The method by which the occurrence of indirect associations was recorded has been already described. It is considered entirely trustworthy. There is usually little doubt in the mind of a subject who comprehends what is meant by an indirect association whether or not such were present in the particular series which has just been learned. If none occurred in it the subjects always recorded the fact. That an indirect association should occasionally be present on one day and absent on a subsequent one is not strange. That a second term should effect a union between a first and third and thereafter disappear from consciousness is not an uncommon phenomenon of association. There were thirteen such cases out of sixty-eight indirect associations in the A, B and C sets. In the tables they are given as present because their effects are present. When the reverse was the case, namely, when an indirect association occurred on the second, ninth or sixteenth day for the first time, it aided in later recall and was counted thereafter. There were eight such cases among the sixty-eight indirect associations.
Is it possible that the occurrence of indirect associations in, e.g., two of the four couplets of a series renders the retention of the other two easier? This could only be so when the intervals between two couplets in learning were used for review, but such was never the case. The subjects were required to fill such intervals with repetitions of the preceding couplet only.
The elimination of the indirect association couplets and the acceptance of the remainders as fair portrayals of the influence of objects and movements on recall is therefore a much nearer approach to truth than would be the retention of the indirectly associated couplets.
The following conclusions deal with recall after two days only. The recall after longer intervals will be discussed after Table III.
The summary from Tables I. and II. shows that when objects and nouns are coupled each with a foreign symbol, four of the six subjects recall real objects better than images of objects, while two, M and Ho, show little or no preference. The summary also shows that when body movements and verbs are coupled each with a foreign symbol, five of the six subjects recall actual movements better than images of movements, while one subject, M, shows no preference. The same subject also showed no preference for objects. With the subjects S and B the preference for actual movements is not marked, and has importance only in the light of later experiments to be reported.
The great difference in the retentive power of different subjects is, as we should expect, very evident. Roughly, they may be divided into two groups. M and Mo recall much more than the other four. The small percentage of recall in the case of these four suggested the next change in the conditions of experimentation, namely, to shorten with them the intervals between the tests for permanence. This was accordingly done in the C set. But before giving an account of the next set we may supplement these results by results obtained from other subjects.
It was impossible to repeat this set with the same subjects, and inconvenient, on account of the scarcity of suitable words, to devise another set just like it. Accordingly, the B set was repeated with six new subjects. We may interpolate the results here, and then resume our experiments with the other subjects. The conditions remained the same as for the other subjects in all respects except the following. The tests after nine and sixteen days were omitted, and the remaining test for deferred recall was given after one day instead of after two. In learning the series, each series was shown four times instead of three. The results are summarized in the following table. The figures in the left half show the number of words out of sixteen which were correctly recalled. The figures in parentheses separate, as before, the correctly recalled indirect-association couplets. In the right half of the table the same results, omitting indirect-association couplets, are given in per cents, to facilitate comparison with the summary from Tables I. and II.
TABLE III.
SHOWING RECALL AFTER ONE DAY.
| N. | O. | V. | M. | N. | O. | V. | M. | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bur. | 6 | 10 | (1) | 7 | (1) | 5 | (4) | 38 | 67 | 44 | 31 | |||||
| W. | 5 | (3) | 12 | (1) | 6 | 9 | 31 | 75 | 38 | 56 | ||||||
| Du. | 1 | 11 | (1) | 8 | 9 | 6 | 69 | 50 | 56 | |||||||
| H. | 9 | (1) | 14 | 8 | 12 | 56 | 88 | 50 | 75 | |||||||
| Da. | 1 | (3) | 7 | (4) | 3 | (1) | 9 | (3) | 7 | 44 | 20 | 56 | ||||
| R. | 7 | (2) | 3 | (3) | 5 | 5 | (1) | 44 | 19 | 31 | 31 | |||||
| Total, | 29 | (9) | 57 | (10) | 37 | (2) | 49 | (8) | Av., 30 | 60 | 39 | 51 |