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The Brevity Book on 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 By 
 
 CHRISTIAN A. RUCKMICK 
 
 Associate Professor of Psychology, 
 
 University of Illinois. 
 
 EDITORIAL BOARD: 
 
 Wai^tkr DiIvIv Scott, President, The 
 Scott Company, Engineers in Indus- 
 trial Personnel; formerly President, 
 The American Psychological Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 W. V. Bingham, Dean, Division of 
 Applied Psychology, Carnegie In- 
 stitute of Technology; Chairman, 
 Division of Anthropology and Psy- 
 chology, National Research Council, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 R. S. White, Credit Manager, Amer- 
 ican Steel & Wire Company; form- 
 erly President, Chicago Association 
 of Credit Men. 
 
 Sam J. TuRNEs, General Sales Manager, 
 Tire Division, The Brunsv^rick-Balke 
 Collender Co., Chicago. 
 
 BREVITY PUBLISHERS Inc. 
 
 Chemical Building 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1920 
 
^'S' 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book attempts to present in a small compass 
 the essential principles of psychology. The author 
 hopes, however, that this brief text will invite the 
 reader to follow a more extensive course of study in 
 the subject. The book is further designed to give 
 those who have either no access to the larger works 
 or little time to devote to them, an adequate review 
 of the science as currently interpreted by represent- 
 ative psychologists. 
 
 Christian A. Ruckmick 
 
 University of Illinois 
 Urbana, lUinois 
 October 20, 1919 
 
 JUL -6 1920 
 
 ©CLA570553 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Introduction 1 
 
 II Sensory Experience 12 
 
 III Perceptual Experience 29 
 
 IV Imaginal Experience 42 
 
 V Aflfective Experience 50 
 
 VI Mental Arrangement: Attention 57 
 
 VII Mental Arrangement: Association 66 
 
 VIII Action ::. 79 
 
 IX Thought 88 
 
 X The Self 95 
 
 Appendix A — The Industrial Applications of 
 
 Psychology 104 
 
 Appendix B — Classified References 107 
 
2 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOI.OGY 
 
 feature is added: psychology is supposed to be a 
 mysterious art which operates best in the dark ! It is 
 something mystical, supernatural, and has to do with 
 the world of spirits and with the soul. No ghost in 
 a dark closet ever held firmer sway over the child 
 mind than does this type of "psychology" over public 
 opinion; and no ghost could be more easily dispelled. 
 A visit to a well equipped psychological laboratory 
 in any of our larger universities would do much to 
 convince the skeptic or to disillusion the misinformed. 
 But since to most persons such a tour is impossible or 
 inconvenient, following are, briefly, the essential facts 
 concerning the nature of psychology in its modern 
 aspects and the problems which it attempts to solve. 
 2. De:i^iniTion. — Psychology is the science of 
 mental phenomena. It begins by emphasizing the 
 scientific nature of the study of mind. This text is 
 being written in a psychological laboratory comprising 
 some twenty or more rooms full of apparatus designed 
 especially for the study of mind. There are scores of 
 such laboratories in this country and in Europe, each 
 one of them stocked with apparatus valued at $20,000 
 or more. Some years ago the writer made a study of 
 these laboratories and visited more than twenty in 
 this country, in England, and in Germany. This de- 
 velopment, however, is simply an indicator: hundreds 
 of laboratories and thousands of dollars' worth of ap- 
 paratus do not make a science. Many valuable facts 
 in the sciences were discovered with very little appar- 
 atus, or in some instances by means of crudely devised 
 instruments. Psychologists were called into the army 
 with other scientists; they frequently worked without 
 the aid of equipment ; but they took with them the in- 
 dispensible tool of all sciences: the scientific method. 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 It was this method that was responsible for the widely- 
 known tests whose aim it was to make our army 
 mentally as well as physically fit. 
 
 But before discussing methods let us return to the 
 definition: the science of mental phenomena. What 
 are mental phenomena? What is mind? It is as 
 difficult to answer these questions without going into 
 circular arguments as it is to define matter. Mind is 
 that phase of the living organism which is aware or 
 conscious. It consists of experience and accumulated 
 experiences. Its phenomena are sensations, feelings, 
 imagery, memories, thoughts, emotions, actions, and 
 the like. The inscription on the ancient Greek temple 
 at Delphi, ''Know Thyself' was incompletely answered 
 until mind as well as body was examined. Aristotle, 
 one of the most careful thinkers the Greeks produced, 
 saw at once that his description of the world would 
 not be complete unless he included treatises on mind, 
 and he set to work to write what is probably the first 
 text-book on psychology. Time and time again the 
 question concerning the nature of the mind arose in 
 the history of thought and many a philosopher has 
 undertaken to find a suitable answer; hence the fre- 
 quent confusion of psychology with philosophy and 
 the long and late affiliation of the two subjects. Theo- 
 logians, too, have tried their hand at the task because 
 the mind seemed at first, and indeed for a long tim.e, 
 something like the soul or spirit. The word ''psycho- 
 logy'' literally means the study of the "psyche," or 
 soul; hence the connection with spiritualism. Very 
 few text-books, however, today mention the soul : the 
 number is so small as to be practically negligible. The 
 main difficulty with the term "soul" is its unscientific 
 usage and meaning. What we today mean by the 
 
4 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 "sour' cannot be investigated in the laboratory; the 
 discussion of this subject is left to theologians and 
 philosophers. 
 
 A useful distinction is commonly made between 
 mind and consciousness. Mind is considered as the 
 complete organisation of experiences in any one in- 
 dividual, living organism; while consciousness is a hit 
 of the organization, a momentary phase of it. In one 
 connection we say, '*that person has a wonderful 
 mind''; in the other, ''I have the consciousness of be- 
 ing alone." We are conscious or aware of this or 
 that; our consciousness changes from moment to 
 moment, but our mind goes on until death. Our mind 
 is the stream; our consciousnesses are the eddies in 
 it. Another way of putting it is, mind is the entire 
 system of processes ; consciousness is its chief charact- 
 eristic: to be mindful is to be conscious. 
 
 The reader may be aware of the inadequacy of the 
 foregoing definitions ; but all definitions of fundamen- 
 tal considerations are inadequate. If these preliminary 
 statements were entirely adequate, there would be as 
 little purpose for the writer to continue writing as it 
 would be for the reader to proceed with his reading 
 of the text. All that can reasonably be promised with 
 continued writing and reading is an increased under- 
 standing of the terms used. When the last page is 
 turned, psychology, mind, consciousness, and many 
 other terms will presumably be clearer than they are 
 at this point. One of the best known manufacturers 
 of phonographs and records advertises in a recent 
 catalog, ''A .... record never sounds the same no 
 matter how often you play it. The record doesn't 
 change, but you do." So, as the terms occur over and 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 over again, they will not change as they stand on the 
 printed page, but you will. 
 
 3. Me:thods. — The same difficulty that has present- 
 ed itself in connection with other terms appears again 
 when we discuss the chief method of psychology: 
 introspection. Novelists and others write of it as if 
 it were a sort of morbid, self-centered reflection. A 
 famous physician has this meaning in mind when he 
 writes in diagnosing a case of palpitation of the heart, 
 "It may be due to indigestion, constipation, or intro- 
 spection." To the psychologist and to those trained 
 under his instruction it means nothing m^ore than a 
 very careful analysis and report of their mental phen- 
 omena. This may be easy or difficult, but there is 
 nothing morbid about it, nor is the person who does 
 it self-centered. He is least of all interested in him- 
 self : he is objectively concerned with mental happen- 
 ings, but his own individuality, if he is a true scientist, 
 is never taken personally into account. Introspection 
 becomes easy when Ihe problem is simplified : when 
 I gaze on the red disc of the setting sun and turn to 
 find that the red disc has given place to green after- 
 images wherever I look — that is an easy piece of intro- 
 spection. It is easy when the observer has been trained 
 to introspect by habit and second nature; just as the 
 botanist so educated easily sees a dozen species of 
 ferns where the common tourist sees but one or two, 
 or none at all. Introspections have been recorded when 
 the observer was undergoing an Intense emotion or 
 was being anaesthetized: these were difficult. When 
 a companion of mine accurately reports the variegated 
 coloring of a sky at sunset, he Is Introspecting; when 
 the patient tells the doctor the medicine tastes bitter, 
 it is as good a bit of Introspection as can be found any- 
 
6 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 where. The literal meaning of the word suggests 
 '^looking within", because in the historical development 
 of psychology it was supposed that we had an ''inner 
 sense" which did the reporting; or that the mind re- 
 sided within the body. Both of these notions have 
 since been proved not only erroneous but ridiculous. 
 One ''inner sense", by an easy logic, leads to an infinite 
 number of "inner senses", as Aristotle early pointed 
 out; but his successors paid little attention to him! 
 Consciousness inherently means this awareness and its 
 consequent report if called for. Likewise, while it is 
 an interesting pastime to study the various places in 
 the body where philosophers from time immemorial 
 have allocated the mind, we now know that you can- 
 not conceivably place something that has no physical 
 dimensions, like the mind, into a physically measur- 
 able body. Introspection then means nothing more 
 than a careful examination of mental processes report- 
 ed preferably in psychological terms. If the processes 
 were not examined while they were going on, then they 
 may sometimes be scrutinized immediately afterward : 
 this is called retrospection. Emotions, instinctive and 
 habituated performances, and dreams are frequently 
 analyzed by retrospection. 
 
 Recently psychologists have heard and read much 
 concerning another method. A few of them have even 
 vx^ithdrawn into a reform school known as behaviorism. 
 The observation of the behavior of animals, including 
 both man and the lower animals, has long been a sup- 
 plementary method of psychology. With a human 
 observer reporting his introspections it is often con- 
 sidered wise and even necessary to add whatever in- 
 formation the experimenter can gain by way of ob- 
 serving eye-movements, facial expressions, or manner 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 of speaking, and to interpret these bodily expressions 
 in terms of introspective data either of the subject or 
 of the experimenter himself. The behaviorists, how- 
 ever, are planning to do away with introspection en- 
 tirely and to study mind from the behavior of the 
 reflexes of the body, from the movements made, or 
 even from chemical analyses of the secretions of 
 glands. One of them is now at work studying young 
 babies from this point of view. What the result will 
 be is hard to predict: we shall probably learn a vast 
 deal more about the reflexes and the emotions. We 
 have already obtained much valuable information con- 
 cerning sensory discrimination and associative con- 
 nections. 
 
 Introspection, retrospection, and the observation of 
 behavior cannot furnish mental facts and laws to the 
 science of psychology unless they are carefully con- 
 trolled so that we know practically all the conditions 
 under which the mental processes which we are exam- 
 ining are occurring. We should like to observe these 
 processes repeatedly under the same conditions; we 
 should like to change the conditions under guidance; 
 and in some cases we should like to isolate the con- 
 ditions. The same rigorous care that the chemist or 
 the physicist takes with material objects must now be 
 exercised by the psychologist in his dealings with mind. 
 For that reason most of our results date from the 
 establishment of the first psychological laboratory in 
 1879; and nearly all experiments are now performed 
 under strict laboratory conditions. Introspection, re- 
 trospection, and the observation of behavior are scien- 
 tifically valueless unless they are experimentally con- 
 trolled and the conditions painstakingly recorded. 
 
 4. Mind and Body. — Much in the past has been 
 
8 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 written about the relation of mind and body. Most of 
 this is philosophical discussion, and therefore does not 
 concern us here. We have seen how illogical it is to 
 confuse mind and brain or to station mind anywhere 
 in the body. But whatever our philosophical inter- 
 pretation of this relationship may be, the fact remains 
 that mental changes are frequently accompanied by 
 bodily effects such as changes in breathing, circulation, 
 digestion, the secretions of various glands, and other 
 organic reflexes. Also bodily changes are accompan- 
 ied by mental effects. Drugs seriously interfere with 
 a man's way of thinking; and a bad liver may make 
 a man mentally disagreeable. For that reason trained 
 psychologists are usually well instructed in the intri- 
 cacies of the human body and especially of the nervous 
 system. The physiological and anatomical sciences 
 do not contribute any new facts concerning mind, but 
 they aid in the explanation of facts already discovered 
 in the psychological laboratories. Many theories of 
 mental function have reference to the physiology of 
 the body. 
 
 5. Scope. — We have indicated that the objects of 
 psychological study are mental phenomena. But men- 
 tal phenomena may be discovered in many directions. 
 An elementary text-book usually confines itself to the 
 scientific study of mind as found in general in the 
 normal adult human mind. It is the study of the typ- 
 ical mind as we best know it. After we have the 
 standard mind well portrayed, then we can go on with 
 the study of the more unusual, and perhaps for that 
 reason the more interesting, forms of mental phenom- 
 ena. 
 
 The more important branches of psychology follow : 
 ^estigate the variations of mental process, 
 
 If we investigate the variations 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 capacity, or function from individual to individual, 
 we enter the field of what is known as differential 
 psychology, or the psychology of individual differ- 
 ences. A study of abnormal minds, both subnormal 
 and supernormal, both defective and unusually efficient, 
 brings us within the realm of what is known as ab- 
 normal psychology . When minds show diseased con- 
 ditions, by way of temporary disturbances such as 
 hysteria, or by way of the permanent insanities, patho- 
 logical psychology or psychopathology investigates 
 them. Psychotherapeutics is the study of mental 
 healing. Child psychology gathers facts concerning 
 young human minds, while genetic psychology treats 
 the child mind, the primitive mind of the race, or the 
 various minds of animal forms as a growing develop- 
 ment. Comparative psychology compares mind with 
 mind, whether it be the lower animal mind with the 
 higher form found in man, or the minds of dififerent 
 lower animals with each other, in order to throw light 
 on the complex mind found in man. When the animal 
 mind is studied for its own sake, it is called animal 
 psychology. Minds influenced by the conscious pres- 
 ence of other minds are discussed in social psychology. 
 The psychology of races and the psychology of peoples 
 are known respectively as racial psychology and ethnic 
 psychology, or sometimes less exactly as folk psy- 
 chology. Physiological psychology undertakes to exam- 
 ine the underlying bases of nervous, muscular, and 
 glandular action in connection with the explanation 
 of mental phenomena. 
 
 Then there are problems related to other professions, 
 to the arts, and to the industries. Educational psy- 
 chology is of great assistance in the complicated task 
 of training children in the schools, students in the col- 
 
10 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 leges, employees in industry, even men in the army. 
 Business men are now looking to psychology to help 
 them solve the problems of advertising, of the ''labor 
 turnover,'' the selection of men for positions, and the 
 vocational guidance of men preparing for and seeking 
 a position. Much of the selection of men in the army 
 by means of psychological tests is applicable to busi- 
 ness conditions. The anti-social types that bring grief 
 and disaster to society are diagnosed if possible in ad- 
 vance of the commission of crime. The lUinois state 
 law, and the laws of som.e other states as well, give 
 the trained psychologist a legal position on a par with 
 the medical officer in the court-room. Besides mental 
 examinations this officer makes examinations of wit- 
 nesses and in other ways brings his psychological 
 knowledge to bear on the case. But psychology has 
 also been applied to the arts and especially to musical 
 performance in order to study the needs of an in- 
 dividual and his peculiar aptitudes for the various 
 musical instruments. 
 
 6. Summary. — Psychology is not a magical art, but 
 it is a scientific attempt to study mental phenomena 
 under strict laboratory conditions of introspection, ret- 
 rospection, and behavior. In place of the "souF' 
 psychologists study the mind and its phenomena wher- 
 ever found. The mind is the complete organization of 
 processes in any individual case: all the thoughts, 
 emotions, ideas, perceptions, and actions from birth 
 to death, while consciousness applies to momentary 
 awarenesses. But this mind, though closely related 
 to the body, is not resident in it. For the study of 
 mind the psychologist goes to many different sources, 
 touches some other subjects very closely, and incident- 
 ally is assisting many arts, professions, and even busi- 
 ness interests in the problems that confront them. 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 Re:vii:w Questions 
 
 1. What two false attitudes have prevented a proper 
 
 understanding of psychology? 
 
 2. Define psychology, mind, consciousness, introspec- 
 
 tion, behavior, social psychology, psychopathology. 
 
 3. Distinguish between being interested in mental 
 
 phenomena and being self-interested. 
 
 4. Clearly indicate the difference between mind and 
 
 hrain, psychology and physiology, experiences 
 and physical occurrences. 
 
 5. Name five other sciences which have become af- 
 
 filiated with psychology in the search for knowl- 
 edge. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SENSORY EXPERIENCE 
 
 7. SENSATION. — Almost all psychologists are agreed 
 that, whatever the other factors in mind may be, even 
 the most complex mental processes v/hich can be found 
 may ultimately be traced to sensory experiences, i. e., 
 the experiences arising from the stimulation of our 
 sense-organs. These are the first experiences to ap- 
 pear in the child and in the race, and they form the 
 foundation of all mental life. But for that very reason 
 they are difficult to recognize. Sensory experiences 
 in their purest, elementary form are rarely if ever 
 found in the complex mental life of the human adult. 
 It has been a long mental history from the animal 
 form, whose consciousness consisted only of sensation, 
 to the human mind of today; and even the child mind 
 from its earliest moments, when it is aware only of 
 sensations, soon develops by leaps and bounds to a 
 much more complex organization. Several examples 
 will suffice to illustrate the pure essence of sensory ex- 
 perience — the sensation. 
 
 Suppose we are awakened in the morning by a rum- 
 bling sound in our ears. We are not fully awake, just 
 awake enough to hear the sound. Before we are able 
 to attach any meaning to the noise, that is before we 
 even barely recognize it as the passage of a heavy 
 truck over the rough pavement, we experience the 
 simple noise quality of the rumble. If the rumble is 
 itself a simple noise, that would be a sensation. A 
 very pure tone, as the tone produced by a carefully 
 made boat whistle, heard under similar conditions, 
 would be a pure sensation. Again, if an experimenter 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 13 
 
 shows his observer a white piece of paper and the 
 observer is able to strip his awareness of that paper 
 of all of its significance, subtract the meaning of 
 ''paper'' or surface or material of any kind, even re- 
 move the tendency to name the quality ''white'' or 
 anything else, but experience just the quality of white- 
 ness as a junco-sparrow would see the whiteness of 
 snow, then it is likely that the sensory experience has 
 been reduced to lowest terms. 
 
