Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2

by Unknown

We ask finally how far our results and notes point to a theoretical understanding of the mechanism of associations. Previous work, especially that of James, Cordes, Calkins, and Scripture, as well as the accumulated notes of my subjects, confirm that the transition may be made by means of total, partial, and focal recall, and that in partial and focal recall the prominent persisting elements are surrounded in the formation of a new idea by other new elements.

If a latent idea remains in the margin of consciousness and exerts an influence, which not merely modifies but determines the series of associations, and leads up to the focalisation of the latent idea, we have a case of predetermined association, which, when noted by investigators, has invariably become confused with mediate association. Here there is an element or group of elements, persisting in the margin of consciousness, which is gradually maturing and becoming focalised into groups of elements comprising an idea which ultimately dominates consciousness. In some cases three, four, and five ideas have been named before this takes place, and we have here a reversed form of association. Four subjects noted the experience on different occasions, and it is not to be confused with the common experience of apprehending the present contents of consciousness as part of a larger whole where we are conscious of its existence but not of what it is.

The notes further show that the common conscious elements may be predominantly visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, or kinæsthetic, or a complex or compound of these in character, while to this may be added an indication of the fact that the transition, incipient as it is, may in many cases be reduced to a condition which is in the last analysis one of the motor nervous system. Ht., for instance, finds that the words all pass over into innervations of the organs of speech and "are accompanied by the impulse to make the sound," stating later, "they hang on the tongue." The following is one of the series given which represents rather an extreme case, Taft, taffy, toffy; tough, rough, ruff; buff, bluff, tough; muff, duff, tuff. Br., who also gave a large percentage of verbal associations, finds that "some part of each word seems to linger on the tongue with motor sensations till the next comes." "I am subject," he adds, "more or less frequently to verbal automatism of this auditory incipient motor type." Ro., who has many auditory associations, reports "they are always accompanied by motor images, together with many associations." A changing of orientation is a common accompaniment, with statements of the feeling of the impulse to turn in various directions. For F., who is predominantly of the motor type, we have an example where the rhythmic ticking of a clock fades into the rhythmic watching of a boat rising and falling on the water.

The notes would seem to indicate that there is no idea without a motor fringe, and also that these elements of incipient impulses to movement may accompany the elements of transition, and are observed introspectively by the subjects. They are therefore data for psychology. Do they influence or direct the associations? In short, are they the processes which connect and which determine the associations?

F. states, "There seem to have been waves of motor sensations. Such waves may start with a word and carry one in faint mimicry through the whole succession of bodily sensations that one experienced in that event, and then may come a relapse until other stronger currents appear." Here we are face to face with the dynamics of association, the most fundamental and important problem of brain association. Have these phenomena of ideational images "acquired by contact a kind of magnetism which causes the one to attract the other and have, so to speak, become magnetic?" (Zanotti.) Or are they on the other hand independent of all force and "merely ideas of antecedence and sequence only?" (Mill.) While there is no mention of a magnetic force, the notes and results all show that the ideas are systematically conditioned in a way which cannot be explained by the contiguity of the objects. The motor elements play the deciding role. Ht. emphasises the influence of ideated movement when he writes, "Kinæsthetic. Slow regular tramping on snowshoes brought up the characteristic swing of arms, and therewith the idea (sensations of weight) of the stick (or stock) which I have generally carried on Norwegian snowshoes. Transition from Vermont to the Black Forest by association with snowshoeing in both places. Real sensations in play were free breath, movements in chest (kinæsthetic), fresh air (olfactory), cold (thermal), and emotion of emotional strength." Again, "Looking up at sun suggested general ideas of expansion of attention and with this breath comes the idea, breezes"; another subject adds, "A tendency to imitate the sounds of syllables and this leads on to a train of associations"; another, "A slight feeling of sudden changed impulse"; another, "A sort of motor after-image came back and took the foreground"; and F. goes further when he states, "Ideationally my hand wandered to the upper right-hand corner of the page, then suddenly the auditory image of 47 came up as if whispered to me." All of which indicate that some ideas at least depend for their entrance into consciousness upon motor reactions.

