1. Practice on the formation of some habit until considerable skill is acquired. Draw a learning curve similar to the one on page [95], showing the increase in skill. A class experiment can be performed by the use of a substitution test. Take letters to represent the nine digits, then transcribe numbers into the letters as described on page [192]. Keep a record of successive five-minute periods of practice till all have practiced an hour. This gives twelve practice periods for the construction of a learning curve. The individual experiments should be more difficult and cover a longer period. Suitable experiments for individual practice are: learning to operate a typewriter, pitching marbles into a hole, writing with the left hand, and mirror writing. The latter is performed by standing a mirror vertically on the table, placing the paper in front and writing in such a way that the letters have the proper form and appearance when seen in the mirror. The subject should not look at his hand but at its reflection in the mirror. A piece of cardboard can be supported just over the hand so that only the image of the hand in the mirror can be seen.
  2. A study of the interference of habit can be made as follows: Take eight small boxes and arrange them in a row. Number each box plainly. Do not number them consecutively, but as follows, 5, 7, 1, 8, 2, 3, 6, 4. Make eighty cards, ten of each number, and number them plainly. Practice distributing the cards into the boxes. Note the time required for each distribution. Continue to distribute them till considerable skill is acquired. Then rearrange the order of the boxes and repeat the experiment. What do the results show?
  3. Does the above experiment show any transfer of training? Compare the time for each distribution in the second part of the experiment, i.e. after the rearrangement of the boxes, with the time for the corresponding distribution in the first part of the experiment. The question to be answered is: Are the results of the second part of the experiment better than they would have been if the first part had not been performed? State your results and conclusions and compare with the statements in the text.
  4. A study of the effects of spreading out learning periods can be made as follows: Divide the class into two equal divisions. Let one division practice on a substitution experiment as explained in Exercise 1, for five ten-minute periods of practice in immediate succession. Let the other division practice for five days, ten minutes a day. What do the results indicate? The divisions should be of equal ability. If the first ten-minute practice period shows the sections to be of unequal ability, this fact should be taken into account in making the comparisons. Test sheets can be prepared by the teacher, or they can be obtained from the Extension Division of the University of Missouri.
  5. An experiment similar to No. 4 can be performed by practicing adding or any other school exercise. Care must be taken to control the experiment and to eliminate disturbing factors.
  6. Try the card-distributing experiment with people of different ages, young children, old people, and various ages in between. What do you learn? Is it as easy for an old person to form a habit as it is for a young person? Why?
  7. If an old person has no old habits to interfere, can he form a new habit as readily as can a young person?
  8. Cite evidence from your own experience to prove that it is hard for an old person to break up old habits and form new ones which interfere with the old ones.
  9. Do you find that you are becoming “set in your ways?”
  10. What do we mean by saying that we are “plastic in early years”?
  11. Have you planned your life work? Are you establishing the habits that will be necessary in it?
  12. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to choose one’s profession or occupation early?
  13. Attention often interferes with the performance of a habitual act. Why is this?
  14. If a man removes his vest in the daytime, he is almost sure to wind his watch. On the other hand if he is up all night, he lets his watch run down. Why?
  15. Do you know of people who have radically changed their views late in life?
  16. Try to teach a dog or a cat a trick. What do you learn of importance about habit-formation?
  17. What branches taught in school involve the formation of habits that are useful throughout life?
  18. Make a list of the moral habits that should be formed in early years.
  19. Write an essay on Habit and Life.
  20. Make a complete outline of the chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING

CHAPTER VII
MEMORY

Perceptions and Ideas. In a previous chapter, brief mention was made of the difference between perceptions and ideas. This distinction must now be enlarged upon and made clearer. Perceptions arise out of our sensory life. We see things when these things are before our eyes. We hear things when these things produce air vibrations which affect our ears. We smell things when tiny particles from them come into contact with a small patch of sensitive membrane in our noses. We taste substances when these substances are in our mouths. Now, this seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, etc., is perceiving. We perceive a thing when the thing is actually at the time affecting some one or more of our sense organs. A perception, then, results from the stimulation of a sense organ. Perception is the process of perceiving, sensing, objects in the external world.

Ideas are our seeming to see, hear, smell, taste things when these things are not present to the senses. This morning I saw, had a perception of, a robin. To-night in my study, I have an idea of a robin. This morning the robin was present. Light reflected from it stimulated my eye. To-night, as I have an idea of the robin, it is not here; I only seem to see it. The scene which was mine this morning is now revived, reproduced. We may say, therefore, that ideas are the conscious representatives of objects which are not present to the senses. Ideas are revived experiences.

Revived experience is memory. Since it is memory that enables us to live our lives over again, brings the past up to the present, it is one of the most wonderful aspects of our natures. The importance of memory is at once apparent if we try to imagine what life would be without it. If our life were only perceptual, if it were only the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of the passing moment, it would have little meaning, it would be bare and empty. But instead of our perceptions being our whole life, they are only the starting points of life. Perceptions serve to arouse groups of memory images or ideas, and the groups of ideas enrich the passing moment and give meaning to the passing perceptions, which otherwise would have no meaning.

Suppose I am walking along the street and meet a friend. I see him, speak to him, and pass on. But after I have passed on, I have ideas. I think of seeing my friend the day before. I think of what he said and of what he was doing, of what I said and of what I was doing. Perhaps for many minutes there come ideas from my past experience. These ideas were aroused by the perception of my friend. The perception was momentary, but it started a long train of memory ideas.

I pass on down the street and go by a music store. Within the store, a victrola is playing Jesus, Lover of My Soul. The song starts another train of memory ideas. I think of the past, of my boyhood days and Sunday school, my early home and many scenes of my childhood. For several minutes I am so engrossed with the memory images that I scarcely notice anything along the street. Again, the momentary perception, this time of sounds, served to revive a great number of ideas, or memories, of the past.