 8. SE:NSE:-QuAr.iTiES. — It is furthermore indicative 
 of the progress of psychology since Aristotle that, as 
 mental analyses became more and more refined, the 
 larger grew the number of distinct sense-qualities. In 
 place of the original number of five, almost fifty thous- 
 and separate qualities have been enumerated. Some of 
 these are more alike in quality than others, and some, 
 like those of smell and noise, have not yet been satis- 
 factorily analysed and counted. As scientific inves- 
 tigation proceeds, mx)re qualities will probably appear 
 and some others of those already known may develop 
 to be other than qualitative. For purposes of classi- 
 fication it has been convenient to follow very closely 
 the sense-organs involved, but in certain cases there 
 seems to be a psychological similarity in quality even 
 though the sense-organs are much different in struct- 
 ure and location. Some day when facts are more 
 clearly ascertained, we may depart from this tradition- 
 al classification of sensory groups ; for the most part, 
 however, the chief qualitative characteristics are in- 
 dicated by the group. 
 
 9. Auditory Se^nsations. — Sensations of sound, 
 or auditory sensations, are usually subdivided into 
 those of tone and those of noise. By far the greater 
 amount of experimental work has been done on tones. 
 
14 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Tones that are most familiar to us are not pure tones, 
 but contain, as one can easily discover by careful at- 
 tention, an entire series of tones, which are higher 
 than the principal tone. In bells, however, some of the 
 tones are lower than the principal one to which the 
 bell or chime is tuned. All of these tones, variously 
 called partials, overtones, harmonics, and undertones 
 or ground tones, bear a very simple physical relation 
 to each other. The vibration rates are simple multi- 
 ples of the fundamental tone. It is predominantly by 
 means of this series of pure tones in the complex that 
 we are enabled to distinguish the quahty of one voice 
 from that of another, or to recognize the melody car- 
 ried by the violin as distinguished from that of the 
 cornet in the phonographic record. But if we are 
 careful to experiment with pure tones we come to the 
 conclusion that the average person can hear about 
 eleven thousand distinct tonal sensations from the very 
 lowest tone of about 16 complete vibrations per second 
 to the highest tone of about 40,000 vibrations per sec- 
 ond. Introspectively, of course, the observer knows 
 nothing about the vibration-rates : they are physically 
 determined ; but he does notice a change in pitch from 
 the low to the high tones ; that is, he has pitch discrim- 
 ination. This discrimination is naturally much more 
 refined than the series of musical notes which we use 
 in our tempered musical scale. There are only about 
 a hundred of these notes, ranging from about 40 vib- 
 rations to 4000 vibrations, but whenever the instrument 
 on which the musician is performing is not already 
 tuned to the notes, as for instance in the case of the 
 violin or the voice, then this pitch-discrimination Is 
 utilized in producing the exact tone required. Below 
 and above the region of distinct tonal sensation we 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 15 
 
 hear nothing but noises. Some writers state that in 
 combination with the 11,000 pitch quahties, there are 
 to be noticed the qualities of diffusion. It is claimed 
 that the low tones in addition to being low in pitch are 
 roomy, diffuse, big ; while the high tones are thin, con- 
 stricted, small. It is significant that almost all of the 
 pitch names assigned to notes in the various languages 
 are suggestive of spatial conditions; and yet many 
 authors point out that tones, though possessing this 
 attribute of diffusion, really lack extension in space. 
 One does not estimate a tone as being so many feet 
 square. Recently, also, we have read considerably con- 
 cerning the vowel quality of tones, the low tones sound- 
 ing like "u" in "duke", then like "o" in "show", the 
 next like "a" in "palm", the next like "e" in "fete", 
 and the highest of all like ''i" in "machine". But not 
 enough is yet known about these matters to speak with 
 certainty concerning them. 
 
 Noises are often classified into two large classes of 
 explosive and continuative noise. A thud, crack, or 
 snap would indicate the former; and the roar, roll, 
 and hiss, the latter. But these differences seem to be 
 largely matters of the duration of the noise and not 
 of inherent quality. There is no doubt, however, con- 
 cerning the fact that noises possess the quality of 
 pitch as can be easily verified from the use of the 
 xylophone in band music. 
 
 10. VisuAi. Sensations. — ^Just as 11,000 auditory 
 sensations of tone and a still unanalysed number of 
 noises have taken the place of a single sensation of 
 hearing, so the one sensation of sight has been differ- 
 entiated into about 35,000 separate qualities. Visual 
 sensations can be described in terms of one or more 
 of three systems of quality. First of all there is tint 
 
16 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 which means the lightness or darkness of the sensation. 
 To the whites, grays, and blacks only this quality can 
 be assigned ; they lack the other two. Then there is 
 hue, which signifies the quality in terms of such usual 
 color-names as violet, blue, yellow, orange, etc. The 
 principal psychological hues are a slightly purplish red, 
 green, blue, and yellow. When we speak of blue be- 
 ing dark or light, we mean that the hue remains the 
 same, but that the tint changes ; when we try to match 
 a dark blue to a green of equal darkness, the tints are 
 the same but the hue is different. Finally we notice 
 qualitative changes in saturation ; that is, the hue may 
 be very rich and pure in quality or it may be dead, 
 dull, vv^ashed out in appearance, and ultimately hardly 
 distinguishable from gray, or any degree of satvir- 
 ation between these extremes. For exam.ple, we might 
 take some bright red water-color of medium tint 
 and gradually mix with it proportionate amounts of 
 white and Mack. If we keep the amounts of black 
 and white absolutely proportionate and mix them more 
 and more with the red, the red becomes lifeless and 
 subdued ; it loses saturation. Some qualities that or- 
 dinarily pass for different hues are really variations in 
 tint and saturation. Pink is a red, made lighter in tint 
 and somewhat less saturated; buff is a yellowish 
 orange, light in tint and unsaturated; brown is an 
 orange, dark in tint and unsaturated. We can disting- 
 uish 150 differences in hue without much change in 
 tint and saturation; and we are capable of discrimin- 
 ating about 700 differences in tint value from the ex- 
 treme whites through all the grays to the deepest 
 blacks. 
 
 When the 150 hues are arranged in order around a 
 psychological color-band, we find no gaps or breaks 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 17 
 
 in the band to allow for the "ultra'' reds and ''ultra" 
 violets, because in psychology there are no "ultras": 
 everything not represented by conscious experience is 
 excluded. So we can begin with any hue and go 
 around the color-band back to the place where we 
 started. Let us begin, for example, with blue ; we pass 
 on through the violets, purples, reds, oranges, yellows, 
 olives, greens, blue-greens and back to the blues. If 
 we make this a circular band, then by passing over 
 the diameter to the hue at the other end, we find the 
 antagonistic or complementary hue. Thus red and 
 green, blue and yellow, olive and purple, orange and 
 blue-green, are complementary hues. 
 
 The laws of color mixture usually state that (1) the 
 mixture of any two complementary colors in the prop- 
 er proportion produces gray; (2) the mixture of any 
 two uncomplementary colors produces an intermediate 
 hue; and {'i) a mixture of two mixtures, each of 
 which has resulted in a given gray, will itself produce 
 the same gray. These laws can easily be demonstrated 
 by rotating color-mixers or even by spinning tops with 
 colors mounted on them. A neat application of the 
 first law of color-mixing is the common practice of 
 dying white goods with a light bluish tint before they 
 are put on the market. The blue combines with the 
 light yellow, a color induced by aging of the cloth, and 
 the result is a faint gray which seems to be more pleas- 
 ing and salable than the light yellow. Bluing used 
 in washing produces the same effect. 
 
 There are some very well marked physiological pe- 
 culiarities which have to be taken into account in the 
 discussion of visual sensations. If the left eye is 
 closed and the right eye fixated on a spot drawn on 
 a piece of paper which also contains two and one-half 
 
18 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 inches to the right of the spot, a well marked cross, 
 the latter will normally become invisible at a distance 
 of from eight to ten inches from the eye. This marks 
 the bhndspot of the right eye, the place where the 
 nerve enters the back of the eye on the nasal side and 
 where there are consequently no sensitive end-organs. 
 A similar area can also be found in the left eye. 
 Then, too, the normal eye is capable of seeing all the 
 hues only around the area of central fixation; in the 
 next zone, reds and greens disappear ; and finally in the 
 outer zone, no hues are visible at all. In the outer 
 zone a government gold certificate could not be told 
 from a silver certificate; but, curiously enough, move- 
 ments are most readily detected. There are, of course, 
 many cases of partial color-blindness, especially to the 
 reds and greens. It is estimated that about three per 
 cent or more of the male population and a little less 
 than two per cent of the female population are color- 
 blind. Total color-blindness is much rarer; in which 
 cases gray sensations take the place of all the colors. It 
 is also of interest to note that with oncoming darkness 
 we steadily become blind in the immediate center of 
 vision. As a matter of fact, there are two sets of nerve 
 endings in the retina of the eye: the rods for night 
 vision, and the cones for daylight vision. 
 
 11. Tactuai. Se:nsations. — In this sense depart- 
 ment we have another illustration of the results de- 
 rived from experimental procedure; it is one of the 
 last to submit to analysis. Although physiologically 
 the function of corresponding sense-organs has not 
 yet been fully established, psychologists have demon- 
 strated beyond doubt that the ancient single sensation 
 of touch has at least four different qualities. These 
 are cutaneous pressure, pain, warmth, and cold. One 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 19 
 
 or more of these qualities may presently be subjected 
 to further analysis; but, as they stand, they are in- 
 trospectively quite different sensations. The first is 
 similar to the old "touch'' sensation; the second used 
 to be confused with the emotionally unpleasant ex- 
 perience of discomforture or ''painf ulness" ; and the 
 last two were considered as variations of a single 
 ''temperature'' sense. As a matter of fact, not only 
 are these four qualities introspectively different, but 
 even a crude exploration of the skin with a dull lead- 
 pencil will demonstrate the fact that they are not all 
 to be stimulated at the same places on the skin : there 
 are places where pain is felt, but not pressure ; warmth, 
 but not cold ; and so on. The skin is indeed a patch- 
 work of little spots which are sensitive to some kinds 
 of stimulation and not to others. 
 
 12. Organic and Kin^sthe^tic Sensations. — 
 Closely associated with the last group, and historically 
 an outgrowth of it, is a fourth class of sensations 
 which belong peculiarly to the body ; in being conscious 
 of them we usually assign them to disturbances in our 
 own organism and not to objects in the outer environ- 
 ment. Partly for this reason, partly for the reason that 
 they are almost constantly with us as a background to 
 our general consciousness, and partly because of the 
 fact that stimulation of them from without the body 
 takes place through the medium of the skin and results 
 in an accompaniment of tactual sensations with which 
 they are frequently confused, they were for a long time 
 left out of account. Some writers originally called 
 them a "common" sense. The organic sensations are 
 not yet well classified or described because they are 
 difficult to investigate. For the most part they consist 
 of sensations arising in the thorax and abdomen, from 
 
20 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the movements and secretions of the larger vital organs 
 inside of the body. Recent experimentation seems to 
 indicate, however, that there are no new qualities to 
 be found in these regions, that the qualities are very 
 much like some of the tactual qualities or some of the 
 qualities presently to be discussed under the kinaesthetic 
 group, but much less definitely and accurately local- 
 ized. More research in this group is needed and is 
 probably forthcoming. 
 
 The kinaesthetic sensations are better known and 
 classified. They are sensations arising from bodily 
 movements, and consisting of three distinct qualities, 
 with a possible addition of two other qualities which 
 are more or less assumed but not introspectively 
 analysed or confirmed. The sensation of muscular 
 pressure is experienced when some heavy object 
 rests on a large bundle of muscular fibres, for 
 example on the biceps or on the muscles of the 
 forarm, thigh, or back — a dull, diffuse, heavy sense- 
 quality, the large component of the fatigue complex. 
 Another kinaesthetic sensation is the thin, strain 
 quality found in the tendinous sensation, so-called 
 from the fact that it arises from sense-organs in 
 the tendons and is most frequently felt in those 
 places, like the ankle, wrist, or sides of the forehead, 
 where tendons abound. Then there is the articular 
 sensation of friction arising in the joints and common- 
 ly felt when the finger is pushed and rotated against 
 its joint at the knuckle. Whenever we move any por- 
 tion of our body or even when the movement is ex- 
 ecuted without our control, we experience one or more 
 of these kinaesthetic sensations. 
 
 There is a small group of two sense-qualities collect- 
 ively called the static senses and usually classified 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 21 
 
 under the same general heading as the kinaesthetic sen- 
 sations. Of these, the ampullar sense, probably never 
 becoming clear enough in consciousness to be intro- 
 spected but entering into a complex of reflex move- 
 ments and their conscious effects, is one which is 
 aroused by rotation of the body or by stabilizing the 
 body in any given position. It has lately been exten- 
 sively investigated and discussed in connection with 
 military aviation. Together with many other items it 
 makes up the complex experience of dizziness. The 
 other static sense, termed the vestibular sense is sup- 
 posed by some psychologists to indicate any change of 
 motion in the body, either from a position of rest to 
 motion, or from motion to rest, or a variation in the 
 amount of motion. This can be sensed without the 
 aid of any other sensation, but it is again a question 
 whether we have here a psychological or a physiologi- 
 cal sensation; that is, whether the ''sensation'' ever 
 takes form in its conscious antecedents. 
 
 13. Gustatory Sensations.— The variety of taste 
 qualities has suffered a sharp reduction : analysis does 
 not always multiply; in this case it has markedly 
 simplified matters. There are only four tastes : sweet, 
 sour, salt, and bitter. The richness of tastes at a ban- 
 quet table can be explained by a very simple laboratory 
 experiment. If a small sample of carefully filtered 
 coffee is given an observer who is blind-folded and 
 cautioned not to inhale during the trial, and later a 
 small quantity of tea of equal strength is applied to 
 his tongue under the same conditions and with proper 
 precautions as to rinsing his mouth, he will ordinarily 
 be unable to sense the difference. In the same manner 
 honey is confused with molasses, and wine with vin- 
 egar. Introspection reveals the secret: other com- 
 
22 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ponents than taste assist us in sensing what we com- 
 monly call ''tastes". The most important of these aids 
 is smell : we smell and taste at the same time. When 
 we have a cold in the head so that smell does not func- 
 tion in its normal capacity, our food tastes differently. 
 Much of the flavor of food is really odor, as is decided- 
 ly the case when even slight decay is detected. But 
 there are other components. Cold mashed potatoes 
 ''taste'' differently than warm ones; granulated sugar 
 "tastes" differently than does powdered sugar. The 
 fact is that the tongue is capable of sensing tactual 
 qualities in addition to the four tastes proper : warmth, 
 cold, pain, and pressure. In addition a number of mix- 
 tures of the taste qualities is possible. All these fac- 
 tors taken together account for the great variety of 
 so-called "tastes". 
 
 The tongue shows, curiously enough, some of the 
 peculiarities of the eye in the distribution of the sense- 
 qualities. There is an insensitive area in the center; 
 sweet is sensed at the tip ; bitter at the back ; sour at 
 the sides, and salt generally over the whole surface 
 outside of the insensitive area; but these areas vary 
 somewhat from individual to individual, and with age. 
 
 14. Oivi^ACToRY Sensations. — The classification of 
 the qualities of smell sensations is in a very unsatis- 
 factory state at the present time. We do not know 
 how many qualities there are, but we suspect that there 
 are a great many. The sensitive area is well inside the 
 nasal passage and very difficult of direct stimulation. 
 The best that has been done is to group the odors into 
 nine classes, but the names applied to these groups 
 suggest that the qualities are not named on the basis 
 of any introspective description but in terms of char- 
 acteristics belonging to the objects that arouse the 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 23 
 
 odors. 
 
 This is indeed a long roll-call of sensations, a list 
 that may in the future be reduced, rearranged, or aug- 
 mented; but the emphatic point to remember is that 
 each and every one of these many thousands of sen- 
 sations is, by nature, at our present writing, as distinct 
 as the ancient five senses were ever intended to be. 
 These are the qualities; now a word about the quanti- 
 tative aspects of sensations : we have discussed their 
 nature, but not their degree or amount. 
 
 15. Quantitative: Aspect o^ Sensations. — First 
 of all, sensations vary in intensity. We may have hues 
 and tints that are faint, others that are bright; sounds 
 that are soft, others that are loud; odors and tastes 
 that are weak or strong as the case may be. Every 
 quality named in the classification may undergo chang- 
 es in intensity from one extreme to the other. If con- 
 ditions are kept favorable, variations in intensity can 
 be made so small, that the increase or decrease is not 
 noticed provided the ratio of change to the original 
 quantity is kept within a certain constant limit, as, for 
 example, Vioo for visual sensations, Yg for tonal 
 sensations, Y20 for pressure; in taste, smell, warmth, 
 and cold, the constant has not been as definitely deter- 
 mined but is probably somewhat larger than any of 
 the preceding. These facts are gathered together in 
 a mathematical formulation known as Weber's Law. 
 According to this law, it is claimed that, if other com- 
 plications did not set in, a lobster might be boiled alive 
 without discomfort to himself provided the increase 
 of temperature remained below the constant for 
 warmth ! Of equal interest is it to study at what point 
 of physical intensity stimulation comes to the thresh- 
 old of consciousness : at one moment it is not sensed, 
 
24 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 then with a slight increase it just begins to appear as 
 sensation in consciousness. Another quantitative at- 
 tribute common to all sensations is duration. A sen- 
 sation miay be brief or long or any degree of duration 
 between these extremes. Legato and staccato playing 
 on the piano show chiefly variations in duration of the 
 tones produced. A third quantitative aspect is exten- 
 sity, or spatial area. Here we find differences of opin- 
 ion, but some of the most reliable observers report that 
 only some sensations, nam.ely visual, tactual, and prob- 
 ably kinsesthetic, are extended. We cannot conceive, 
 or for that matter perceive, a red quality that has no 
 spatial dimensions, that is, that is theoretically like a 
 mathematical point. But sounds are not of this char- 
 acter, nor are the remaining sensations. Sounds, 
 tastes, and smells do not require description in terms 
 of dimension. A fourth characteristic of the degree 
 of sensation is clearness^ although again there is not 
 uniform agreement. When we discuss attention we 
 shall understand the situation better. Experiences that 
 are clear in mind are usually also strong in intensity, 
 but they need not be. We can attend to the soft fem- 
 inine voice at our side in spite of the tremendously loud 
 attack on our ears of a passing military band. The 
 faint trace of gray smoke on the horizon can become 
 perfectly clear to our vision in spite of the glare of the 
 sunlit sea. Since we have thus an independent varia- 
 tion in the sensation, a new attribute is necessary ; and 
 that we call clearness. 
 