Passing to the more refined reactions expressed in emotions we find that they are not merely accompanying coloring influences, but also often actual determining factors. All of the subjects notice at some time a coloring atmosphere from an emotion, but others find that "the growing word is rather felt emotionally than definitely formulated," and we have "a nameless idea, largely feeling-tone" (Ht.); or the words may "all come as parts of a growing feeling, an indistinct though strong state of mind." (J.) The same subject observed, "The previous word may create a mood or feeling which in the main determines the associations; a group of words is dependent upon strong accompanying feeling—there is a summation and a discharge while the next word has been accumulating force" (J.), and we have a form of summation; or in other words, "a general mood accumulated while several words were in mind at once, then all dropped and another general feeling came to the front with an accumulation of other words." (F.) Here we have a typical example of constellation where all the words and ideas are implicitly present as a total attitude or disposition, the elements of which become successively focalised into a series of associated images. The last subject finds that "the emotional atmosphere often controls the associations." Indeed, it would seem that occasionally for some subjects this strong accompanying undercurrent of undifferentiated emotional feeling is capable of bringing about trains of thought independent of any logical connection. K. finds "the feeling to carry one on"; H. finds the "point of departure the interesting idea"; all find that the words change with the disposition, as may be verified by a study of the lists of associations.

We are forced to conclude that the impulses to movement or other emotional attitudes may act as determining factors in association, which extended to an hypothesis would mean that the mode of transition in the associated series is in the last analysis to be found in delicate incipient motor tendencies to action, the psychic concomitants of which are observable; that psychic states are both as to their unity and organisation consequences of motor reactions which are implicitly present as parts of a total reaction to the present situation. It is these motor tendencies to action which determine what idea shall enter consciousness. Just in so far as they become released they become prolonged, accentuated, and form a nucleus for the new idea. To speak of association independent of motor elements is merely to make an empirical classification of successive states of consciousness.

There remains a psychical phenomenon which must be satisfactorily accounted for before we go farther. An element of an idea, an idea or a series of ideas may occupy consciousness to the exclusion of others. If the second starting-point were not given, the associations would undoubtedly follow the given one. Inhibition must then be one form of "obstructed association," the inhibiting ideas being present to the exclusion of the inhibited. But are we thus forced to say inhibition is the "negative side of the association process," claiming that all ideas not in consciousness are inhibited, and thus being forced to conclude the conscious idea is inhibiting an unconscious idea, which cannot exist (by the very definition and presuppositions of psychology) until it is an object of consciousness. This would mean that content of consciousness and inhibition are identical. On the other hand, the notes and exemplifying facts of the tables show Dr. Breese's fallacious position when he concludes that "because, obeying the laws of association, the train of ideas takes one direction rather than another can hardly be considered sufficient ground to hold that the other possible train of ideas is inhibited."[137] He has overlooked the possibility of two or more trains of associations having been started and the associations of one starting-point are excluded from entering the focus of consciousness by the direction of the given series. Inhibition would then be the negative side of fusion. The explanation must, as has already been demonstrated, be psycho-physical in character. If these impulses to action have actually been observed by the subjects we are justified in concluding that just as in physiological inhibition one action excludes another, so the correlative tendencies to movement of one idea exclude others.

By. observed that the image of the starting-point lingered and inhibited subsequent ideas. The implication here, from our previous reasoning, would be that not the ideational images, as such, but the physiological motor concomitants, persisted and excluded others, and this is why disparate terms give a "shock to the nervous system" (A.), "require different lines of expression" (A.); and "one has more momentum," as so many report. This would explain why the associations of a new starting-point inhibit the associations of a former one; for as the motor nervous impulses tend to work themselves out into action, the reaction of the previous impulse will be suppressed by those of a new impulse which enters, by the conditions of these experiments, an attentive consciousness. Thus the prepotent impulses to action are the conditioning factors in mental inhibition.