CLASS EXERCISES

  1. The teacher can test the auditory memory of the members of the class for rote material by using letters. It is better to omit the vowels, using only the consonants. Prepare five groups of letters with eight letters in a group. Read each group of letters to the class, slowly and distinctly. After reading a group, allow time for the students to write down what they recall, then read the next group and so proceed till the five groups have been read. Grade the work by finding the number of letters reproduced, taking no account of the position of the letters.
  2. In a similar way, test visual memory, using different combinations of letters. Write the letters plainly on five large squares of cardboard. Hold each list before the class for as long a time as it took to read a group in experiment No. 1.
  3. Test memory for words in a similar way. Use simple words of one syllable, making five lists with eight words in a list.
  4. Test memory for objects by fastening common objects on a large cardboard and holding the card before the class. Put eight objects on each card and prepare five cards. Expose them for the same length of time as in experiment No. 2.
  5. Test memory for names of objects by preparing five lists of names, eight names in a list, and reading the names as in experiment No. 1.
  6. You now have data for the following study: Find the average grade of each student in the different experiments. Find the combined grade of each student in all the above experiments. Do the members of the class hold the same rank in all the tests? How do the boys compare with the girls? How does memory for objects compare with memory for names of objects? How does auditory memory compare with visual? What other points do you learn from the experiments?
  7. The teacher can make a study of the logical memory of the members of the class by using material as described on page [184]. Make five separate tests, using stories that are well within the comprehension of the class and that will arouse their interest. Sufficient material will be found in the author’s Examination of School Children and Whipple’s Manual. However, the teacher can prepare similar material.
  8. Do the students maintain the same rank in the separate tests of experiment No. 7? Rank all the students for their combined standing in all the first five tests. Rank them for their combined standing in the logical memory tests. Compare the two rankings. What conclusions are warranted?
  9. You have tested, in experiment No. 7, logical memory when the material was read to the students. It will now be interesting to compare the results of No. 7 with the results obtained by allowing the students to read the material of the test. For this purpose, select portions from the later chapters of this book. Allow just time enough for the selection to be read once slowly by the students, then have it reproduced as in the other logical memory experiment. Give several tests, if there is sufficient time. Find the average grade of each student, and compare the results with those obtained in No. 7. This will enable you to compare the relative standing of the members of the class, but will not enable you to compare the two ways of acquiring facts. For this purpose, the stories would have to be of equal difficulty. Let the members of the class plan an experiment that would be adequate for this purpose.
  10. A brief study of the improvement of memory can be made by practicing a few minutes each day for a week or two, as time permits, using material that can be easily prepared, such as lists of common words. Let the members of the class plan the experiment. Use the best plan.
  11. The class can make a study of the relation of memory to school standing in one of the grades below the high school. Give at least two tests for logical memory. Give also the rote memory tests described on page [189]. Get the class standing of the pupils from the teacher. Make the comparison as suggested in Chapter [I], page [15]. Or, the correlation can be worked out accurately by following the directions given in the Examination of School Children, page 58, or in Whipple’s Manual, page 38.
  12. Let the members of the class make a plan for the improvement of their memory for the material studied in school. Plan devices for learning the material better and for fixing it in memory. At the end of the course in psychology, have an experience meeting and study the results reported.
  13. Prepare five lists of nonsense syllables, with eight in a list. Give them as in experiment No. 3, and compare the results with those of that experiment. What do the results indicate as to the value to memory of meaningful material? What educational inferences can you make? In preparing the syllables, put a vowel between two consonants, and use no syllable that is a real word.
  14. A study of the effects of distractions on learning and memory can be made as follows: Let the teacher select two paragraphs in later chapters of this book, of equal length and difficulty. Let the students read one under quiet conditions and the other while an electric bell is ringing in the room. Compare the reproductions in the two cases.
  15. From the chapter and from the results of all the memory tests, let the students enumerate the facts that have educational significance.
  16. Make a complete outline of the chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING

CHAPTER VIII
THINKING

In Chapter [III] we learned about sensation. We found that when a sense organ is stimulated by its appropriate type of stimulus, this stimulation travels through the sensory nerves and sets up an excitation in the brain. This excitation in the brain gives us sensation. We see if the eye is stimulated. We hear if the ear is stimulated, etc. In Chapter [VII] we learned that after the brain has had an excitation giving rise to sensation, it is capable of reviving this excitation later. This renewal or revival of a brain excitation gives us an experience resembling the original sensation, only usually fainter and less stable. This revived experience is called image or idea. The general process of retention and revival of experience is, as we have seen, known as memory. An idea, then, is a bit of revived experience. A perception is a bit of immediate or primary experience. I am said to perceive a chair if the chair is present before me, if the light reflected from the chair is actually exciting my retinas. I have an idea of the chair when I seem to see it, when the chair is not before me or when my eyes are shut. These distinctions were pointed out in the preceding chapter. Let us now proceed to carry our study of ideas further.

Association of Ideas. The subject of the association of ideas can best be introduced by an experiment. Take a paper and pencil, and think of the word “horse.” Write this word down, and then write down other words that come to mind. Write them in the order in which they come to mind. Do this for three or four minutes, and try the experiment several times, beginning with a different word each time. Make a study of the lists of words. Compare the different lists and the lists written by different students.

In the case of the writer, the following words came to mind in the first few seconds: horse, bridle, saddle, tail, harness, buggy, whip, man, sky, stars, sun, ocean. Why did these words come, and why did they come in that order? Why did the idea “horse” suggest the idea “bridle”? And why did “bridle” suggest “saddle”? Is there something in the nature of ideas that couples them with certain other ideas and makes them always suggest the other ideas? No, there is not. Ideas become coupled together in our experience, and the coupling is in accordance with our experience. Things that are together in our experience become coupled together as ideas. The idea “horse” may become coupled with any other idea. The general law of the association of ideas is this: Ideas are joined together in memory or revived experience as they were joined in the original or perceptive experience.

But the matter is complicated by the fact that things are experienced in different connections in perceptive experience. I do not always experience “horse” together with “bridle.” I sometimes see horses in a pasture eating clover. So, as far as this last experience is concerned, when I think “horse” I should also think “clover.” I sometimes see a horse running when a train whistles, so “whistle” and “horse” should be coupled in my mind. A horse once kicked me on the shoulder, so “horse” and “shoulder” should be connected in my mind. And so they are. The very fact that these various experiences come back to me proves that they are connected in my mind in accordance with the original experiences. The revival of various horse experiences has come to me faster than I could write them down, and they are all bound together in my memory. If I should write them all out, it would take many hours, perhaps days.