 16. A]^te:r-Imag:e:s. — ''Image" leads one to think 
 that we are to describe either something that is akin 
 to the stuff that imagination and memory are made of, 
 or to some visual sketch, or outline, like the reflected 
 image in a pool of water. But the effects described 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 25 
 
 under this term have primarily to do with sensation, 
 and are furthermore not at all limited to visual sen- 
 sations but relate to practically every group of sensa- 
 tions. The most pronounced effect is visual : if any 
 quality is experienced for some time, the opposite qual- 
 ity comes to consciousness. Red produces an after- 
 image of green, blue produces yellow, black produces 
 white, and so on. Those effects are really sensory in 
 character and, save for historical usage, should be 
 called after-sensations. The results just cited are in- 
 stances of negative after-images because the effect is 
 opposite in quality to that of stimulation. In this 
 sense, negative after-imasfes are peculiar to visual 
 sensation. There is a positive after-image in pract- 
 ically every sense department, lasting only a short time 
 after the stimulation ceases and increasing in effect 
 with brief stimulation. 
 
 17. Adaptation. — The longer a given stimulation 
 is experienced the less intense it becomes and m.ore and 
 more does it change its qualitative nature. All hues 
 tend to become gray ;and all tints in time become middle 
 gray. That does not mean that we become accustomed 
 to the red light of the photographic dark-room in the 
 sense that we do not notice it ; rather we become physi- 
 ologically incapable of sensing the red as such. Prac- 
 tically all sensations show this effect, but none more 
 definitely than visual, tactual, olfactory, and gustatory 
 sensations. The cook in the kitchen and the chemist 
 in the laboratory literally become less conscious of the 
 peculiar olfactory qualities easily sensed by the vis- 
 itor. 
 
 18. Mixtures. — ^\Ve have already discussed mix- 
 tures of physical color-effects in vision. It is quite 
 clear that in this case sensations are not mixed because 
 
26 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 no amount of introspective analysis can reveal the 
 qualities contained in a mixture of papers producing 
 gray: they may be composed of colors, dozens of them, 
 or simply of black and white ; but the observer cannot 
 tell the components until the rotation is slowed down, 
 or by inference. The mixture of weak sweet and salt 
 solutions also produces an effect of ''flatness'' that, 
 like visual mixtures, cannot be analyzed. With music- 
 al analysis the situation is quite different : an opening 
 chord sounded by an orchestra cannot only be differ- 
 entiated into separate notes but an expert can tell what 
 instruments are contributing to that total sound. The 
 same statement, of course, is true of an ''amen'' ren- 
 dered by a quartet. But tastes also blend to produce 
 new tastes, and these can frequently be analyzed into 
 component parts. Milk chocolate easily reduces to 
 sweet, bitter, a certain "oily" pressure, with sometimes 
 an astringent pressure added. Smells blend to produce 
 new^ odors or to cancel the qualities altogether, both 
 of which effects, like visual mixtures, cannot be intro- 
 spectively reduced to the constituent elements : the one 
 is illustrated by combining xylol with turpentine, the 
 other by mixing tolu balsam and iodoform. A good 
 many deodorizers operate according to the latter prin- 
 ciple; others combine with the objectionable odor to 
 produce a pleasant one. Heat, burn, cool, and wetness 
 are tactual mixtures. Fatigue and dizziness are com- 
 plexes of organic and kinsesthetic components. 
 
 19. Contrast. — In some sense departments the 
 presence of two dissimilar qualities of sensation in con- 
 sciousness at the same time enhances their respective 
 effects. Strips of blue and yellow, olive and purple, 
 red and green, black and white, show these qualities 
 to advantage because they are placed close together. 
 
SENSORY EXPERIENCE 27 
 
 Vivid hues have pronounced effects on neighboring 
 hues or tints even when the reciprocal effect is not so 
 noticeable. Certain colors of clothes, furs, hats, and 
 the like enhance or depreciate the effect of complex- 
 ions. Contrasts are also to be found in taste, smell, 
 and tactual sensations. Sugar, too weak to be tasted, 
 becomes sweet to the tongue when salt is placed on 
 another portion of the tongue. The contrasting effects 
 of cold and warmth were known for many hundreds 
 of years in the old experiment of dipping the two hands 
 respectively in dishes of cold and warm water and 
 then placing them simultaneously in a third basin of 
 tepid water. To the one hand the water will seem 
 warm, to the other cold. 
 
 20. Summary. — ^We have now seen the vast array 
 of facts known concerning the sense qualities ; we have 
 furthermore tried to show how a quality can be isolat- 
 ed, but how rare that isolated quality really is in actual 
 unanalyzed experience ; we have drawn up a classifica- 
 tion of thousands of sensations into six large groups, 
 and have shown the development of these groups from 
 the ancient five sensations; we have also had a word 
 to say about the attributes of quantity : intensity, dura- 
 tion, clearness, and extensity; and finally we have 
 briefly discussed certain phenomena more or less gen- 
 eral to all groups of sensations. All of this is a neces- 
 sary preparation for the subsequent consideration of 
 functions and processes of mental life. 
 
28 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 Re:vii:w Que:stions 
 
 1. Reduce to simple sensations the following ex- 
 
 periences: (a) walking, (b) talking, (c) reading, 
 (d) dressing, (e) eating. 
 
 2. Describe the cover of this book in terms of hue, 
 
 tint, and saturation. 
 
 3. Show the advantages and disadvantages of using 
 
 red and green light as important railroad signals 
 in place of other colors. 
 
 4. Draw up a complete classification of all sensory 
 
 qualities. 
 
 5. Describe the "touch" of a fountain pen in terms 
 
 of the quality, intensity, duration, extensity, and 
 clearness of sensations aroused. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 
 
 21. Me:aning. — ^When we discuss perceptions we 
 are on a level of mental development which is more 
 complex than that of sensory experience and, there- 
 fore, at our stage of development, nearer to everyday 
 experiences. It was difficult to define a pure sensa- 
 tion : most of the details about sensations are learned 
 not, as it were, by photographing immediate exper- 
 iences, but by analyzing the photograph. We know 
 what we mean by perception directly from ordinary 
 occurrences. We look out of our office window and 
 get visual perceptions of other office windows with 
 names painted on them and behind them other people 
 at work; in the middle of July we have tactual per- 
 ceptions of perspiration; we experience auditory per- 
 ceptions of cars, wagons^ feet moving along the street; 
 in the spring we have olfactory perceptions of the 
 fragrance of peach blossoms ; we can perceive in terms 
 of taste the sourness of milk or the sweetness of the 
 coffee; and we can perceive in organic processes the 
 headache which is discomforting us. In short the liv- 
 ing organism, in perceiving, establishes certain rela- 
 tionships between itself and its environment in the 
 sense that it is aware of what is going on about it or 
 even within itself. 
 
 The relationships referred to are frequently inter- 
 preted by the organism in terms of an inherited ten- 
 dency or group of tendencies. Much of our aversion 
 to certain sights, odors, and tastes, is due to racial 
 experiences which have left traces in our nervous 
 systems that are part of our heritage at birth. The 
 
30 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 perception of blood involves this type of meaning; 
 similar in interpretation but also somewhat more com- 
 plex is our perception of fright as expressed in an- 
 other's face. Perceptions take on color, too, from 
 other processes that happen to be in mind at the time. 
 In business all of our perceptions tend to assume a 
 "business'' meaning: the persons with whom we are 
 associated in the office look business-like to us ; after 
 office hours the same persons may be perceived in quite 
 another setting. Even our tone of speech may natur- 
 ally have changed. In the same way the perceptions 
 of objects on the stage of a theatre are formed in ac- 
 cordance with the setting. How ridiculous it is for 
 an actor to whisper so loud that the whole audience 
 can hear him, while another actor in the same room 
 with him cannot ; or, for that matter, how strange for 
 us to perceive a room with only three sides and those 
 forming obtuse angles with each other! Again per- 
 ception becomes colored with the associations from 
 previous experiences which attach themselves to the 
 perception of the object in terms of imagery. Out of 
 an unexpected hiding place we take an old photograph 
 of our boyhood home, a letter from a friend, or the 
 button we wore during one of the Liberty Loan cam- 
 paigns, and at once we are conscious of a flood of 
 revived experiences which give life and significance to 
 the perception. There are three ways, then, in which 
 perception may interpret the relations of our selves 
 to our environment: by inherited tendencies, by asso- 
 ciated groups of complex mental processes, and by 
 imagery which attaches immediately to the perception 
 itself. This is the problem of meaning; and the last 
 factor — immediate imagery — is the most important. 
 22. Nature: oi^ Perce^ption. — The process of per- 
 
PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 31 
 
 ception may then be described as that operation of 
 mind which brings mind in touch with its immediate 
 environment; mind becomes acquainted with its pres- 
 ent surroundings primarily through perceiving objects. 
 Analytically the principal portion of the perception is 
 made up of sensations, sometimes several different 
 kinds of them. We perceive an apple by biting into it, 
 looking at it, hearing the sound of the teeth entering 
 the substance of it, smelling the aroma of it, touching 
 its smooth cool surface with lip, cheek, and hand, and 
 by tasting its sweet-sour flavor. Here we have run the 
 whole gamut of sense departments. Any one, several, 
 or all of these corresponding sensations may enter into 
 the perception of the apple. Some perceptions are, 
 of course, much more restricted. In perceiving a tune, 
 the chief items are auditory sensations, but in a good 
 many individuals the kinaesthetic factors of humming 
 the tune might accompany the sounds and form part 
 of the perception. 
 
 In addition to the sensations which form the essen- 
 tial core of the perception there are attached images, 
 which are carried over from previous experiences and 
 are the principal conveyors of meaning. Every new 
 book that we perceive carries in its texture mementoes 
 of books previously seen. These reminders may be 
 very obscure; a few images may stand for a good 
 many meanings telescoped together, but their presence 
 makes all the difference in the world between a per- 
 ception of a strange voice and the perception of the 
 voice of an old friend. 
 
 23. QuAi^iTATivi: Perce:pTions. — When percep- 
 tions are characterized chiefly by a union of several 
 qualities of sensation they are commonly called quali- 
 tative perceptions. The "taste" of coffee, consisting 
 
32 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of the aroma — the bitter taste proper and the warm 
 tactual sensation — is such a perception. The blending 
 together of tones into a clang or a chord is another 
 example. Sometimes the distinction is made between 
 "complications" in which, as in the first instance, the 
 qualities come from several different sense depart- 
 ments, and ''fusions'' in which, as in the second in- 
 stance, blending takes place in the same sense depart- 
 ment. 
 
 24. Spatiai, Perceptions. — By far the larger por- 
 tion of work has been done on the subject of perception 
 of space, both of area, that is of two dimensions, and 
 depth or distance, the third dimension. Spatial per- 
 ception can occur only in those sense departments 
 which admit of the attribute of extensity : vision, touch, 
 and kinaesthetics. We localize other sensations in 
 space but we do not perceive space directly in terms 
 of them. It is shown by experimentation for example 
 that we localize sounds by noting differences in quality 
 and intensity as these come separately to the two ears 
 and by moving the head about until such differences 
 are well marked. Smells are also given position in 
 space and distance by relative differences in intensity. 
 We have seen that visual and tactual sensations, and 
 probably kinaesthetic sensations as well, are always 
 experienced in terms of spatial size. When we per- 
 ceive this extent, as when we make an estimate of it, 
 we have a clear spatial perception of two-dimensional 
 space. But we learn most clearly to estimate distance, 
 or, what amounts to the same thing, the third dimen- 
 sion or the thickness of objects facing us and seeming 
 to us therefore as solid. Instead of looking out upon 
 the world and perceiving it flat as in a photograph, it 
 stands out as an aggregate of solid objects. This sort 
 
PERCEPTUAI. EXPERIENCE 33 
 
 of spatial perception is called stereoscopic and the in- 
 strument which enables us to see photographs or draw- 
 ings in this manner is commonly known as the stereo- 
 scope. The underlying principle is simple. 
 
 The most important factor in stereoscopic percep- 
 tion is the fact that each eye being trained on a given 
 object of perception at an acute angle — an angle 
 which grows more acute as the object comes 
 nearer — receives a somewhat altered picture of that 
 object. Even an amateur photographer knows that 
 the view of a building depends upon the angle from 
 which the picture is taken; moving from one street 
 corner at a crossing to the other materially changes 
 the picture of the building. So it is with our eyes, 
 save that our eyes are nearly always taking different 
 pictures at the same time; that is, we have binocular 
 vision ; the exception occurs when the eyes are focused 
 on the horizon or a far distant point. The disparity 
 of the retinal images,^ as this is called, has occurred 
 so long in the race, in those animals that have binocular 
 or "two-eyed'' vision, that the nervous system is al- 
 ready set for the interpretation of these as indicators 
 of depth or distance. The same thing is true of the 
 second factor that helps us to interpret distance : the 
 amount of convergence of the two eyes when focused 
 on an object. Not only are the pictures different 
 but the adjustment of the muscles of the eye-ball to 
 get this result are given to us in terms of amount 
 of kinaesthesis ; the greater the pull, the closer the 
 object, as in the case of the near end of an ap- 
 proaching bridge; the more relaxed these muscles 
 are, the farther off are the eyes ''sighted", as in 
 the case of the far end of the bridge from the 
 same position. The doubling of objects on either 
 
34 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 side of the fixation point is another indirect 
 factor which contributes to the establishment of the 
 third dimension. This can be easily demonstrated by 
 holding a pencil in front of a pen and fixating the eyes 
 on the latter ; the pencil then appears double. Reverse 
 the process with the objects in the same position but 
 with fixation directed on the pencil; now the pen ap- 
 pears double. The doubling of all objects not directly 
 fixated, while generally unobserved with a high degree 
 of attention, does nevertheless contribute '"filler" to 
 our perception of space. 
 
 But individuals with only one functional eye, that 
 is one-eyed or monocular people, can still see objects 
 as solid and locate them at varying distances; with 
 practice they do it very well. For the ordinary individ- 
 ual, not so habituated, this is difficult. A ring suspended 
 from a lighting fixture is a very poor target for the in- 
 sertion of a pencil at arm's length with one eye closed. 
 Of course when the other hand is holding the ring the 
 trick is much easier because we can get relative estima- 
 tions of distance from the movement of our muscles. 
 
 There are a number of items that contribute to the 
 perception of distance or depth in monocular vision. 
 Parallel lines converge in the distance, and the position 
 of objects along these lines can thus be interpreted. 
 Well known figures are absolutely and also relatively 
 larger when near at hand ; shadows and the outlines of 
 the figures are better defined and more distinct. Shad- 
 ows themselves, as every artist well knows, lend depth 
 to objects; near objects, furthermore, partially hide 
 objects farther off; and then there is the purely physi- 
 ological factor which may give an unconscious setting, 
 namely the automatic adjustment of the lens of the 
 eye to the distance, known as accommodation. 
 
PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 35 
 
 Before we leave spatial perception, tactual space 
 perceptions must also be mentioned. For many decades 
 it has been maintained that all tactual sensations come 
 to consciousness with a ''local sign'' designating quali- 
 tatively the part of the body stimulated: we would 
 have for example not merely ''warm sensation'' but 
 "v/arm sensation from the sole of the foot". Intro- 
 spection, however, fails to reveal such an additional 
 quality: we localize usually by some other group of 
 sensations ; or the local setting is given unconsciously. 
 But we can very well distinguish spatial forms that 
 are applied to the. skin, in which sense we have a tac- 
 tual spatial perception. In the same way we experience 
 spatial relations through kinsesthetic sensations when, 
 for example, we trace an outline in the air of a 
 canoe or of the figure "4". From earliest years 
 through reaching for and walking toward objects we 
 learn to estimate distance by movement. 
 
 25. Temporal, P^rce^ptions. — Just as the exten- 
 sive attribute furnished the basis for spatial percep- 
 tions, so does the durational attribute of mental pro- 
 cesses make possible our awareness of the lapse of 
 time. When measured against actual physical dura- 
 tion we find results similar to those of spatial percep- 
 tion : relatively small areas and small units of time, 
 when filled, are overestimated. A line drawn between 
 two points on the page seems longer than the original 
 space between the points ; so estimates of times lasting 
 physically less than .75 seconds, when filled with rapid- 
 ly occurring clicks, seem longer than the actual dura- 
 tion. Contrasted with this, on the other hand, a dis- 
 tance on the floor occupied by a line of people or the 
 size of a hall filled with spectators, is underestimated ; 
 and, as we know altogether too well, a long interval 
 
36 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOI^OGY 
 
 of time seems short when we are in pleasant conver- 
 sation with agreeable company, and seems long when 
 we wait alone. In all cases the difference seems to 
 depend somehow on the number of physical objects 
 or events that occur, but more introspective analyses 
 of the actual mental processes are needed. 
 
 It is assumed, however, that the estimation of time, 
 and therefore the perception of time, depends upon the 
 process of mental organization — the method followed 
 in the temporal perception. The smallest units of time, 
 i. e., under .75 second in duration, are perceived prob- 
 ably in the form of a rhythmical organization of the 
 series of events ; those ranging from .75 second to 4 
 seconds are apparently estimated in terms of the quan- 
 titative characteristics of the mental processes them- 
 selves and of associated processes; and units of time 
 beyond this limit seem to be estimated only in terms 
 of immediate memory or by retrospection. 
 
 The problem of estimating the duration of time dur- 
 ing sleep has also engaged the attention of psycholo- 
 gists. It is commonly supposed that there is a sort of 
 temporal perception which lies in the background of 
 consciousness and which is based upon certain rhyth- 
 mical physiological activities wh^'ch occur in the vital 
 organs of the body. 
 
 Allied forms of temporal perception are rhythm and 
 melody. Rhythm consists of certain quantitative and, 
 in some instances, qualitative changes of sensations 
 that are systematically repeated until they become 
 mentally organized into groups. Melody develops pitch 
 changes until the entire series becomes a mental group. 
 Rhythm may depend upon changes in duration of the 
 members and of the intervals between the members, 
 also upon changes of intensity, and, in the case of 
 
PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 37 
 
 tones, sometimes upon pitch. These changes may not 
 occur physically at all, as in the swinging of a well 
 balanced pendulum or metronome, but they will be 
 mentally attributed to the sensations that result. 
 Rhythm may take place in terms of auditory, tactual, 
 or visual perceptions and is usually accompanied by 
 marked kinsesthetic sensations, such as keeping time 
 with the foot, hand, or finger. Visual rhythms have 
 occurred with the use of colored lights, or with lights 
 differing in duration, brightness, or spatial arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 26. P^RCEjpTioNS 01? Move:mi:nt. — We perceive 
 movement when an object crosses our field of vision, 
 or even when we fixate the object and then move the 
 head or body. Movement is frequently inferred when 
 we see only successive positions of a moving object. 
 Under some conditions our perception of movement 
 is just as vivid when we are moving and the object is 
 stationary, as in the_case of objects seen from a mov- 
 ing train. Occasionally, however, we assume the move- 
 ment of our selves when the object seen is in fact mov- 
 ing, as in the case of a train moving out of the station 
 on an adjoining track or in the experience at amiuse- 
 ment resorts of a trip to the moon in a grass cage 
 equipped with moving curtains depicting the imaginary 
 sights on the way thither. But when we are led to 
 perceive movement under circumstances that physical- 
 ly reveal no movement at the point of fixation, as at 
 a performance in the moving picture theater, then we 
 have a peculiar type of perception of movement known 
 as stroboscopic perception, and the laboratory appara- 
 tus which produces this effect is known as a strobo- 
 scope. The pictures are thrown on the screen in a long 
 series of instantaneous exposures, for moving the film 
 
38 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 across the light from the lantern while we were look- 
 ing at the screen would, of course, result in blurring 
 the entire picture. Indeed we would see no picture 
 at all. The same phenomenon may be noticed in those 
 advertising signs that give the effect of movement by 
 mechanisms which turn on series of lights showing 
 successive positions of movement. The underlying 
 explanation of these results is based on the presence 
 of positive after-images which last through the inter- 
 val when the light is periodically shut off. The same 
 effect occurs, incidentally, in the field of tactual sen- 
 sations when a number of points are successively 
 touched on the skin — resulting in the perception of a 
 moving object crawling over the skin. 
 
