It is a tradition in psychology that the comparison of present with past experience implies the arousal of an image; we revive or reproduce the old, and then set its mental picture alongside the new. We have met a like tradition before, in our account of recognition and of expectation (pp. 184, 273). Nothing, however, can be more certain than that the image is unnecessary; comparison may be direct, the immediate outcome of a determination; and if it is indirect, the processes involved need not be images. Suppose, for instance, that you are comparing two tones, sounded in succession, and that you are to report upon their pitch; you are to say whether the second tone is higher or lower than the first, or of the same pitch. In very many cases, the second tone will evoke, at once and automatically, the report ‘higher,’ ‘lower,’ or ‘same’; you find yourself uttering the word, without further experience of any kind; the whole procedure closes in on itself, very much as the impulse does in the motor reaction (p. 241). In many cases, again, the comparison will be indirect, but the intervening processes are sensations; strains appear in chest or throat, in forehead or scalp; the observers report a ‘tightening’ which means ‘higher,’ and a ‘relaxing’ or ‘slackening’ which means that the second tone is lower. We may suppose that these kinæsthetic processes are empathic; for in playing or singing or listening to music we are likely to strain and hold the breath for high-pitched passages, and to relax and settle down for the low. Lastly, some imaginal complex may intervene; but even so it need not be auditory; the observer may picture a printed score or the piano keyboard, or may feel himself striking a note which is a semitone above or below another. The auditory image plays a part in the comparison only when the experiment is novel, when the second tone fails to touch off a response, or when there is a conflict of impulses to report; in other words, only when the observer is hesitant and uncertain; otherwise, it either fails to appear, or appears and is disregarded.
That is the first point: the second is that comparison is often complete—paradoxical as the statement may appear—before the second of the paired stimuli has been presented; we are ready with our answer before the full question has been put. If, for instance, we are comparing the intensities of successive tones, and if the first tone strikes us as unusually loud, or as ridiculously faint, then we are prepared to declare the second tone ‘weaker’ or ‘stronger’ before we have actually heard it. We receive from the first tone an absolute impression of loudness or faintness; and this impression—which, as we saw on p. 125, is our nearest approach to an intensive perception—suffices of itself to determine our report. Logically, we may be said to ‘compare’ the very loud or very faint tone with a tone of average intensity; psychologically, there is no comparison at all, but a direct response to the absolute impression made by the first term of the stimulus-pair.
It need hardly be said that these paragraphs do not offer, even in outline sketch, a psychology of comparison; they are not meant to; for here again the time is not ripe for full discussion. They should be enough, however, to drive home the lesson which the author intends: that the course of thought, whether we take the pattern as a whole or consider separate aspects of it, is full of short cuts and condensations. It is probably as impossible to unravel the psychology of thought, in every detail and to its first beginnings, as it is to unravel the psychology of perception. For our thinking is subject, not only to the inherited tendencies of the nervous system, but also to the stereotyped thought of our social surroundings; we are bred up in an atmosphere of meaning, and we hear words before we can speak them. If men do not use language, as Voltaire cynically said they do, to conceal their own thoughts, at least their facility of speech makes the psychology of thought almost insuperably difficult to their children.
(1) We found, in the last chapter, that selective action does not follow directly upon impulsive action, but that there is between the two a stage of ‘trial and error.’ Can you instance any form of thought (from your own experience, or from drama or fiction) which corresponds with the stage of trial and error in action?
(2) Can you suggest the circumstances under which an ‘intention to communicate’ might naturally arise? Your answer must be speculative; but it must also be scientifically reasonable!
(3) How is articulate speech superior to gesture? Write fully; do not be satisfied with your first answer.
(4) Illustrate in detail, from your answers to previous questions in this book, the advantages and disadvantages of language as the vehicle of scientific description.