The content of the fringe of consciousness considered as a subconscious zone.—It is obvious that all the past experiences which originate the meaning of an idea cannot be in consciousness at a given moment. If I carefully introspect my imaginal perception or idea of an object, say of a politician, I do not find in my consciousness all the elements which have given me my viewpoint or attitude of mind toward him—the meaning of my idea of him as a great statesman or a demagogue, whichever it be—and yet it may not be difficult, by referring to my memory, to find the past experiences which have furnished the setting which gives this viewpoint. Very little of all these past experiences can be in the content of consciousness, and much less in the focus of attention, at any given moment, nevertheless I cannot doubt that these experiences really determined the meaning of my idea, for if challenged I proceed to recite this conserved knowledge. And so it is with everyone who defends the validity of the meaning of his ideas.
The question at once comes to mind in the case of any given perception, how much of past experience (associated ideas) is in consciousness at any given moment as the setting which provides the meaning?
That the meaning must be in consciousness is obvious; else the term “meaning” would have no meaning—it would be sheer nonsense to talk of ideas having meaning. As I have said, the meaning may be in the focus of attention or it may be in the fringe or background according to the point of interest. If in the focus of attention, meaning plainly may, synchronously or successively, include ideas of quite a large number of past experiences, but if in the background it may be another matter. In this case it may be held, and probably in many instances quite rightly, that meaning is a short summary of past experiences, or summing up in the form of a symbol, and that this summary or symbol is in the focus of attention or in the fringe of awareness, i. e., is clearly or dimly conscious. Thus, in one of the examples above given, the industrial meaning of the owner’s idea of the building might be a short summing up of his past cogitations on the business value of the property; in the case of my idea of the politician, the symbol “statesman” or “demagogue”—as the case might be—might be in consciousness and be the meaning. All the rest of the past associative experiences in either case would furnish the origin of the setting but would not be the actual functioning setting itself.
It must be confessed, however, that the content of meaning, when it is not in the focus of attention, often becomes very elusive when we try to clearly revive it retrospectively and differentiate the particular states of consciousness present at any given moment. It is probably because of this elusiveness, as of something that seems to evade analysis, that it was so long overlooked as an object of psychological study. Yet if meaning is not something more than an abstract term, and is really a component of a moment’s consciousness, we ought to be able to analyze it in any given instance provided our methods of investigation are adequate. The difficulty, I think, largely arises from the fact that the minute we direct attention to such elements of the content of consciousness of any given moment as are not in the focus of attention they at once become shifted into the focus and the composition of the content also becomes altered. Consequently we are never immediately vividly or fully aware of the whole content. The only method of learning what is the whole content at any given moment is by retrospection—the recovery of it as memory. Further, special technical methods are required. Then, too, image and meaning are constantly shifting their relative positions, at one time the one being in the focus of attention, the other in the fringe, and vice versa.
When speaking colloquially of the content of consciousness we have in mind those ideas or components of ideas—elements of thought—which are in the focus of attention, and therefore that of which we are more or less vividly aware. If you were asked to state what was in your mind at a given moment it is the vivid elements, upon which your attention was focused, that you would describe. But, as everyone knows, these do not constitute the whole field of consciousness at any given moment. Besides these there is in the background of the mind, outside the focus, a conscious margin or fringe of varying extent (consisting of sensations, perceptions, and even thoughts) of which you are only dimly aware. It is a sort of twilight zone in which the contents are so slightly illuminated by awareness as to be scarcely recognizable. The contents of this zone are readily forgotten owing to their having been outside the focus of attention; but much can be recalled if an effort to do so (retrospection) is made immediately after any given moment’s experience. Much can only be recalled by the use of special technical methods of investigation. I believe that the more thoroughly this wonderful region is explored the richer it will be found to be in conscious elements.
It must not be thought that because we are only dimly aware of the contents of this twilight zone therefore the individual elements lack definiteness and positive reality. To do so is to confuse the awareness of a certain something with that something itself. To so think would be like thinking that, because we do not distinctly recognize objects in the darkness, therefore they are but shadowy forms without substance. When, in states of abstraction or hypnosis, the ideas of this fringe of attention are recalled, as often is easily done, they are remembered as very definite, real, conscious elements, and the memory of them is as vivid as that of most thoughts. That these marginal ideas are not “vivid” at the time of their occurrence means simply that they are not in such dynamic relations with the whole content of consciousness as to be the focus of awareness or attention. What sort of relations are requisite for “awareness” is an unsolved problem. It seems to be a matter not only of synthesis but of dynamic relations within the synthesis.
However that may be, outside that dynamic synthesis which we distinguish as the focus of attention we can at certain moments recognize or recall to memory (whether through technical devices or not) a number of different conscious states. These may be roughly classified as follows:
1: Visual, auditory, and other sensory impressions to which we are not giving attention—(e. g., the striking of a clock; the sound of horses passing in the street; voices from the next room; coenæsthetic and other sensations of the body.
2: The secondary sensory images of which I spoke in the last lecture as taking part in perception.
3: Associative memories and thoughts pertaining to the ideas in the focus of attention.