 There is also a curious after-image of movement 
 that occurs after long gazing at a waterfall or any ob- 
 ject continually moving in a given direction; in the 
 case of a waterfall, the landscape on each side of the 
 fall appears to go up. 
 
 27. IivLUSiONS. — -Perceptions sometimes do not serve 
 the organism very well ; we are fooled into assumptions 
 that are not correct. The subject is so large and has 
 so many applications to problems of everyday life, 
 even to the camouflage of war, that much restraint is 
 required in order to treat it in a few paragraphs. 
 
 There are three sense departments^ — visual, tactual, 
 and kinsesthetic — especially the first two, in which il- 
 lusions are very frequently encountered. In the vis- 
 ual department are the well-known geometrical or 
 optical illusions (a) of reversible perspective, indicated 
 by the outline figure of a cube or a pair of crossed 
 lines seen either projected forward or backward; 
 (b) of variable or constant extent, as shown in alter- 
 ations of equal distances by adding lines or by filling 
 
PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE 39 
 
 in; (c) of variable or constant direction, illustrated in 
 the alteration of the direction of parallel lines by using 
 cross lines; (d) of associative areas and extents, as in 
 the case of equal angles enclosed, in the one instance 
 within a large angle and, in the other, within a smaller 
 one; and (e) of combinations of various effects pre- 
 viously enumerated. There are also visual illusions due 
 to physical distortion through lenses, mirrors, and the 
 atmosphere, e. g., the mirage ; and in hke manner there 
 are physiological illusions due to effects produced with- 
 in our sense organs : contrast and after-images. The 
 visual illusions of movement, as the apparent move- 
 ment of the moon am.ong the clouds, and the illusions 
 of distance, as the nearness of a fire or the mountains 
 in clear air, complete the list in this sense department. 
 
 The tactual illusions include those (a) of juxta- 
 position, referred to long ago by Aristotle in his ex- 
 ample of the apparent doubling of a pea held between 
 crossed fingers, and -illustrated by the reverse effect 
 when the lobe of the ear is bent forward and dull 
 compass points stimulate it and the side of the head 
 in back of the ear at the same time, producing only a 
 single sensation; (b) of parallel lines distorted when 
 drawn across various parts of the skin as, for example 
 across the mouth from ear to ear ; (c) of movement, as 
 whan objects seem to crawl across the skin ; and (d) of 
 the temperature effects noted by contrast from prev- 
 ious stimulation. 
 
 The kinsesthetic illusions are chiefly misrepresen- 
 tations of weight due to suggestion derived from visual 
 estimation of size, as in the well-known size-weight 
 illusion. A sm.all container equal in weight to a large 
 one will be overestimated in weight because of the 
 unexpected effort required to lift it. There are many- 
 
40 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 other less well established illusions such as the lifting 
 of objects from various heights. 
 
 28. Summary. — We have seen that a perception 
 involves the direct awareness of objects in our mental 
 environment and that it is a relatively complex process 
 made up principally of sensations with a background 
 of images referring to past experiences and giving 
 meaning to the perception. Meaning may also be had 
 in terms of the association of other processes in the 
 same consciousness and occasionally in terms of physi- 
 ological tendencies some of which may be inherited 
 from the past experience of the race. Then the qual- 
 itative, spatial, temporal perceptions, and perceptions 
 of movement were described in detail. Qualitative 
 perceptions, like tonal fusions, depend principally upon 
 the combination of different kinds or qualities of sen- 
 sations; spatial perceptions depend upon the attribute 
 of the extent of visual, tactual, and kinsesthetic sen- 
 sations, giving rise to the awareness not only of area 
 but also of depth and distance, due essentially, in 
 vision, to the disparity of the retinal images and con- 
 vergence of the eyes in stereoscopic perception and a 
 number of factors in monocular vision; and temporal 
 perceptions depend upon the attribute of the duration 
 of all kinds of sensation. Rhythm and melody com- 
 bine several attributes but are frequently classed as 
 temporal perceptions. Illusions are illustrations of in- 
 correct reports of the environment where the error 
 lies principally in some factor of the physical situation 
 or in the physiological disposition of the sense organ. 
 
PERCEPTUAI. EXPERIENCE 41 
 
 Re^vikw Que:stions 
 
 1. Name three ways in which perceptions may make 
 
 our environment significant. 
 
 2. From your immediate surroundings illustrate qual- 
 
 itative, spatial, and temporal perceptions. 
 
 3. What is the relation between stroboscopic percep- 
 
 tion and the perception of movement; between 
 stereoscopic and spatial perception? 
 
 4. Outline according to sense department three classes 
 
 of illusion. 
 
 5. Give one example of each of the five classes of 
 
 optical illusion. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IMAGINAIi EXPEKIENCE 
 
 29. The: Image:. — It was difficult to describe the 
 most fundamental of the elementary mental processes, 
 the pure sensation, because it seldom occurs in our 
 present complex mental life as an isolated unit apart 
 from the other processes that are closely organized 
 with it in the perception. In the simple image we have 
 an additional difficulty in that, as we have before noted, 
 the term suggests a visual diagram or outline. The 
 fact is that we may have simple images similar to every 
 known kind of sensation. 
 
 30. ThK Simpi^e: Image:. — What is the simple 
 image? Consider the melody of any naticfnal song. 
 Most of us can hear the opening strain of ''The Star 
 Spangled Banner'' as if some band were playing it or 
 as if people were singing it; that is, we can hear it 
 mentally in the absence of any immediate stimulation. 
 The mental processes which are carrying that tune are 
 known as images; but they are not at all simple: that 
 melody is full of meaning, is frequently accompanied 
 by bodily reactions in the form of organic sensations 
 and feelings ; it arouses a host of associated processes. 
 Take the first note, however, strip it of any meaning 
 whatsoever, do not mentally ascribe to it a word or a 
 musical name, but get the tone as purely as if blown 
 lightly on the mouth of a bottle or as if produced by a 
 lightly struck tuning-fork of that pitch, and you will 
 probably have a simple image. In other words a sim- 
 ple image is any qualitatively simple mental process 
 which refers to an object recognized as not being im- 
 mediately present to the senses. This reference fre- 
 
IMAGINAIv EXPERIENCE 43 
 
 quently occurs just after the experience of the simple 
 quaHty, as when a pecuHar sound is heard which later 
 turns out to be the work of the imagination. Simple 
 images belong to the second class of elementary mental 
 experiences and are sometimes therefore called ''imag- 
 inal elements''. A few writers have termed them 
 "centrally aroused sensations'' because they are very 
 much like sensations in character but are aroused 
 physiologically at the central part of the nervous sys- 
 tem, that is, in the brain, while sensations correspond 
 to excitations at the terminal sense-organs. There is 
 some question as to whether, stripped of all reference 
 or meaning which the simple quality of an image or 
 sensation soon acquires, there can actually be found 
 any pronounced difference between the qualitative 
 characteristics of an image and its corresponding sen- 
 sation. Usually the image lacks the definiteness and 
 insistence of the sensation; it is more vague, change- 
 able, and is frequently weaker in intensity. Under 
 ordinary circumstances an imaged tone is not as loud 
 or as clear as one that is sensed. Under other condi- 
 tions we are uncertain, especially at low intensities, 
 whether the experience which we are having is being 
 imaged or sensed; consequently, as Vv^e shall later see, 
 hallucinations result. AVhere the stimulation takes 
 place in our own bodies, as in the organic, kinsesthetic, 
 and some of the tactual groups, v/e are even more con- 
 fused on this point. It is often difficult to tell an imaged 
 muscular pressure from an actual sensation of mus- 
 cular movement : an incipient muscular twitch result- 
 ing in a muscular sensation may be interpreted to 
 mean an imaged experience, as the behaviorists would 
 have us believe ; or reversely, as physicians well know, 
 m.any painful experiences, taken to be actually sensed, 
 are only very vividly imaged. 
 
44 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 31. Tut Quautie:s oi^ Images. — Substantially, 
 images follow the same qualitative classification which 
 was outlined under sensory experiences. We have 
 auditory imagery when we hear melodies ''running 
 through our heads'' ; we notice visual imagery when 
 we ''see things with the mind's eye"; tactual images 
 come with a "creepy feeling" or with the imaged soft- 
 ness of plush; with the former, however, may fre- 
 quently be found also deeper lying organic and kin- 
 sesthetic imagery turning then into actual sensation, 
 as when reading a ghastly story the "creepy feeling" 
 gives rise to "goose-flesh" and the contraction of 
 groups of muscles. Gustatory imagery can easily be 
 recognized in the experience of opening a box of choc- 
 olates and anticipating the bitter-sweet taste; and 
 smell imagery is common to the memory of the mead- 
 ows after a brief, refreshing rain or of "the pungent 
 scent at evening in the cool hollows of burning brush 
 heaps . . . and above all, the deep, earthy, moist odour 
 of new ploughed fields." It is not altogether an easy 
 matter to describe one's mental imagery with scientific 
 fidelity because one type of imagery may be called in as 
 a substitute for another. A psychologist who is also 
 a good musician told me that he never had an auditory 
 image in his life : all the melodies which he tried to 
 recall came as muscular imagery of throat-adjust- 
 ments, as in humming. So from an evening's dance we 
 may carry away not the music of the orchestra in 
 auditory imagery, nor the glitter of the costumes in 
 visual imagery, but the fragrance of a corsage bou- 
 quet which attracted our attention — and which there- 
 fore will for a long time be associated with the dance. 
 For accurate information on such matters it is con- 
 sequently best to trust the introspections of a trained 
 
IMAGINAIv EXPERIENCE 45 
 
 observer. The actual wealth of imaged qualities, 
 moreover, while theoretically equal to the wealth of 
 sensations, falls far short of it. It is possible to get 
 700 tint values in sensory experience but imagery 
 furnishes us with a much more limited number. 
 
 32. The Quantity o^ Imagi:s. — In matters of de- 
 gree we find the same parallelism with sensory exper- 
 iences as there is in quality ; and with the same limita- 
 tions. With respect to intensity, duration, clearness, and 
 extensity, images follow the course described under 
 sensations, save that they are almost invariably dimin- 
 ished in quantity : less definite, weaker, and less durable. 
 They lack the commanding powder of sensations. Ex- 
 ceptional instances occur, however, but these will al- 
 ways refer to the types that are really border-line cases. 
 Instances of visually imaged colors have been reported 
 with subsequent negative after-images. 
 
 33. THii) Idi)a. — More familiar to our everyday ex- 
 perience is the idea of the complex mental process 
 built up on the basis of simple images. As we have 
 seen, the image is not a very stable or definite process : 
 it ranges from the sensory character of the after-im- 
 age, through the experience found in synaesthesia, 
 which applies to the peculiar sensing of tones as colors 
 or as tastes and of other similar combinations, through 
 the more removed memory after-images to be later 
 discussed, through the so-called ''hypnagogic'' images, 
 which, woven out of the tracings of previously seen ob- 
 jects and of other visual effects, pass in review just 
 before falling asleep, through the images which are 
 mistaken for realities of the outside world and are 
 therefore termed hallucinations — through all the fore- 
 going images to the characteristic image which forms 
 
46 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the foundation of the ideas of memory, imagination, 
 expectation, and thought. It is the latter type which 
 we are now prepared to scrutinize. 
 
 Shut off from external surroundings, secluded from 
 the multitude of challenges and assaults which the 
 world makes upon us, we are still subject, sometimes 
 distressingly, sometimes comfortably, to mental pro- 
 cesses intimately connected with our past, present, or 
 future experiences. Genetically they are born of past 
 experience but they may hark back to all time and 
 place. They are presumably peculiar to the higher 
 animals, especially man; and they have contributed 
 more to civilization than any other form of mental 
 process. We know them scientifically as ideas ; and the 
 mental function involving the use of ideas is termed 
 ideation. Just as the perception cannot be without its 
 core of sensations, so the idea must have its principal 
 group of images. In addition, however, it is essential 
 that the idea should refer to some object not at that 
 moment present to the senses. 
 
 34. Individuai, Dii^^i^r^nce:s in Idi^aTion. — It is 
 a well-established fact that everyone is given to differ- 
 ent methods of thinking, remembering, or planning. 
 Even in such matters as piano-playing without score 
 individuals vary widely. One sees the music printed 
 out on the page of a familiar or preferred edition; an- 
 other plays from the tune as it runs ''in the head'*; 
 still another gets no notion of the tune until his hands 
 begin ''tickling the keys''; again, a person may carry 
 some melodies one way, some other melodies in an- 
 other, and so on. These differences are well marked 
 off into four types of ideation: the first type is the 
 visual ; the second type is the auditory ; the third type 
 the motor or kinaesthetic ; and the last a versatile or 
 
IMAGINAL EXPERIENCE 47 
 
 mixed type. This classification does not mean, of 
 course, that visuahzers, for example, never have any 
 other sort of images; it indicates, however, that most 
 of their ideas take the visual form by preference and 
 habit. But it does mean that there are fairly definite 
 ways in which we are set to do most of our mental 
 work. The next time that you try to remember a 
 catch-phrase which you have just heard, see how you 
 go about it. Do you naturally write it down some- 
 where and then recall it as it appears on the paper; 
 or does the sound of the words repeat itself almost 
 incessantly in your mind; or do you find yourself at- 
 tempting to make the necessary movements in your 
 throat to say it ; or do you do a little of each, or per- 
 chance sometimes one, sometimes another? Since 
 words imply both motor adjustment and the sound of 
 the uttered expression, some authors name the second 
 type as auditory-kinaesthetic or verbal. 
 
 It is worthy of note at this point that persons totally 
 blind from birth or even perhaps from the sixth or 
 seventh year of age are incapable of having visual 
 imagery, and for like reasons totally deaf persons have 
 no auditory images or ideas — showing that, as regards 
 ideational type, our mental life is dependent upon 
 previous experience. The claim is also made and fair- 
 ly well established that children have more pronounced 
 visual im^agery than have adults : adult ideation tends 
 to become verbal, due to the increasing use of language 
 in our mental lives. Where planning requires dia- 
 grams, sketches, and outlines, visuahzers have a tre- 
 mendous advantage, whereas public speakers are much 
 aided by auditory or kinsesthetic imagery. 
 
 35. HaIvI^ucinaTions. — When we mistake our 
 ideas for perceptions we are said to suffer from hallu- 
 
48 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 cinations. No one escapes this tendency, but if it be- 
 comes persistent something is wrong. It occurs norm- 
 ally in reverie, but it may also be a sign of overwork, 
 old age, the use of certain drugs, especially opiates; 
 or, in extreme cases, it may signify serious mental 
 derangement. The inadequate function of the idea 
 may be a matter of mistaken intensity, as a distant 
 whisper may become unbearably loud; it may be a 
 matter of form, as tombstones turning ghosts at night; 
 or it may be a matter of quahtative interpretation, as 
 a piece of gossip is changed to fit your frame of mind. 
 In the extreme case there may be no sensory back- 
 ground at all; the hallucination is then fashioned out 
 of whole cloth or a figment of the mind. 
 
 36. Summary. — We have described in outline the 
 character of the simple image which belongs to the 
 second class of elementary mental processes and forms 
 the principal constituent of the idea. Although the 
 simple image may have the same qualitative and quan- 
 titative attributes as the sensation, in typical instances 
 it is vaguer, less intense, and less stable than the sen- 
 sation ; and while its variation from the sensation is 
 gradual, it does exhibit the peculiar characteristics of 
 a reference to objects that are mental, i. e., not immed- 
 iately present to the senses. On this account many 
 persons erroneously consider the subject of images and 
 ideas the proper approach to the field of psychology. 
 The idea, which is the complex process founded on 
 imagery, is also subject to qualitative variation, but 
 in the main individuals fall into four large groups with 
 respect to the habitual use of visual, auditory, motor, 
 or mixed imagery or ideas. Just as illusions were de- 
 scribed as the incorrect functioning of perception, hal- 
 lucinations were found to be the inadequate function- 
 ing of ideas. 
 
IMAGINAI, EXPERIENCE 49 
 
 Re^vie:w Que:stions 
 
 1. What, in the psychological sense of the term, is a 
 
 simple image? 
 
 2. In what kind of imagery do you tend to remember 
 
 the date and time of an appointment? 
 
 3. From conversation with your acquaintances find 
 
 examples of the four types of ideation. 
 
 4. Which is more advantageous : auditory imagery to 
 
 the musician, or visual imagery to the landscape 
 painter ? 
 
 5. In what mental complexes are images essential? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE 
 
 37. Fe::^i,inc. — ^With feeling we come to an alto- 
 gether different aspect of mental life and one which 
 also is beset with difficulties arising from the technical 
 use of popular terms. The word ''feeling'* is used 
 with meanings ranging from the simplest awareness 
 to the most complex judgment. Strictly it is used in 
 psychology, however, in connection with the emotional 
 or affective phase of mind. Besides the apprehension 
 of our physical environment in terms of perception and 
 the representation of it in terms of idea, mind is af- 
 fected by feelings. In other words there are degrees 
 of response to immediate or to more remote environ- 
 ment in the form of affective or emotional coloring. 
 We are not only capable of perceiving tones but we can 
 also be pleasantly or unpleasantly impressed by them ; 
 we are not only able to recall the social affair of last 
 evening or to project tomorrow's concert into our 
 future experiences, but it is also more than likely that 
 these processes come with some degree of warmth. 
 Whether it be the warmth of pleasantness and com- 
 fort or of dislike and disagreeableness depends upon 
 circumstances and the individual, but few experiences 
 leave us cold and indifferent. Psychology designates 
 this phenomenon, then, by the term ''feeling'' or "af- 
 fection". When reduced to lowest terms of analysis, 
 it is a simple feeling or affective element. 
 
