The Trained Memory Part 2

In our explanation of "complex" formation we necessarily cited instances that ill.u.s.trate this principle as well, since _recall is merely a reverse operation from that involved in "complex" formation_.

[Sidenote: _What Ordinary "Thinking" Amounts to_]

For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed between its pages. At once the memory of the friend who gave it to me springs into consciousness and becomes the subject of reminiscence. This recalls the mountain village where we last met. This recalls the fact that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which should transform the village into a popular resort. This in turn suggests my coming trip to the seash.o.r.e, and I am reminded of a business appointment on which my ability to leave town on the appointed day depends. And so on indefinitely.

Far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even of your ordinary "thinking," commonly so-called, consists of trains of mental pictures "suggested" one by another. If the a.s.sociated pictures are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you have a prosaic mind; if, on the other hand, the a.s.sociations are unusual or unique, you are happily possessed of wit and fancy.

[Sidenote: _The Reverse of Complex Formation_]

These instances of the action of the Law of Recall ill.u.s.trate but one phase of its activity. They show simply that groups of ideas are so strung together on the string of some common element that _the activity of one "group" in consciousness is apt to be automatically followed by the others. But the law of a.s.sociation goes deeper than this. It enters into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements of every group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to be simultaneously manifested._

[Sidenote: _Prolixity and Terseness_]

There is no principle to which we shall more continually refer than this one. Our explanation of hay fever a moment ago ill.u.s.trates our meaning.

Get the principle clearly in your mind, and see how many instances of its operation you can yourself supply from your own daily experience.

So far as the mere linking together of groups of ideas is concerned, this cla.s.sifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater degree than in others. It finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original subject in pursuit of every suggested idea.

[Sidenote: _The Law of Contiguity_]

Law II. _Similarity and nearness in time or s.p.a.ce between two experiential facts causes the thought of one to tend to recall the thought of the other._

This is the a.s.sociative Law of Contiguity considered from the standpoint of recall. The points of contiguity are different for different individuals. Similarities and nearnesses will awaken all sorts of a.s.sociated groups of ideas in one person that are not at all excitable in the same way in another whose experiences have been different.

Law III. _The greater the frequency and intensity of any given experience, the greater the ease and likelihood of its reproduction and recall._

[Sidenote: _Laws of Habit and Intensity_]

This explains why certain groups in any complex are more readily recalled than others--why some leap forth unbidden, why some come next and before others, why some arrive but tardily or not at all.

This is how the a.s.sociative Laws of Habit and Intensity affect the power of recall.

[Sidenote: _Applications to Advertising_]

There is no department of business to which the application of these Laws of Recall is so apparent as the department of advertising. The most carefully worded and best-ill.u.s.trated advertis.e.m.e.nt may fail to pay its cost unless the underlying principles of choice of position, selection of medium and size of s.p.a.ce are understood. The advertisers in metropolitan newspapers and magazines of large circulation are the ones who have most at stake. But whatever the field to be reached, it is well to bear in mind certain facts based on the Laws of Recall that have been established by psychological experiment.

Most advertisers have a general idea that certain relative positions on the newspaper or magazine page are to be preferred over others, but they have no conception of the real differences in relative recall value.

When the great cost of s.p.a.ce in large publications is considered the financial value of such knowledge is evident.

By a great number of tests the relative recall value of every part of the newspaper page has been approximately determined. It has been found, for example, that a given s.p.a.ce at the upper right-hand corner of the page has more than twice the value of the same amount of s.p.a.ce in the lower left-hand corner.

[Sidenote: _Effect of Repet.i.tions_]

Many advertisers adopt the policy of repeating full-page advertis.e.m.e.nts at long intervals instead of advertising in a small way continually.

Laboratory tests have shown, on the contrary, that a quarter-page advertis.e.m.e.nt appearing in four successive issues of a newspaper is fifty per cent more effective than a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt appearing only once. It does not follow, however, that an eighth-page advertis.e.m.e.nt repeated eight times is correspondingly more effective; for below a certain relative size the value of an advertis.e.m.e.nt decreases much more rapidly than the cost. There are, of course, modifying conditions, such as special sales of department stores, where occasional displays and announcements make it desirable to use either full pages, or even double pages, but the great bulk of advertising is not of this character.

[Sidenote: _Ratio of Size to Value_]

Every year in the United States alone six hundred millions of dollars are expended in advertising the sale of commodities, and for the most part expended in a haphazard, experimental and unscientific way. The investment of this vast sum with risk of perhaps total loss, or even possible injury, through the faulty construction or improper placing of advertis.e.m.e.nts should stimulate the interest of every advertiser in the work that psychologists have done and are doing toward the acc.u.mulation of a body of exact knowledge on this subject.

[Sidenote: _Risks in Advertising_]

THE SCIENCE OF FORGETTING

[Ill.u.s.tration: TESTING THE MEMORY WITH PROFESSOR JASTROW'S MEMORY APPARATUS PRIVATE LABORATORY, SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative Header]

CHAPTER V

THE SCIENCE OF FORGETTING

[Sidenote: _The Skilled Artisan_]

Attention is the instrumentality through which the Laws of Recall operate. Wittingly or unwittingly, consciously or unconsciously, every man's attention swings in automatic obedience to the Laws of Recall.

Attention is the artisan that, bit by bit, and with lightning quickness, constructs the mosaic of consciousness.

Having the whole vast store of all present and past experiences to draw upon, he selects only those groups and those isolated instances that are related to our general interests and aims. He disregards others.

[Sidenote: _How the Attention Works_]

The attention operates in a manner complementary to the general Laws of Recall. It is an active principle not of a.s.sociation, but of _dissociation_.

You choose, for example, a certain aim in life. You decide to become the inventor of an aeroplane of automatic stability. This choice henceforth determines two things. First, it determines just which of the sensory experiences of any given moment are most likely to be selected for your conscious perception. Secondly, it determines just which of your past experiences will be most likely to be recalled.

Such a choice, in other words, determines to some extent the sort of elements that will most probably be selected to make up at any moment the contents of your consciousness.

[Sidenote: _Iron Filings and Mental Magnets_]

From the instant that you make such a choice you are on the alert for facts relevant to the subject of your ambition. Upon them you concentrate your attention. They are presented to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. All facts that pertain to the art of flying henceforth cl.u.s.ter and cling to your conscious memory like iron filings to a magnet. All that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from these intensely active complexes, and in time fade into subconscious forgetfulness.

[Sidenote: _The Compartment of Subconscious Forgetfulness_]

By subconscious forgetfulness we mean a _compartment_, as it were, of that reservoir in which all past experiences are stored.

_Consciousness is a momentary thing._ It is a pa.s.sing state. It is ephemeral and flitting. It is made up _in part of present sense-impressions_ and in part of past experiences. These past experiences are brought forth from subconsciousness. Some are voluntarily brought forth. Some present themselves without our conscious volition, but by the operation of the laws of a.s.sociation and dissociation. Some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet they may appear when least we are expecting them. It is these last to which we have referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. As a matter of fact, _none_ are ever actually _lost_.

[Sidenote: _Making Experience Count_]