at; and often these impressions turn out to be correct, when you succeed in fully recognizing the person. These impressions resemble the first signs of recognition in the baby's behavior; you say that the baby remembers people because he smiles at one who has pleased him before, and shrinks from one who has displeased him.

Recognition described in terms of stimulus and response.

Recognition is a form of learned response, depending on previous reaction to the object recognized. To recognize an object is to respond to it as we responded before--except for the feeling of familiarity, which could not occur the first time we saw the object.

But notice this: though the object is the same identical object it was before, it may have changed somewhat. At least, its setting is different; this is a different time and perhaps a different place, and the circ.u.mstances are bound to be more or less different. In spite of this difference in the situation, we make the same response as before.

Now, the response we made to the object in its original setting was a response to the whole situation, object _plus_ setting; our response to the object was colored by its setting. When we now recognize the object, we make the same response to the object in a different setting; the response originally called out by the object _plus_ its setting is now aroused by the object alone. Consequently we have an uneasy feeling of responding to a situation that is not present. {359} This uneasy feeling is the feeling of familiarity in its more haunting and "intriguing" form.

We see some one who seems familiar and who arouses a hostile att.i.tude in us that is not accounted for in the least by his present actions.

We have this uneasy feeling of responding to a situation that is not present, and cannot rest till we have identified the person and justified our hostile att.i.tude.

Or, we see some one who makes us feel as if we had had dealings with him before in a store or postoffice where he must have served us; we find ourselves taking the att.i.tude towards him that is appropriate towards such a functionary, though there is nothing in his present setting to arouse such an att.i.tude. Or, we see some one in the city streets who seems to put us back into the atmosphere of a vacation at the seash.o.r.e, and by searching our memory we finally locate him as an individual we saw at such and such a resort. At other times, the feeling of familiarity is rather colorless, because the original situation in which the person was encountered was colorless; but we still have the feeling of responding to something that is not present.

We make, or start to make, the same response to the person that we originally made to him _plus_ his setting, and this response to something that is not there gives the feeling of familiarity.

When we see the same person time after time in the same setting, as when we go into the same store every morning and buy a paper from the same man, we cease to have any strong feeling of familiarity at sight of him, the reason being that we are always responding to him in the same setting, and consequently have no feeling of responding to something that is not there. But if we see this same individual in a totally different place, he may give us a queer feeling of familiarity. When we see the same person time after time {360} in various 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 cla.s.sified under the four heads of disorders of learning, of retention, of recall and of recognition.