 38. Ai^i^e:ction. — Most psychologists agree that all 
 of our affective experiences are resolvable into one or 
 two qualitatively different simple feelings or affections: 
 pleasantness and unpleasantness. The very least that 
 
AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE 51 
 
 can be said of a mood or emotion or disposition is that 
 it is pleasant or unpleasant. Some writers substitute 
 agreeableness and disagreeableness, like and dislike, 
 and one in particular specifies two additional pairs of 
 qualities, but the first pair — pleasantness and unpleas- 
 antness — are the ones most commonly adopted. In 
 this particular field, however, there is perhaps less 
 certainty than in any other so far discussed, since we 
 are confronted with the spectacle of one authority 
 asserting that the qualities of affection are innumer- 
 able while another says that there are no affections at 
 all — that the alleged "feelings" are nothing but very 
 weak sensations ! For a long time, indeed, there was 
 much confusion between the sensation of pain and the 
 feeling of unpleasantness. Perhaps the next decade 
 will bring us nearer to uniformity of opinion. 
 
 The chief difficulties seem to lie in two main direc- 
 tions. Besides the extreme limitation in the number 
 of qualities we find that the simple feeling can never 
 be observed as an isolated process: it does not lend 
 itself to introspective analysis. It is always intimately 
 related to some other process or group of processes. 
 Instead of pursuing its own course with distinctive 
 qualitative changes it suffuses itself over conscious- 
 ness like a cloud of dust, a glow of warmth, or a chilly 
 wind. In its most complex form it seizes upon the 
 entire psychophysical organism, affecting both mind 
 and body. As one writer has remarked, we are never 
 glad, independently of anything else, but we are al- 
 ways glad about something. In their lowest forms, 
 simple feelings are usually allied to sensations or im- 
 ages. Pleasantness or unpleasantness attach them- 
 selves to tones, colors, tastes, and the like. Neverthe- 
 less, we cannot therefore assign them as attributes to 
 
52 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 these processes because the respective attributes are 
 independently variable. A simple feeling of pleasant- 
 ness may have an intensity and duration different, in 
 degree and in course from those attributed to the sen- 
 sation of color itself. 
 
 The other handicap to psychological investigation 
 is the fact that feelings lack the attribute of clearness. 
 Attention cannot be directed on this process without 
 its immediate disappearance from consciousness ; 
 hence the impossibility of introspective report. 
 
 39. Methods o:^ Investigation. — Recourse must 
 consequently be had to two special methods of ob- 
 servation, both of which are indirect in their appli- 
 cation. One of these, the method of impression or of 
 paired comparisons, demands an introspective report 
 concerning the perception or idea, with only an in- 
 direct reference to the attached affection; the other, 
 the method of expression, depends upon the behavior 
 of the sytems or circulation, respiration, and muscu- 
 lar and glandular activity in the body under the reflex 
 influence of the prevailing feeling. In the first meth- 
 od a series of tones, colors, odors, or tastes is present- 
 ed to the observer in pairs and in a prearranged man- 
 ner, and he is required to report upon the affective 
 response evoked. The clearest process, then, is the 
 perception; the report only incidentally involves the 
 simple feeling. In the other method, specialized in- 
 struments are applied to record, usually through a 
 pneumatic system, the bodily effects of pleasant and 
 unpleasant perceptions and ideas; like the pneumo- 
 graph, which records changes in rate and volume of 
 breathing, the plethysmograph, which transcribes 
 changes in rate and volume of superficial circulation, 
 the sphygmograph, which transmits the rate of the 
 
AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE 53 
 
 pulse, the ergograph, which measures the strength of 
 vohantary muscles, and the automatograph, cousin to 
 the ouija board, which registers the involuntary move- 
 ments of the arm. 
 
 40. S^nse:-FEEIvINGS. — From the simple feelings 
 easily attached to other processes it is an easy step to 
 those feelings that are characteristically bound up with 
 a group of sensations so that they recur from time to 
 time in practically the same pattern. These are the 
 complex processes known as sense-feelings. Head- 
 ache, hunger, thirst, dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, las- 
 situde, and suffocation, are examples of groups of 
 definite sensations accompanied by pronounced feel- 
 ings that are arranged in a fairly stable organization 
 of mental processes. 
 
 41. Emotions. — But still more complex and much 
 more widely recognized are the affective processes 
 listed under the head of emotions. Emotions are defin- 
 ite as to course, content, history, and function. The 
 course in consciousness is precipitous at the beginning 
 with many associated and incorporated processes; it 
 flares up the moment the adequate perception or idea 
 touches it off ; and it is slow to die down, coming only 
 gradually to a conclusion. Reference to the typical 
 emotions of fear and anger, love and hate, will readily 
 confirm this statement. In content Vv^e have usually 
 an inciting perception or idea which is at once organ- 
 ized into a mass of other ideas and perceptions together 
 with a characteristic complex of organic and kinaes- 
 thetic sensations, leading frequently to some expressed 
 or inhibited movement together with effects on the 
 vital physiological functions of respiration, circulation, 
 digestion, innervation, and on the secretions of vari- 
 ous, especially the ductless, glands. The entire com- 
 
54 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 plex is strongly suffused with pleasant or unpleasant 
 affection. The history of emotions, biologists tell us, 
 leads us back to the time when emotions, intimately 
 related to and not infrequently accompanied by in- 
 stinctive reactions, were of prime importance in help- 
 ing the animal survive an emergency of defensive or 
 offensive attack or other equally essential crises. Emo- 
 tions have lost much of this primitive function, but 
 they probably still answer the purpose of introducing 
 a wholesale change in the ideational sequence and 
 organization of mind: producing a sort of temporary 
 mental revolution to clear the atmosphere and tedium 
 of mental life. But, of course, this is sheer theory. 
 
 Neither a numerical count nor a qualitative classi- 
 fication of emotions is available : on these points 
 great divergence of opinion still prevails. One classi- 
 fication, for example, is based upon a genetic differ- 
 ence: the primary emotions, like fear and anger that 
 do not depend on the individual's previous experience, 
 as compared with the derived emotions, like remorse 
 and pity that depend more on social traditions. An- 
 other classification emphasizes temporal reference, as 
 the immediately insistent emotions of joy and sorrow 
 and the remotely insistent emotions of hope and fear. 
 
 42. Se:ntimKnt. — When an emotion is governed 
 not principally by the inherited tendencies deeply in- 
 grained in the texture of mind, but chiefly by consid- 
 erations developing out of social tradition and edu- 
 cational influences, it gives place to a sentiment. 
 Sentiments are farther removed from the instinctive 
 bases of emotional expression and are more allied with 
 the thought processes. Patriotism, friendliness, gra- 
 titude, honor, esteem, and condemnation are senti- 
 ments. 
 
AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE 55 
 
 43. Mood.— Sometimes emotions die an extremely- 
 slow death or never fully embark on their career : they 
 stay at low ebb for a long time. They are then more 
 properly termed moods. A mood, then, is an affective 
 process, usually more or less complex, that is relative- 
 ly weak in intensity and long in duration. While an 
 em.otion may expel mental processes not akin to it, a 
 mood absorbs and colors them in the course of their 
 appearance. 
 
 44. Disposition and TempKramKnt. — ^W^hen an 
 affective response becomes not only long in duration 
 but an integral part of a person's mental texture or a 
 habituated form of action, we speak of a disposition or 
 temperament. If an individual has a temporary lapse 
 and falls into a pessimistic strain, we say that he is in 
 a pessimistic mood; but if he is known to be in that 
 condition day after day and from his earliest days, 
 we say that he is of pessimistic disposition or temper- 
 ament. 
 
 45. Passion. — An intense affective complex, usual- 
 ly of short duration, coming precipitately to a focus 
 and retreating in the same fashion, is a passion. It 
 gains in intensity what it lacks in duration, nor has it 
 the typical organization of an emotion. It is not as 
 definitely integrated. All voluntary control is inhib- 
 ited. 
 
 46. Inte:re:st. — Objects are of interest to us when 
 we attend to them with some affective response. It is 
 a combination of a high degree of clearness and feel- 
 ing, usually pleasant in quality. 
 
 47. Summary. — The third class of simple mental 
 processes includes affections or simple feelings, limited 
 to the qualities of pleasantness and unpleasantness and 
 
56 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOI.OGY 
 
 lacking the possibility of becoming clear processes in 
 consciousness. They are not themselves items in con- 
 sciousness but are readily attached to other processes. 
 Consequently two indirect methods are in use in the 
 investigation of feeling: the introspective method of 
 impression or paired comparisons, and the behavior- 
 istic method of expression. Emotions are very com- 
 plex feelings but with an orderly and inherited pro- 
 cedure. They are intimately related to instinctive 
 forms of reaction, but have not yet been adequately 
 classified. Sense-feelings, sentimicnts, moods, disposi- 
 tions and temperaments, passions and interest are other 
 forms of affective response. 
 
 Re:vii:w Que:stions 
 
 1. Explain why introspection is replaced in the field 
 
 of affection by two indirect methods. 
 
 2. Describe, possibly from your own experience, af- 
 
 fection, sense-feeling, emotion, mood, sentiment, 
 temperament, and passion. 
 
 3. Make a list of your emotions in the course of a 
 
 day and trace the instinctive reactions in each 
 case. 
 
 4. Contrast an emotion started by an idea with one 
 
 initiated by a perception. 
 
 5. How is interest related to feeling and to action? 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MENTAL ARRANGEI^IENT: ATTENTION 
 
 48. Organization o^ Mind. — So far we have been 
 chiefly concerned with the problem of analyzing mind 
 into its principal and rudimentary parts : all mental 
 experiences, however complex, may be introspectively 
 reduced to groups of sensations, sim.ple images, and 
 simple feelings. And on the basis of this analysis we 
 are justified in ascribing certain functions to the vari- 
 ous operations of mental processes : services which 
 they render to each other, to the mental life as a whole, 
 and ultimately to the psychophysical organism. They 
 augment one another, give continuity to mind, and 
 bring the organism in touch with its environment. But 
 there still remains the problem of arrangemient of pro- 
 cesses in point of time, both simmltaneously and suc- 
 cessively. Mind is not only organized in regard to 
 function — what each process does or means — but also 
 in regard to prominence or obscurity of its processes. 
 To every mental process that is com.plex, and to all 
 simple ones except affections, there attaches the at- 
 tribute of clearness, which we have already discussed. 
 In other words, mind stands organized from, moment 
 to moment with certain processes in the foreground 
 and others in the background, but with a constant 
 shifting of relative attentive clearness. Instead of 
 proceeding on a dead level, certain processes momen- 
 tarily become more significant, receive favored posi- 
 tions, as it were, retain them for varying amiounts of 
 time, and then again recede into the background. Here 
 we are confronted with the problem of attention. 
 Hysteria, hypnosis, sleep-walking, and certain mental 
 derangements are intimately involved in the discussion 
 
58 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of attention, but we must leave them to more detailed 
 treatment in books especially devoted to these sub- 
 jects. 
 
 The normal human mind, therefore, is an orderly 
 procession with certain processes standing out above 
 the others, only to give way later on to still another 
 group. In this way our minds are capable of respond- 
 ing adequately to an environment that presents many 
 more claimants for our notice than we can expedi- 
 tiously handle. We have come to see, then, that atten- 
 tion is nothing more than that state or condition of 
 the mind in which mental processes are found in vary- 
 ing degrees of clearness. The normal mind is always 
 in a state of attention. Inattention simply means not 
 that the mind is faihng to attend but that it is attend- 
 ing to matters which for some reason are judged by 
 others to be unworthy of clearest attention at that 
 moment. Some abnormal minds are popularly con- 
 sidered inattentive if attention is not directed long 
 enough to the matter in hand, just as other abnormal 
 minds are incHned to hold a few objects in a high 
 degree of attention too long. ''Attention'' in such cir- 
 cumstances has come to mean a high degree of atten- 
 tion. 
 
 While it is admitted that there may be some individ- 
 ual exceptions, it is generally held that the most fre- 
 quent type of mind shows only two levels of clearness, 
 a level of processes of maximal clearness, or fore- 
 ground, and a level of obscure or unclear processes in 
 the background. In this type the degree of clearness 
 between the two levels is marked. Several published 
 experiments seem to indicate, however, that a multi- 
 level type does occasionally occur in which there are 
 as many as seven degrees of clearness. 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT: ATTENTION 59 
 
 49. Subconsciousness. — Reference is often made 
 to a somewhat mysterious subconsciousness, alluded 
 to also as ''the subconscious''. The assumption made 
 is that there is a second organization apart from the 
 general waking consciousness in which memories lie 
 dormant or buried, associations and even thoughts 
 take place, and in which personaHties and selves are 
 duplicated and sometimes multiplied. If it is treated 
 as a mind somewhat out of reach of the normal con- 
 sciousness, then it would be absurd to fathom it with 
 introspective methods; and if it alternates with the 
 normal mind in consciousness, then it is doubtful 
 whether the term ''subconsciousness'' is entirely appro- 
 priate. In most cases the expression covers ignorance, 
 or at most an hypothesis. Psychologically, phenomena 
 thus discussed fall more properly under the heading 
 of attention and association; for we know that while 
 we are occupied with processes in the foreground of 
 consciousness we are nevertheless aware in an ob- 
 scure way of sounds, sights, organic disturbances and 
 even of ideational processes. We say that we do not 
 notice the outlines of the sidewalk as we stroll, the 
 buzzing of flies and fans while we write letters, or the 
 ticking of clocks as we converse ; but should a blanket 
 of snow obscure the first, should a change of room 
 obliterate the second, should the stopping of the clock 
 put an end to ticking, w^e soon become conscious of the 
 difference : these phenomena are not present in another 
 mind or consciousness, but in the background of the 
 same consciousness. In some instances, as when we 
 recall names after an unsuccessful attempt, we seem 
 not to be aware of the corresponding processes and it 
 is as good a guess as another to say that they develop 
 physiologically, that is, outside of conscious exper- 
 
60 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ience. There is no need, however, for postulating an 
 inaccessible mind at this level and calling it "the un- 
 conscious'', as is done in some texts concerned with 
 abnormal psychology. 
 
 50. The: Rang^ oi? Atte:nTion. — One of the im- 
 portant problems in the psychology of attention in- 
 volves the number of processes that can be held 
 momentarily in the clear focus of consciousness. One 
 hears about individuals who are capable of doing many 
 things at once, like dancing, reciting a poem, and writ- 
 ing separate articles with each hand. History has it 
 that Caesar was able to dictate as many as seven let- 
 ters at the same time. In such instances it is not 
 established that all of these processes are strictly sim- 
 ultaneous : it is very likely that they rapidly oscillate 
 in clearness at successive moments. 
 
 Many types of apparatus, generally called tachisto- 
 scopes, have been devised to meet the technical require- 
 ments of this problem. It is necessary to test the num- 
 ber of items that can be held in clearest attention at 
 a single moment. The period examined must there- 
 fore be very short to prevent roving of attention, but 
 it must be long enough to make the objects visually 
 clear. The average time of exposure is about one- 
 twentieth of a second. The instruments used 
 have a variety of forms in an attempt to over- 
 come certain much discussed deficiencies, but the 
 essential provisions are (1) a fixation-point to 
 prepare the observer for the field of exposure, 
 (2) the rapid, smooth, and noiseless presentation of 
 the items to be attended to for an adjustable and 
 measurable unit of time, and (3) the quick withdrawal 
 of the items at the end of this period. The observer 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT: ATTENTION 61 
 
 then records the number of items seen. These may 
 be single letters, numbers, or arbitrary forms. Re- 
 searches in this field indicate that the foreground of 
 consciousness is restricted to a total of six or seven 
 processes or groups of processes. Six or seven letters 
 or such combinations of letters as combine to produce 
 new units, or even six or seven combinations of words 
 into sentences or stanzas of poetry, may occupy the 
 focus of attention at any one time. The essential 
 element is the unitary mental process, however num- 
 erous the physical compounds may be. This maximal 
 range of attention obtains, of course, only under stand- 
 ard and favorable conditions. In hypnosis and hys- 
 teria, although greatly magnified in clearness, the fore- 
 ground is much more restricted in range. Conditions 
 of fatigue and age also modify it. 
 
 51. Stacks oe^ Attention. — So far we have been 
 discussing attention as a general state of consciousness 
 in which processes are arranged in a pattern of clear- 
 ness and obscurity. We have still to sketch the 
 development in the course of time of any particular 
 group of processes from a state of relative obscurity 
 to that of high attentive clearness. Figuratively speak- 
 ing, mental processes are continually changing, some- 
 times exchanging, places in the scheme of clearness 
 values. The different ways in which processes are 
 brought to the foreground and in which they retain 
 their place in the foreground is usually discussed under 
 the heading of the developmental stages of attention. 
 
 The first stage or primary attention, is probably 
 primitive and largely instinctive. An object (1) that 
 gives intense stimulation to one or more of the senses, 
 like a bright light or a loud sound, or (2) one that 
 appears suddenly, or (3) an object that is moving, or 
 
62 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 (4) something that has a peculiar quaUty, like odd reds 
 and yellows, certain kinds of sound, odor or touch, or 
 
 (5) an object that is novel, unexpected, and unfamil- 
 iar, or (6) curiously enough, things which fit into the 
 present trend of our associations and are therefore 
 congruous with the experiences of the moment, — all 
 of these objects easily compel attention. The sharp 
 rap of the conductor's baton in an orchestral rehearsal, 
 the peculiar sound of the aeroplane overhead, the 
 strong flash of an automobile headlight, the movement 
 of underbrush in an otherwise quiet forest, are in- 
 stances of the arousal of primary attention. There are 
 naturally many applications of one or more of these 
 principles in advertising, of which the reader will be 
 readily reminded. 
 
