W. James, Principles of Psychology, i., 1890, chs. iv., xiv.; F. H. Bradley, The Principles of Logic, 1883, 273 ff.; H. Ebbinghaus, Memory, trs. H. A. Ruger and C. E. Bussenius, 1913; C. S. Myers, A Text-book of Experimental Psychology, i., 1911, chs. xii., xiii.; O. Kuelpe, Outlines of Psychology, 1909, 169 ff.; E. B. Titchener, A Text-book of Psychology, 1910, 374 ff.; M. Offner, Mental Fatigue, trs. G. M. Whipple, 1911; E. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology, ii., 1913; E. Meumann, The Psychology of Learning, trs. J. W. Baird, 1913.
[CHAPTER VII]
Memory and Imagination
Inventors seem to treasure up in their minds, what they have found out, after another manner than those do the same things, who have not this inventive faculty. The former, when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, are in some measure obliged immediately to investigate part of what they want. For this they are not equally fit at all times; so it has often happened, that such as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, have appeared off hand more expert than the discoverers themselves.—Henry Pemberton
§ 38. Recognition.—The working of the associative tendencies in the brain guarantees the revival of past experiences; it does not, so far as we have described it, guarantee that we remember. For memory, in the psychological sense, implies recognition; the remembered experience is not only revived, but is also familiar, comes to us as a bit of our own past history. We must try to find out what this familiarity is.
Suppose that you are entering a street-car. As you enter, you run your eyes over the line of faces before you. The first half-dozen of your fellow-passengers are strangers; their faces arouse no interest and do not arrest your gaze. At the end of the car, however, you see a friend whom you have not met, perhaps, for some time; you recognise him. Your indifference is suddenly gone; you call him by name, take a seat at his side, and begin to talk with him. What has happened?
Something has happened that, if you analyse it, recalls the first of the three connective patterns discussed on p. 161. The visual perception of your friend is supplemented by a verbal idea, his name. Along with the name comes a peculiar sense-feeling, a feeling that you may characterise as a glow of warmth, a feeling of intimacy, a feeling of sociable ease, of relaxation from the formal manner that you wear with strangers. And hardly has the feeling formed when ideas of sorts begin to crowd upon you, and the conversation starts. All this complexity of mental connection is there, and the whole experience may be called a recognition; but we cannot, of course, accept it at its face-value; we must still ask how much of it is essential, and whether one or more of the three factors—name, feeling, ideas—may be left out while recognition remains.