 The second stage requires effort on the part of the 
 individual because it presents a conflict between two 
 or more sets of claimants for his attention. It is often 
 referred to as the secondary stage and is found in the 
 higher forms of animal life. Suppose that two different 
 persons present food to a dog from^ different angles 
 at the same time. One or the other, perhaps one after 
 the other, will receive attention, but for a few moments 
 there may be a conflict between the two situations. Or 
 assume that it is a warm day and you have an impor- 
 tant report to make, accounts to straighten out, or let- 
 ters to write. Someone suggests an outing or a game 
 of golf or the postman brings the lastest number of 
 a popular magazine. A struggle may ensue in which 
 one or the other possibility is strongly presented. 
 Under such circumstances, while the alternative still 
 presented itself attention to the processes involved in 
 making out the report, arranging the accounts, or writ- 
 ing the letter would be of the secondary type. 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT : ATTENTION 63 
 
 If, however, the matter rested and you have become 
 absorbed in the task which was at first irksome so that 
 it is difficult to call you away from it, your attention 
 has then lapsed into what may be called the tertiary 
 stage. After the conflict and the effort, the object 
 engrosses the attention without conflict or effort. 
 Authors give different names to these stages where 
 uniformity of designation is to be hoped for, but they 
 are generally agreed in the number of stages and more 
 or less agreed in their description. Concerning the 
 rise and fall of attention, experiments indicate that it 
 takes a process or group of processes from one to two 
 seconds to attain maximal clearness; hence whenever 
 the highest degree of attention is desired, preparatory 
 signals are given, as in the starting of races, in the 
 giving of orders, in the initiation of an experimental 
 series, or in "bringing an audience to attention." 
 Furthermore a single unmodified process cannot re- 
 main maximally clear for more than a few seconds. 
 Records on this point are not yet uniformly accurate, 
 but it is very likely that the accounts of processes held 
 for longer periods fail to report minor changes in the 
 processes. 
 
 52. The Function oi^ Attention. — We have al- 
 ready stated that attention serves to bring mental order 
 out of physical chaos. In selects experiences in order 
 and organizes them. The highly trained specialist by 
 repeated selection has attached attentive values to his 
 various experiences, which tend to organize the ex- 
 periences of like nature that are later to recur. Ear- 
 training in music and eye-training in the sciences are 
 not so much a matter of ear and eye as they are a mat- 
 ter of attention, association, and meaning. With prac- 
 tice an educated person has learned to analyze exper- 
 
64 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 iences and to set them into proper places. These 
 places are furnished by association, a topic treated in 
 the next chapter. Attention, then, functions as an an- 
 alyzing operation, but it serves also to synthetize ex- 
 perience by proper organization. We first pick ex- 
 perience apart and then set it together again. The lat- 
 ter procedure is completed by associative organization 
 under attentive scrutiny. 
 
 53. Summary. — This chapter has briefly described 
 attention as the organizing function of the mind and 
 as its condition of clearness and obscurity. Processes 
 not only pass in review but they proceed with varying 
 degrees of distinctness. Fundamentally obscure pro- 
 cesses are sometimes said to belong to the ''subcon- 
 scious'', but that was shown to be an unnecessary hy- 
 pothesis. There may be several degrees of clearness at 
 any one moment, but many individuals conform to the 
 type of mind that reveals only a foreground and a 
 background. Many processes like outside noises or 
 pressures from our clothing may remain in the back- 
 ground but they are seldom unconscious. Instruments 
 have been devised for the study of various problems of 
 attention, but especially to investigate the number of 
 single items, or unitary groups of impression, that can 
 be held maximally clear at any one moment. Six or 
 seven such processes have been counted under exper- 
 imental conditions and average situations. Three 
 developmental stages are described as primary, sec- 
 ondary, and tertiary. It is also found that a process 
 cannot become maximally clear in less than from one 
 to two seconds, and may not remain so for more than 
 a few seconds. In general, attention serves to organ- 
 ize experience through analysis and synthesis of pre- 
 sented impressions. 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT : ATTENTION 65 
 
 Rtvi^w Questions 
 
 1. Compare mind to a pile of mail on the desk: how 
 
 might attention then be illustrated? 
 
 2. For what two reasons is it unnecessary to assume 
 
 a suhconscioiisness? 
 
 3. Can a mind ever be a blank? Can it be inattentive? 
 
 4. Illustrate what is meant by a stage of attention; by 
 
 the range of attention? 
 
 5. Indicate five principles employed in advertising to 
 
 gain attention. Are any of these also used in 
 public speaking; in salesmanship? 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JVIENTAL ARRANGEMENT: ASSOCIATION 
 
 54. Associative: Connections. — Perhaps no topic 
 in psychology has occupied the attention of the class- 
 ical psychologists more than the subject of associa- 
 tion. Some recognized it as of the same importance 
 as gravitation in the physical sciences; one called it 
 a ''gentle force'' ; several built up a ''chemistry of the 
 mind'' on the basis of it ; and almost all of them have 
 tried their hand at formulating laws concerning it. 
 Few writers in the historical development of psy- 
 chology have regarded association from the mental as- 
 pect, and consequently the laws of association have 
 undergone much modification in recent decades. 
 
 With some rather remarkable exceptions, early 
 authorities confined association to the realm of ideas. 
 In present practice, however, there is a strong ten- 
 dency to regard any complex process as an instance 
 of association : perceptions as well as ideas are as- 
 sociated complexes. Truth is that every new ex- 
 perience that enters consciousness becomes immedi- 
 ately assimilated into the system of processes already 
 in mind, forming associative bonds in turn with still 
 other processes to come. From this point of view, 
 then, mind becomes a tremendous network of as- 
 sociative connections. Yet it is not simply a tangle 
 of unrelated processes, but, in the normal mind, an 
 orderly array; orderly to such an extent that, if all 
 the conditions were known, it would be theoretically 
 possible to predict the associative connections in any 
 particular instance. To the psychologist it is not sur- 
 prising, for example, that two intimate friends under 
 
MENTAI. ARRANGEMENT: ASSOCIATION 67 
 
 the same conditions should think of the same things 
 at the same time. 
 
 It is this organization of consciousness from moment 
 to moment, the development of complex processes, 
 that is discussed under the heading of association. 
 Some items of experience are grouped together when 
 presented for the first time as the fusion of tones in 
 the clang, or the blending of tastes and smells, or any- 
 other qualitative perception, and some temporarily 
 successive impressions like members of a rhythm or 
 melody are forthwith synthetized into groups. These 
 are not clear cases of association. But when the 
 taste-blend suggests or means ''coffee'', or when the 
 melody calls up the accompanying words, we have a 
 clear case of an associated process. In this instance 
 the set of impressions that enter consciousness find 
 waiting for them the representatives of some previous 
 experience which at once attach themselves to the new 
 process or group of ^processes. This matter was al- 
 luded to in the discussion of perceptions and meaning: 
 perceptions acquire im.agery, images become associated 
 with other images, ideas with other ideas, and thoughts 
 with other thoughts. The tendencies for some of 
 these associations seem in many cases to be present 
 at birth, ready to manifest themselves at the proper 
 period of development, like the complexes of emotions, 
 instinctive reactions, and accompanying ideas; others 
 are acquired by training and education. 
 
 55. Thi: Law of Association. — The attempts to 
 formulate general statements concerning association 
 clearly reveal the errors into which previous thinkers 
 fell. These statements refer to the objective con- 
 ditions under which associations may take place; they 
 assume that only ideas are associated ; they imply that 
 
68 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOI.OGY 
 
 these ideas are identical with the objective conditions; 
 and they presume that ideas are stable and unchange- 
 able entities like stones in a wall or tiles in a floor. 
 There are four classical laws that appear in the 
 literature: we tend to associate things (1) that are 
 similar, (2) that are in contrast to each other, (3) 
 that occur at the same time, and (4) that occur at 
 the same place. Most of the examples were couched 
 in terms of the recall of familiar objects, although 
 some writers cited instances from other mental pro- 
 cesses besides memory. Some of these laws were 
 gradually modified and reduced until with the modern 
 point of view came a wholesale revision and trans- 
 formation into a single law : if a mental process that 
 has previously occurred in consciousness is reinstated, 
 other processes that occurred with it on the former 
 occasion tend also to reappear. There are further 
 statements concerning the conditions of association, 
 referred to sometimes as ''secondary laws,'' but they 
 are more appropriately discussed in the next section. 
 
 56. Memory. — While, according to our previous 
 description, the topic of association embraces all 
 mental processes of a complex nature in which simpler 
 processes are incorporated, it is more frequently the 
 practice to consider in this connection the higher com- 
 plexes of ideas that function as memories, imagina- 
 tions, anticipations, and thoughts, and the relation of 
 the various complexes, like ideas, perception, emotions, 
 actions, sentiments, and thoughts, to one another. 
 Let us first consider memory. 
 
 In the memorial consciousness there are always at 
 least two factors to be considered: (1) consciousness 
 consists almost entirely of ideational material and a 
 feeling of familiarity, and (2) there is a distinct ref- 
 
MENTAI, ARRANGEMENT : ASSOCIATION 69 
 
 erence to the individuars past. The ideas that occur 
 tend consciously to Hnk the past with the present. 
 This is especially true of all memory images. The 
 memory after-image, like the sensory positive after- 
 image, is a brief recurrence of the original effect 
 shortly after its cessation, but not as much dependent 
 on the characteristics of the original impression as is 
 the sensory after-image. It lacks, however, the feel- 
 ing of familiarity and the backward reference of the 
 true memory image. 
 
 Much of the work on memory Is concerned with an 
 analysis of the conditions underlying effective learn- 
 ing, retention, and reproduction; that is, (1) the 
 factors which favor the period of impression, (2) 
 those that make for adequate retention during the in- 
 terval between learning and recall, and (3) those that 
 influence the recall itself. But experimental work has 
 been concerned for the most part with the first of the 
 three sets of problems. In each case the factors might 
 be assembled under the three heads of (a) physical 
 conditions surrounding the individual who is learning, 
 (b) physiological conditions of the organism, and (c) 
 the psychological conditions In the mind of the learner. 
 Under the first rubric we can Include the four condi- 
 tions mentioned In the earlier laws together with such 
 items as : visual vs. auditory method of presentation, 
 imposition of a rhythmical emphasis on the members 
 of a series to be learned, grouping of the members, 
 learning by parts or by wholes, position of members 
 In the series, length of the series, distributions of the 
 learning period, recency and frequency of connection, 
 the rate of presentation, length of Interval be- 
 tween learning and recall, amount and nature of dis- 
 tracting stimuli, and the methods of eliciting the re- 
 
70 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 sponse. Under the second rubric come such considera- 
 tions as the degree of vigor or fatigue, the age of the 
 individual, the period of the day during which the 
 work is done, and the presence or absence of other 
 physiological disturbances. The last or psychological 
 conditions involve the degree of attention on the part 
 of the individual, the amount of accompanying in- 
 terest or feeling, the intention to remember, the 
 amount of actual mental preparation in the field of the 
 subject to be memorized and recalled, and the habitual 
 attitude toward one's memorial abilities. 
 
 The results that have been obtained in connection 
 with these questions and many others since the class- 
 ical experiments of Ebbinghaus in 1885, are indeed 
 too numerous and detailed to be given here. Among 
 them may be mentioned, however, the effects that they 
 have had on our educational practices in the school- 
 room and on some of the devices that are advertised 
 in our popular literature. While there are every- 
 where qualifications to be made, it is certain that, for 
 instance, advantages lie in the following suggestions: 
 it is best to have the material presented both visually 
 and auditorily, with some recurrent accent or rhythm ; 
 while the material to be memorized ought to be learned 
 as a whole, it is best to divide the task if the entire 
 amount is too great to be kept as a whole ; distribution 
 of the repetitions of a series to be learned has a de- 
 cided advantage over the method of learning the series 
 with the same number of repetitions during a single 
 period, because as James stated in the example of 
 learning to skate in summer and to swim in winter, 
 progress seems to be made physiologically during In- 
 tervals that are not occupied with active learning 
 (Jost's law) ; slight distraction under certain condi- 
 
MENTAI. ARRANGEMENT: ASSOCIATION 71 
 
 tions seems to favor learning mainly because of the in- 
 crease in the active and attentive effort to learn; ac- 
 companying emotion or feeling seems to increase the 
 memorial effect, just as healthy, vigorous, and rested 
 bodily conditions improve both the learning and the 
 recall; and there are mxany recent experiments that 
 prove the decidedly positive effect of mental attitude 
 both by way of confidence in the ability to remember, 
 and the self -instructed intention to recall v/hat has just 
 been experienced. 
 
 Much of this discussion is graphically represented 
 in the ''learning curve'' which shows by the direction 
 of a line the progress of learning. The vertical units 
 are usually expressed as amount of work accomplished 
 and the horizontal units are marked off as time inter- 
 vals at which this amount is ascertained and re- 
 corded. The line generally shows a marked rise or 
 increase in the amount of work during the earlier 
 periods and a gradual flattening as time proceeds, in- 
 dicating only relatively small increments of work. 
 There has been discussion of the occasional "dead 
 lever' or ''plateau" when no gain is made but which 
 is sometimes followed by large increments in succeed- 
 ing periods. 
 
 57. Improvement oe Memoey. — Until recently, 
 authorities were divided regarding the possibility of 
 improving memory in any specific case. Now it seems 
 certain that there are physiological limits set in each 
 individual, within which limits there is hope of im- 
 provement, but beyond which lies little or none. 
 These limits may be fairly wide in some cases and 
 narrower in others. Those who have early realized 
 their ability to remember have made further gains 
 through practice and a store of self-confidence. 
 
72 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Development usually follows along the lines Indicated 
 in the above paragraph and with the development of 
 interest in certain fields or subjects, i. e., with the in- 
 crease in the number of possible associative connec- 
 tions to be made. Sometimes it is restricted to certain 
 kinds of material like names, faces, musical selections, 
 phrases, or gestures. Most important is the degree of 
 interest and attention given to the task and the specific 
 instruction which accompanies the material, such as, ''I 
 must remember that story," or ''That's a good quota- 
 tion to fix in my memory." Certain it is now that 
 quick remembering does not necessarily lead to quick 
 forgetting. The memory methods on the market 
 capitalize the above instructions and gain their results 
 in the interest aroused, in the time, energy, and money 
 spent, and in the mnenonic devices invented to fix and 
 organize the isolated material presented. 
 
 58. Imagination. — The scientific use of the term 
 "imagination" Is restricted to a limited range of func- 
 tions, but there Is no agreement as to Its exact Im- 
 plications. We speak quite accurately of Imagination 
 when we mean the use of Imagery without the back- 
 ward reference of memory or the foreward reference 
 of anticipation. We Imagine a scene In a book of 
 travels that we are reading when we neither remember 
 having been there nor anticipate going there. And yet, 
 genetically considered, the Imagery used In this con- 
 nection comes from various Items of our past experi- 
 ence and may at times be accompanied by a desire to 
 see the place. But there Is no necessary conscious ref- 
 erence to one's past or future In an imagination as 
 such. The designation, "reproductive imagination," 
 suggests history rather than conscious relationship of 
 the present process. In productive, creative, con- 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT: ASSOCIATION 73 
 
 structive imagination we have terms that imply the 
 usefulness of imagination as an aid for planning, in- 
 venting, and thinking. Just as out of our past mental 
 life we construct in reproductive imagination the 
 scenes laid in the drama we are reading, so in writing 
 a book of our own we may construct and invent scenes 
 by creative imagination from the same source. In 
 this second manner imagination is closely related to 
 the thought processes. 
 
 59. Anticipation. — Forecasting the probable events 
 of tomorrow's trip to another city, we are again em- 
 ploying imagery which arises out of our past but is 
 not consciously recognized as such: its immediate re- 
 ference is to the future. In a sense, too, it is creative. 
 Briefly, then, the function of imagery, when directed 
 to the individual's past, is memorial; when directed 
 to the present, it is imaginational ; and when directed 
 to the future, it is anticipatory. 
 
 60. Recognition^- — When a perception is accom- 
 panied by a feeling of familiarity we term the complex 
 a recognition. It has a varying history. Recognition 
 may take place immediately and completely. At once 
 a sufficient number of details come to mind that place 
 the person who confronts you. However, you may 
 not be so successful; a half -recognition may take 
 place immediately, but all you can say is that the face 
 is familiar. Recognition then is incomplete. An in- 
 complete recognition may be replaced by a complete 
 recognition, though delayed, when some additional 
 item like the sound of the voice clears up the whole 
 situation. When recognition has taken place re- 
 peatedly it emerges as nothing more than an ordinary 
 perception. The silverware on our dining table, after 
 years of familiarity, is simply perceived — until per- 
 
74 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 haps some burglar makes off with it. Then, if luck 
 returns, the loot is discovered, and we are asked to 
 identify it, familiarity again returns and recognition 
 replaces the former unfamiliar perception. 
 
 61. Types of Association. — We have outlined 
 some of the more significant forms of association, 
 but we have not forgotten that the topic properly in- 
 cludes all types of combined processes. Most im- 
 portant of these are perceptions and ideas; together 
 they illustrate the type of association known as as- 
 similative. When I look out upon my garden and 
 point out features of it to my neighbor, we both think 
 we are seeing the same things. Our eyes are seeing 
 alike, but our minds are perceiving differently. The 
 tree I am indicating with my finger is perceived by me 
 as the tree that once grew in the woods near a sum- 
 mer resort; he may perceive it as a Norway maple 
 listed in some nursery catalog. Our previous experi- 
 ences have influenced our present perceptions ; and so 
 all of our perceptions are every moment entering 
 minds ditterently furnished : they become assimilated 
 to the processes already there and are colored by them. 
 A senatorial investigating committee can never see the 
 miner's life as the miner sees it ; a friend sees in a po- 
 litical candidate's remark an expression of the highest 
 altruism while his opponent cannot see anything but 
 egotism in it; and a typographical error is repeatedly 
 passed over while a word correctly spelled appears 
 wrong. The same of course is irue of our ideas. One 
 person simply cannot conceive of internationalism as 
 anything but a powerful alliance of aggression; an- 
 other conceives it as the most peaceful affiliation of 
 peoples that the world has seen. Ideas of home, war, 
 right, duty, and love differ in like manner from in- 
 
MENTAL ARRANGEMENT : ASSOCIATION 75 
 
 dividual to individual. But throughout, the type of 
 association indicated shows a tendency to incorporate 
 the representative elements of a previous experience 
 with the processes at present in the focus of conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 But this type may lead to still another, though re- 
 lated one. Suggest to a group the word holiday and 
 immediately a host of ideas will flood the conscious- 
 nesses of the auditors : ''no work,'' ''picnic," "fishing,'' 
 "reading," "loafing," "dance," and many others may 
 crowd consciousness in a flash. This is called simul- 
 taneous association, and seems to be by far the most 
 frequent. One idea will set oif a multitude of other 
 ideas as a bomb ignites many shells at once in a powder 
 dump. 
 
 The other type of association was the one most often 
 discussed by the older writers but is now thought to 
 be of less frequent occurrence. It is the successive 
 type. One group of ideas leads oif into another group 
 which in turn suggests a third, and so on. Each group, 
 however, has elements in common with the next. A 
 letter from a friend suggests a social event on a 
 previous visit ; that suggests another person whom you 
 met on the occasion, which brings vividly to mind 
 the fascinating conversation, then the chief topic of 
 the conversation, relatives in France; then comes to 
 mind the fact that 3^our brother ought to be on the 
 v/ay back, which suggests the party you had thought 
 of having in his honor, which in turn arouses the idea 
 of writing to a certain friend about the affair, which 
 then makes you think that you had better wait until 
 you hear from her again, and so on. Reveries are oc- 
 casions for tracing out so-called "trains of thought" 
 which are nothing more than a series of associated 
 ideas of this successive type. 
 
76 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 62. Methods of Investigation. — The market 
 furnishes a great variety of apparatus which is used 
 experimentally for investigating associations. Most 
 of the instruments are designed for the purpose of 
 carefully presenting members of a series to be learned 
 under controlled conditions. The methods of invest- 
 igation fall in two large classes : ( 1 ) those examining 
 new associations and (2) those examining old associa- 
 tions. The first group of methods analyze associa- 
 tions while they are in process of formation; the 
 second inquire into associative connections that have 
 already been formed. Because it is necessary to be- 
 gin with material that has as far as possible no as- 
 sociative meaning and the further desirable feature 
 of being made up of members that are of uniformly 
 equal weight in the series, so-called ''nonsense syll- 
 ables'' have been devised. They consist usually of two 
 consonants separated by a vowel and are monosyllabic : 
 NUS^ I.OD, ziR, ^KSNy SOQ, are examples. The 
 second group of methods is divided into the continued 
 type in v/hich a word is given by the experimenter and 
 the observer is told to give as many as a hundred 
 words in reply ; and the paired type, or the method of 
 ''paired associates/' in which a single response is 
 paired off with each stimulus-word. Both of these 
 types, and especially the latter, may be used as a ''con- 
 trolled association" with an instruction to restrict the 
 response to those words that are related to the given 
 or stimulus-word as coordinate, subordinate, or super- 
 ordinate, as similar or opposite, as rhymed, as genus 
 to species or the reverse, and so on ; or both types 
 may given as a "free" association method without such 
 restriction. 
 
MENTAI. ARRANGEMENT : ASSOCIATION ^7 
 
 63. The Diagnostic Association. — Use has been 
 made of the association methods in order to diagnose 
 a concealed situation. It was hoped at the outset to 
 apply the method to criminals appearing before the 
 courts, and some trials of it have thus been made, but 
 the results probably came from the effects of a re- 
 fined ''third degree" in which the accused finally con- 
 fessed rather than permit the psychologist to receive 
 the credit. In the laboratory it has usually had good 
 success even with sophisticated observers. In this 
 form the following arrangements are generally made : 
 each one of a series of observers is given the choice 
 of doing one of two or more tasks, like the opening 
 of one of several boxes, the following of one of several 
 instructions, the entering of one of several rooms. In 
 the meantime the experimenter has drawn up a list 
 of single words some of which refer to the one set of 
 conditions, some to the alternative, and some to com- 
 monplace situations; these sets of words are given 
 in haphazard order with instructions to reply with the 
 first word that comes to mind after each word in turn 
 is called out; the word and the speed of reply as given 
 by a stop-watch are recorded; and the experimenter, 
 judging from the character of the response- word, the 
 delays in significant responses or in insignificant ones 
 that immediately follow, but without first-hand knowl- 
 edge, determines what task the observer had elected 
 to do. The observers are frequently not told to con- 
 ceal the information, but naturally assume that they 
 are to do so. 
 
 64. Summary. — We have seen how the problem 
 of association attacks the very fibre of mental life, 
 solving the question of the arrangement from moment 
 to moment. The traditional laws are therefore super- 
 
78 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOI^OGY 
 
 ceded by a more general law. One of the associated 
 groups, memory, revealed a host of problems and re- 
 sults, and improvement of memory lay chiefly along 
 the line of these results rather than in any inherent 
 change of the function. As memory implies the back- 
 ward reference of imagery, so imagination implies re- 
 ference to the present, and anticipation to the future. 
 Recognition is much like memory save that its es- 
 sential mental process is a perception rather than an 
 idea. Three types of association were discussed and 
 illustrated and the methods of investigation classified 
 under two heads with several subheadings. Finally 
 we reviewed, under the name of the diagnostic as- 
 sociation, the application of one of the methods to- 
 ward the analysis of concealed situations. 
 
 RE^VIE:w QUE^STIONS 
 
 1. Show how ''Niagara Falls" may at times be a 
 
 memory, an imagination, an anticipation, or a re- 
 cognition. 
 
 2. Mention four physical factors which influence 
 
 learning and apply them to any specific content to 
 be remembered. 
 
 3. Of what force in this connection is the ''instruc- 
 
 tion" to recall? 
 
 4. lo what extent may memory be improved? 
 
 5. On what assumption does the method of diagnostic 
 
 association proceed? To what uses in business 
 could it be put? 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ACTION 
 
 65. The: Exi:cutive: Function. — Consciousness 
 organized to do, to act, to accomplish, is described as 
 the actional consciousness.With this name we designate 
 consciousness as executive in function: mind is not 
 only cognizant of its environment through perception 
 and idea, but it is equipped to alter and affect the en- 
 vironment and the relations of the organism to that 
 environment. The actional consciousness must be dis- 
 tinguished, nevertheless, from motor adjustments of 
 the organism. There are, in the first place, types of 
 movement like reflexes that may not involve 
 consciousness at all. In some of the lower forms 
 these may function, as in the case of the ''wiping" 
 movement of the frog, even when the brain is re- 
 moved. At any rate, in human beings, conscious pro- 
 cesses are not necessary components of reflex adjust- 
 ments : the opening and closing of the pupil, re- 
 spiratory, circulatory, and digestive mechanisms work 
 very well without conscious attention. In the second 
 place we may experience a typical action conscious- 
 ness when a movement is not made but is inhibited. 
 When at a flower show we are at times strongly 
 tempted to touch an exquisite specimen and all but 
 do it, consciousness is typically actional, and yet no ex- 
 ternal movement results. For this reason some psy- 
 chologists are differentiating action from movement 
 by restricting the former to those adjustments that 
 involve conscious processes. 
 
 This entire field is naturally good camping ground 
 for the behaviorists who look to the manifestations of 
 
80 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 movement as indices of mental life. Where outward 
 signs of behavior fail to appear they hope to obtain 
 clues from changes in the body, the secretions of 
 glands, or any other physico-chemical phenomena. 
 Their program lies almost entirely in the future, but 
 in some directions, as in the methods and devices for 
 recording minute muscular and glandular changes, 
 they have made notable progress. It remains to be 
 seen, nevertheless, whether their results will accrue 
 to the benefit of the psychological sciences or more 
 directly to the advantage of the biological disciplines. 
 
 66. Type:s oi^ Move)me:nt. — It is a moot question 
 whether our complex actions have been built up out 
 of the unconscious reflexes or whether the latter are 
 vestiges of the former. A corollary of the latter posi- 
 tion ascribes intelligence to the lowest animal forms 
 because the earlier simple actions would then be con- 
 sidered voluntary. The view that actions may de- 
 velop in both directions, toward higher complication 
 and also toward greater simplification, is now gaining 
 wider acceptance. An act, then, involving a simple 
 conscious motive may proceed toward increasing 
 habituation or toward more involved voluntary action. 
 The series is a gradual one but probably reversible in 
 its genetic history. 
 
 First of all, in the lowest form of animal life, there 
 are the tropisms or tendencies to turn toward or away 
 from light, heat, the earth, or various gradients of 
 chemical stimuli. 
 
 Then there are the spontaneous movements that are 
 due to an overflow of energy. The most elementary 
 organized movement is occasioned by the simple re- 
 flex, a response, like the eye-wink, reduced to a simple 
 muscular contraction due to the passage of energy 
 
ACTION 81 
 
 from a definite stimulus over the shortest route of 
 established nervous connection. More developed is 
 the conditioned reflex in which the original stimulus 
 has by training been replaced by another that has ac- 
 companied the first. The oft-mentioned dog, whose 
 saliva flows at first with the sight of food, but which 
 later develops the saliva-reflex in connection with the 
 sound of a bell that repeatedly accompanies the 
 original stimulus, is an example. The vital, organic, 
 ox automatic reflexes ^vt processes which involve some- 
 times more than one stimulus and always a complex 
 set of reactions, like the respiratory, circulatory, and 
 digestive functions. The secondary reflexes are those 
 highly automatized reactions that have been acquired 
 during life but have become ''second nature," like the 
 balancing movements of a rope-walker, also the move- 
 ments involved in combing one's hair, tieing shoe- 
 laces, and similar performances. They are the auto- 
 matized habits, sometimes also called sensorimotor or 
 ideomotor actions. The instinctive reactions require a 
 much more attentive conscious accompaniment and in 
 many of them there is even evidence of emotional con- 
 comitants, but the greater part of the organization of 
 movement is due to nervous connections already made 
 or in process of formation at birth. Examples of in- 
 stinctive actions are nest-building, hunting, collecting, 
 mating, and movements that accompany many emo- 
 tions. Instinctive performances are usually quite com- 
 plex as regards the muscular coordination involved 
 but the entire mechanism is started by a very specific 
 set of stimuli. The simple impulsive action is a move- 
 ment made with a conscious end in view and set off 
 by a simple situation. The motive, whether due to 
 "self-instruction" or to a suggestion or command from 
 
82 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 someone else, is realized and foreseen, but the starting 
 point does not present any immediate difficulty or 
 ambiguity. Beginning a race at the crack of a pistol, 
 coming to a halt at command, giving someone a ''lift" 
 with a trunk, are some of many examples. From this 
 point on, actions become more and more complex as 
 regards the initiation, the motive, and the resultant 
 course of action. There may be a choice of starting 
 signals, the voice of one whom you know as over 
 against a score of other voices issuing commands ; the 
 motives may be conflicting : ''to be, or not to be : that 
 is the question"; and the resultant movements may 
 be a complex series extending over some time, as in 
 preparations for a journey. 
 
 Some authors make a distinction between voluntary 
 action, which implies a conscious motivation, and in- 
 voluntary action, in which the movement is either 
 automatized or physiological in its course. Some re- 
 cent studies have indicated that some of the vital re- 
 flexes which are usually beyond the direct control of 
 voluntary effort, like the heart-beat, can nevertheless 
 be consciously influenced. The author has also seen 
 individuals who could expand and contract the pupils 
 of their eyes. 
 
 67. Habit Formation and the IvEarning Curve. 
 — While we have already discussed the chief charac- 
 teristics of the learning curve as developed in con- 
 nection with association, there is also a legitimate 
 place for its consideration at this point. Statements 
 concerning its form and its interpretation made in the 
 earlier section apply equally here. Typical curves 
 have been drawn up in depicting the acquisition of 
 various skilled movements, such as learning to type- 
 write, to telegraph, to toss several balls at once in the 
 
ACTION 83 
 
 air, and to wend one's way through a maze with a 
 pencil. Similar curves depict learning in the lower 
 forms of animal life. Thus we may trace the develop- 
 ment of habituated action, always remembering, how- 
 ever, that a habit is an automatized performance — 
 which means that, while attention is directed on the 
 movements involved in the earlier stages, the com- 
 pletely formed habit is relatively unclear in the back- 
 ground of consciousness, and requires little attention. 
 The motive, of course, has also lapsed. 
 
 68. The "Personai, Equation'' and the Reaction 
 Time. — The historic rise and fall of the "personal equa- 
 tion'' and the subsequent development of the reaction- 
 time is a long story to tell. Suffice it to say that the 
 question was first raised in astronomy toward the end 
 of the 18th century when an assistant was dismissed at 
 the Greenwich observatory, in England, for incom- 
 petency because he had habitually recorded the transit 
 of certain stars a fraction of a second later than the 
 continental observers had recorded them. The manner 
 of recording was, of course, quite crude but Involved 
 a simple impulsive movement by what was known as 
 the "eye and ear" method of stopping a clock as soon 
 as the star was seen to cross a hair-line of the tele- 
 scope. The dismissal gradually led to an inquiry into 
 personal differences and to the measurement of the 
 personal equation. The physiologists became interested 
 because of the possibility of determining the speed of 
 nerve conduction but they were soon quite discouraged 
 when they frequently discovered that stimulation at 
 one point of the body gave a longer reaction than 
 at other points. Finally it was turned over to the 
 psychologists because of the realization that some un- 
 known mental factors had to be taken Into account. 
 
84 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 So the personal equation, or the time that expressed 
 individual variations in executing a movement after 
 a signal is given, was ushered into the psychological 
 laboratories and it emerged as the ''reaction-time/' 
 During the last quarter of the last century scores of 
 experiments have attempted to analyze and to factor 
 the reaction in all manner of ways. But it was not 
 until Ach, in 1905, systematically presented an analysis 
 of the actional consciousness that the work of these 
 earlier years on reaction-times of choice, discrimina- 
 tion and association were clearly interpreted. 
 
 By dividing the entire duration of the action into 
 three periods, — the fore-, mid-, and after-periods, — a 
 careful introspective analysis was made possible. 
 The fore-period reveals the presence of the ''instruc- 
 tion'' and lasts from the time the ''instruction'' to 
 act is given until the signal appears; the mid-period, 
 the interval that is measured by precise instruments 
 in thousandths of a second, covers the time from the 
 appearance of the signal until the movement is made; 
 and the after-period lasts for a time after the move- 
 ment is completed. The outcome of these experi- 
 ments shows that no one is able to execute a move- 
 ment at the moment he hears a command or sees a 
 signal : it always takes an appreciable fraction of a 
 second to pull the trigger, to start on a race, or to dap 
 one's hands after the perception of the sign to begin; 
 but it also clearly demonstrates the fact that the 
 differences in the reaction-times of various individuals 
 are due solely to differences in the "instruction" that 
 is given to, or habitually assumed by, the person who 
 is reacting. If the "instruction" is of the "hair- 
 trigger" type, to react as quickly as possible with the 
 attention directed primarily to the muscles involved 
 
ACTION 85 
 
 in the movement, then the time will be comparatively 
 short and the reaction will conform to the muscular 
 type. If the ''instruction'' emphasizes the quality of 
 the perception which starts the reaction, then the time 
 will be longer and the reaction will be described as 
 sensory. In sensory reactions the observer pays at- 
 tention to the kind of signal which precipitates the 
 action and can be put on guard by introducing at 
 times stimuli of different quality from the one agreed 
 upon. The results are also slightly influenced by the 
 sense departments appealed to by the signal. All 
 time values are conventionally expressed in one-thou- 
 sandths of a second, represented by the Greek letter 
 sigma. The figures show that average mus- 
 cular reactions to light are 180 sigma; to sound, 120 
 sigma; to electrical cutaneous stimulation, 105 sigma; 
 sensory reactions give for light, 290 sigma; for 
 sounds, 225 sigma ^ and for electrical stimuli, 210 
 sigma. Fatigue and practice, of course, will alter 
 these figures somewhat. There is also a mixed type 
 of reaction in which the agent fluctuates between the 
 other two types in the direction of his attention, re- 
 sulting in a reaction- time that is an average of the two 
 extremes. 
 
 69. The Actional Consciousness. — ^Analysis of 
 action has revealed always a definite organization of 
 processes that lead to the executive function. It is 
 usually more complex at the end than at its inception, 
 but throughout its course it seems to be guided by the 
 motive. In actions that have degenerated into move- 
 ments like the secondary reflexes, the motive has been 
 replaced by a purely physiological organization. But 
 in typical actions, the results of the action and the 
 underlying motive are consciously foreseen. At the 
 
86 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 outset a perception or an idea appears to which the 
 individual reacts by an expressed series of movements 
 or by inhibited movements. Stepping forward to help 
 a person who has slipped on the sidewalk is started by 
 a perception; sitting down to vv^rite a letter may be 
 started by an idea. In both instances there are na- 
 turally accompanying ideas and in many cases feelings 
 or even emotions of vividly colored consciousness, as 
 is the case in ''excited'' or ''interested'' actions. The 
 "instruction" may be carried by a mass of organic 
 sensations or by a verbal phrase like, "I must do that 
 now." 
 
 70. The Will. — Like the term "soul" the word 
 "will" has assumed something of an unscientific char- 
 acter. Moral obligations and responsibilities are sug- 
 gested with even religious implications. Volition is 
 a more acceptable term. The "will" or volitional 
 consciousness differs from the voluntary conscious- 
 ness in that the command is not tacitly followed by 
 the action but is consciously accepted and referred 
 to the self of the reactor. An act that is "willed" al- 
 ways reflects the individuality of the person. For 
 a moment the person becomes self-conscious. In this 
 manner he gives the act approval. The volitional act 
 is frequently the outcome of a decision that has been 
 verbally developed and is therefore complex. Often, 
 too, it is accompanied by thought processes or at least 
 by groups of ideas. This is particularly true of a 
 deliberated act to which a final decision is attached. 
 
 71. Summary. — Action manifests the executive 
 function of consciousness and is developed in various 
 directions. It is to be distinguished from movement 
 which does not imply conscious intervention. From 
 the lowest tropism, through the various forms of re- 
 
ACTION 87 
 
 flex movement, to instinct, to simple impulsive action, 
 and to volitional action, is a gradual series with an 
 increasing attentive conciousness and awareness of 
 purpose and result manifesting themselves. Much of 
 scientific treatment of these phenomena has come in- 
 directly from the astronomical L-d physiological ''per- 
 sonal equation'' whose discussion finally led to a study 
 of the reaction-time in the early days of the psy- 
 chological laboratory. Then the beginning of the twen- 
 tieth century afforded an analysis of the actional 
 consciousness and the importance of the ''instruction". 
 Latterly also much work has been done in depicting 
 the development of skilled or habituated practices on 
 the part of the lower animals as well as of man. 
 
 Re^vie^w Qu:^stions 
 
 1. Trace six different kinds of movement in the 
 
 course of a morning's work. 
 
 2. What does the learning curve indicate? 
 
 3. What criticisms can you pass on such expressions 
 
 as the "power'', the "faculty", or the "force" of 
 the will? 
 
 4. In what sense does mind exercise a "function"? 
 
 5. Give a brief historical interpretation of the "per- 
 
 sonal equation". 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THOUGHT 
 
 72. The Deliberative Function. — We cannot 
 leave the subject of human psychology v/ithout a dis- 
 cussion of the highest mental function that the human 
 species presents. As far as the evidence goes it does 
 not at present seem possible that any of the lower 
 animals can think in the accepted meaning of the 
 term. But man can clearly apprehend his environ- 
 ment in terms of perceptions and the ideas which re- 
 present these perceptions; he can exert his influence 
 in adjusting himself to the world thus apprehended 
 by making suitable movements^ — and frequently un- 
 suitable ones — but he may also solve, in advance of 
 their application, the problems that the world pre- 
 sents. In other words, he sometimes provides against 
 future contingencies that may arise. 
 
 We have already referred to thought in the discus- 
 sion of creative imagination. But thought processes 
 differ in several respects from the ideas of creative 
 imagination. In creative imagination we begin with 
 a general situation whose requirements are to be met, 
 represented at the outset by a group of abstract ideas ; 
 we end usually with a product that is concrete, a 
 melody which we have composed, a plot that we have 
 outlined, a device that we have invented. In thought 
 we start with a very definite situation which is never- 
 theless perplexing and from it we abstract a conclusion 
 expressed in general terms. Another difference lies 
 in the fact that thought depends upon the meanings 
 symbolically represented in ideas, especially in verbal 
 ideas. Many of the ideas may function vicariously 
 
THOUGHT 89 
 
 as related processes. It is of frequent occurrence that 
 a nod of the head, a wink of the eye, or a set of 
 the mouth will not only convey a vast fund of in- 
 formation to the observer, but the consciousness of 
 these movements may be packed with meaning to the 
 individual who is exhibiting them. So also may the 
 visual image of a hazy, dark-brown spot mean ''sick- 
 ness-doctor-medicine'' ; the picture of a view down a 
 long straight passage may mean ''infinity" ; and death 
 may be represented by a curved rod slightly draped 
 at one end. It is almost always possible to trace the 
 history of these symbols because they prove to be re- 
 duced relics of more detailed pictures. The dark- 
 brown spot may be the imaginal remnant of some ex- 
 perience with a dark medicine; perhaps the paralled 
 lines of the long corridor were sometime suggested 
 by the statement concerning the meeting of such lines 
 at infinity; and the curved rod doubtless is all that is 
 left of the idea of death, the reaper with sickle in hand. 
 There is much of this sort of thing in the thought 
 consciousness, and frequently the ideas and images 
 used in the development of the thought process are 
 even more scrappy and far-fetched. The important 
 fact is that thought utilizes such abstracted materials 
 as the vehicles of meaning. 
 
 7Z. The Thought Consciousness. — Aside from 
 a small school of psychologists who believe that 
 thought is as elementary an experience as sensation 
 and those who write of "imageless" thought, most 
 writers consider thought to be the most complex 
 mental process of all. It was the last to resist 
 analysis. It is composed of images, usually in their 
 complex form as verbal ideas, but also of visual, 
 auditory, and kinsesthetic types, all of them quite ab- 
 
90 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 breviated. They are organized in their course by an 
 ''instruction'' to solve a problem, and they proceed 
 under a high degree of secondary attention. It is sup- 
 posed by some authorities that a problem of this type 
 may ''incubate'' for a time in the nervous system and 
 be resolved on a future occasion. Some experimenters 
 have also found evidence of a new process, called a 
 conscious attitude or a mental attitude, in which a 
 more protracted meaning is found to be telescoped 
 and condensed. The observers reported attitudes of 
 helplessness, complexity, doubt, effort, conviction, 
 hesitation, and the like. For the time being these 
 seemed to be incapable of analysis, but there is some 
 indication that introspective scrutiny had not been car- 
 ried far enough. The same criticism is applied against 
 the assumption that thought belongs to a fourth class 
 of elementary mental processes. 
 
 74. Language. — This is not the place to treat the 
 subject of language as such. We are chiefly interested 
 in it as an expression and vehicle of thought. It must 
 be remarked, however, that it is again an illustration 
 of the symbolic use of sound and form. In language 
 we do not give heed to the position, shape, arrange- 
 ment of the strokes that constitute the letter or the 
 word, nor intrinsically to the sound of them, but to 
 the interpretation to which they give rise. The 
 language of stamps and flowers illustrate this point 
 very well. On this account, perhaps, after we have 
 mastered the details of spelling, we later get to be 
 poor spellers: the meaning is uppermost, the formal 
 content secondary. Thought utilizes language and re- 
 moves the meaning one step farther: the meanings 
 of words may now be represented by grotesque figures 
 or fragmentary outlines of word as we have before^ 
 
THOUGHT 91 
 
 noted. So thought works hand in hand with language : 
 the more highly developed and refined the expression, 
 the more complex become the deliberative functions 
 of thought processes. The genetic study of language 
 demonstrates, especially in the child, the interdepen- 
 dence of thought and language at each step. 
 
 75. The Concept or Abstract Idea. — Two dif- 
 ferent phases of the concept or abstract idea have 
 been delineated : the one is made up principally of re- 
 produced elements but now in fragmentary form, 
 sometimes called representative; the other is con- 
 structed on the basis of systematic thinking, referred 
 to as typical. An illustration of the first would be 
 the concept of ''tree'' made up as it commonly is of 
 remnants of experimental factors : trees we have seen, 
 or one of the trees is taken as a sample for the lot. 
 The outline may be hazy, the background dim or gray, 
 few particulars may remain; or on the other hand a 
 fairly definite tree, a certain elm or maple, may 
 stand as an instance of the class. In the typical con- 
 cept, however, like that of force, mind, immortality, 
 duty, and the like, we have either the word as a verbal 
 idea, or some bizarre imagery whose history may be 
 explained, like that described in the opening par- 
 agraph, but which has come to stand for the meaning 
 that is itself the fruit of thought. In both cases when 
 generalization takes place, repeated features of suc- 
 cessive instances that go to form the concept become 
 schematized into some symbol which may also be 
 verbal. 
 
 76, Reasoning. — We may define reasoning as 
 the function of mind which organizes experience. 
 It differs from the organization which we discussed 
 under attention and association in that it is the 
 
92 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 conscious attempt at such organization directed to- 
 ward the problems and objects of the environment, 
 while the attentive and associative organization refers 
 only to the order and arrangement of the mental pro- 
 cesses and procedures themselves. Thinking is the 
 more general term covering all forms of problem- 
 solving in terms of ideational processes, sometimes 
 accompanied by physiological tendencies. Reasoning 
 is usually restricted to the more formal, step-wise 
 process of meeting a puzzling situation. The stages 
 of this procedure may be grouped into four. At the 
 outset comes an interruption in the smooth course of 
 events presenting a hindrance or difficulty in the ad- 
 justment of the individual to his environment. Then 
 there is an apprehension, a scrutiny, and an analysis 
 of the situation frequently involving a judgment of 
 it. After that we find ourselves consciously referring 
 to instances of previous experience, gathering data, 
 comparing and relating facts and hypotheses, and ar- 
 riving then at a tentative conclusion. The last stage 
 consists of observing our conclusion at work and of 
 modifying it to suit the circumstances that mav 
 develop. /^ 5ff 
 
 77. Judgment. — When a verdict is given to some 
 problematic situation we have a judgment of it. The 
 judgment may be an attributive phrase, ''That is a 
 good shot"; it may be a movement or gesture, like 
 the look or nod of approval or ''thumbs down"; or 
 it may be entirely ideational, like the satisfaction with 
 the commencement oration of a son. There always 
 has been a tendency to find an outlet, as is evidenced 
 by the uncomfortable feeling when refraining because 
 of custom or regulation from giving applause at the 
 end of a good organ selection splendidly played. 
 
THOUGHT 93 
 
 There are also many gradations of judgment from 
 the immediate attachment of a phrase or idea to an 
 experience, all the way to a decision reached after 
 days and even months of deliberation. In most cases 
 such attachment, consciously made, terminates a 
 thought-process. The attachment of a meaning to a 
 perception can hardly be called a judgment because 
 the reference is not consciously made: it simply ac- 
 crues. In the entire treatment of the thought-pro- 
 cesses, it is difficult to keep on the psychological side 
 of the boundary line. The various sciences have be- 
 come better neighbors and have removed their fences 
 so the children may sometimes be found playing on 
 other peoples' lawns. Logic, or the discussion of the 
 formal process of thinking, thus has become some- 
 what psychological; and the psychology of thought 
 frequently overlaps logic. 
 
 78. Summary. — Thought, the most complex func- 
 tional process of mind, was found to be an attempt 
 to discover a solution to problems of the environment 
 that would not yield to the less complex processes of 
 habituated consiousness. It normally consists of a 
 series of processes, predominantly verbal, that are 
 symbolically used and systematically arranged under 
 the guidance of a latent "instruction" to find an 
 answer. Sometimes the processes may drop out of 
 clear attention and even give way to physiological pro- 
 cesses. Occasionally observers have reported "image- 
 less thoughts" and conscious attihides that by others 
 have been declared unanalyzable. When thought be- 
 comes definitely a matter of clear and sustained at- 
 tention to the processes involved it is known as 
 reasoning, of which four stages have been deter- 
 mined. The study of language is important in. 
 
94 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 this connection because it furnishes an illustration of 
 the symbolic use of signs and sounds, a symbolism 
 carried even a step further in the thought function, 
 and because the development of language has a strong 
 reciprocal effect on the development of thought in the 
 human mind. Two phases of the abstract idea or 
 concept were also outlined, illustrated, and discussed. 
 
 RirviKw Que:stions 
 
 1. What mental process closely resembles thought? 
 
 2. How are thought and language related? 
 
 3. Introspectively analyze your mental processes while 
 
 undertaking to solve a problem. 
 
 4. Define reasoning, judgment, conscious attitude, 
 
 5. What is meant by the symbolic meaning of imagery 
 
 in thought? 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SELF 
 
 79. The Self. — The supreme organization of the 
 individual mind leads at once to the self. There are 
 two ways of considering this self. It is not im- 
 possible to conceive of an orderly arrangement of pro- 
 cesses all genetically related to one another in the 
 same psychophysical organism. By development and 
 assimilation all the perceptions, ideas, emotions, ac- 
 tions, thought, and sentiments of an individual's men- 
 tal life are more intimately related than are, for 
 example, the ideas of one person with the ideas of 
 another. At no time, of course, is an emotion, or 
 an idea, or any other mental process entirely free 
 from the remaining processes of mind in a single 
 moment of consciousness; nor are the successive 
 moments of consciousness free from each other. 
 These are abstracted realities singled out under atten- 
 tion for the purpose of examination, as a spot-light 
 isolates a part of the scenery. This concept of the 
 self resolves itself into the meaning of the term mind 
 except that it stamps mind with an individuality that 
 is lacking in general treatment. The self is a particular 
 mind in this sense. In a second sense it is the con- 
 sciousness of one's own experience that is meant, al- 
 though the more frequently used expression in this 
 connection is self-consciousness. Other uses of the 
 term in psychology savor of metaphysical and epis- 
 temological usage. The self can best be considered 
 in the light oi an individual regarded as a progressively 
 organised system of mental functions and processes. 
 
 80. Personality. — It is difficult to define or even 
 
96 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 to describe a term that has so many social, moral, and 
 religious implications ; but there is one point at which 
 we are obliged to face the problem. We have seen 
 how the self is organized in terms of the entire ar- 
 rangement of functions and processes. In a later sec- 
 tion we shall be prepared to consider types of mind 
 that become disintegrated — split off into groups of 
 processes. Since personality is largely the reflection 
 of one's self in the social mirror, it is obvious that 
 in the psychological sense the personality may alter 
 slightly with the environment in which it finds itself. 
 In Rome we do as the Romans do ; . everywhere we 
 soon accommodate ourselves to our surroundings. 
 Some individuals can make this accommodation more 
 readily than others but we all do it to some extent. 
 The writer has seen a group of college graduates of 
 the class of 1855, at a commencement reunion, white- 
 haired bankers, hard-headed business men, lawyers, 
 and others, jubilantly acting like boys. They could 
 hardly help doing so. All of us have different de- 
 meanors on different occasions. From the mental 
 point of view it means that we have complete systems 
 of associations together Vv^ith the accompanying man- 
 ners of behavior which fit various occasions and situa- 
 tions. We do not consciously assume professional 
 mannerisms at one time and put on the characteristic 
 behavior of home life at another time. These are 
 usually habitually determined by the setting, even by 
 the clothes we wear. A policeman is much less of 
 a policemen after a mob has deprived him of part of 
 his uniform. The soldier assumes the air of a soldier 
 when he dons his regimentals. We scarcely realize, 
 indeed, how much of our customary frame of mind 
 is derived from such sources as the environment 
 
THE SELF 97 
 
 furnishes. Mark how mind is upset when unexpected 
 reversals leave it deserted of public and friendly con- 
 fidence! But in spite of these variations in the theme 
 of any individual mind there persists, of course, a 
 continuous mental texture. It is the same funda- 
 mental composition throughout. Melodies may come 
 and go, but the symphony of mind goes on to the 
 end. In other words, while there may be groups and 
 regroupings of mental processes, they are all related 
 and integrated into one mind. This characteristic in- 
 tegration in any one case we call the personality, or 
 self. When we discuss the total assemblage of as- 
 sociations on the side of process and function as con- 
 sciously conceived, we refer to the self; when we re- 
 gard this assemblage from the side if its reflection in 
 environment and society, we term it the personality. 
 
 81. Multiple or Altered Personality. — We 
 have seen how circumstances tend to influence the 
 set or connection of mental processes, calling out 
 some that are characteristic of the occasion and in- 
 hibiting others that conflict with it; and we have just 
 remarked that there is nevertheless an undercurrent 
 of continuous mental processes which unites all 
 of these variations into one whole. After all, v/e 
 can recall, under normal conditions, how we have 
 behaved and misbehaved. But under stress of 
 intense emotion and in a weakened mental condi- 
 tion it sometimes happens that the self or personality 
 thus differentiated by the circumstance or occasion 
 remains cut off or isolated from the rest of the mental 
 complexes. Memories become grouped about each 
 separate central experience and characteristic manner- 
 isms attach themselves to each set of complexes. 
 Physicians and psychopathologists have reported many 
 
98 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 such cases in the scientific journals. One case that 
 attracted pubUc attention about ten years ago de- 
 veloped as many as five different personalities, most 
 of them known by different given names, and some 
 of them unconscious of the existence of the rest. One 
 of the more prominent personalities represented a 
 college girl of refinement and ability, the other a half- 
 illiterate, almost vulgar, and mischievous girl who 
 knew the weaknesses of the first and held them up 
 for ridicule. The experiences of these different per- 
 sonalities suffered no cross-reference but attached 
 themselves independently to the appropriate subject. 
 This topic, belonging primarily to other provinces of 
 general psychology than the one being treated in this 
 book, has been introduced by way of exception and 
 emphasis to the general rule of the development of 
 personality. 
 
 82. Character. — Like personality the term char- 
 acter partakes of social and ethical considerations. 
 The distinguishing marks and traits that society as- 
 signs to an individual in terms of his reactions to social 
 conditions go to build up the character of the in- 
 dividual. Some of these traits — many of them hab- 
 ituated reactions, others inherent capacities, — are sub- 
 ject to specially devised tests. A summary of these 
 tests in any individual case may under scientific con- 
 ditions reveal in a serviceable manner the character- 
 istics of the individual tested. But the attempt to 
 delineate character through the analysis of hand- 
 writing, contours of head and face, posture, gait and 
 the like, is unscientific, crude, and illogical. Much 
 of it harks back to outworn doctrines. The logic in- 
 volves the process of referring the characteristic of 
 the generalization back to specific items. It is pos- 
 
THE SELF 99 
 
 sible, for instance, to determine the average weight 
 of a child at five years of age, but it would be ri- 
 diculous to say that every child weighing that much 
 is five years old. 
 
 83. Soul. — In the opening chapter it was indicated 
 that at the present state of our knowledge it is not 
 feasible to include this term in our psychological 
 studies. With the word soul invariably come the con- 
 notations of individual responsibility, moral obliga- 
 tion, immortality, and similar considerations that are 
 germane to the religious and philosophical studies and 
 not amenable to scientific research. They are matters 
 of value and not of fact. Mind ceases, according to 
 our hypothesis, at death: beyond that Vv^e have no 
 scientific method of approach. But most of us, how- 
 ever, still find solace in the religious disciplines be- 
 cause we believe that no one study can give a com- 
 plete answer to the insistent problems of the universe. 
 Soul must therefore in this study never be confused 
 with mind. 
 
 84. Psychic Research. — There is at present a 
 considerable amount of discussion, especially in Eng- 
 land and France, but lately also in this country, con- 
 cerning the ability to communicate with individuals 
 after death and with living ones through media 
 that are not at present recognized by science. 
 Societies have existed in this country and abroad, for 
 several decades, for the purpose of studying these 
 and kindred phenomena under the name of psychic 
 research; but although large sums of money have been 
 offered for scientific demonstration of these occur- 
 rences, no proof has been forthcoming. We cannot say, 
 of course, that at this time we have the last word in 
 print concerning everything that is to be known: the 
 
100 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 account with truth is by no means closed and 
 there is no indication that it will be closed in the im- 
 mediate future. But science cannot give assent to any 
 statement of alleged fact that will not stand the tests 
 upon which science is itself founded. So we av/ait 
 proof. 
 
 85. Self-consciousness.— After disposing of these 
 matters we come back to that examination of the self 
 which is represented in consciousness. Concerning 
 the question as to whether we are persistently or only 
 intermittently conscious of ourselves there seem to 
 be two conflicting answers : some psychologists say, 
 ''yes, we are persistently self-conscious'', others say 
 we are not. It is possible that those who speak af- 
 firmatively are either themselves extremely self-con- 
 cious or they confuse the philosophical implication of 
 an ever present subject with the psychological fact of 
 its existence in consciousness. It seems that the 
 negative statement is nearer the truth of the matter; 
 for on many occasions we are oblivious of our very 
 existence, so thoroughly are we absorbed with the task 
 in hand, v/ith not even a trace of the conscious self in 
 the background of attention. 
 
 The further question as to how, when we are con- 
 scious of ourselves, is the meaning of the self given, 
 may be answered by direct evidence from both in- 
 trospection and pathological cases. Some individuals 
 carry the meaning in terms of a complex idea em- 
 bodying a visual picture of their appearance, perhaps 
 a portrait, together with the sound of their own 
 voices and the like. But the most important con- 
 stituents of self-consciousness are (1) the persistent 
 group of organic sensations from within the body 
 combined with tactual pressures, warmths, and oc- 
 
 i 
 
THE SELF 101 
 
 casional pains, and (2) the continuous reference to 
 one's past in terms of memorial and recognitive pro- 
 cesses. In the abnormal cases it is frequently dis- 
 covered that one or both of these contributing factors 
 are responsible for alterations of personality or for 
 total personal forgetfulness, technically known as 
 amnesia. The individual either suffers some organic 
 trouble which removes for the time being the impulses 
 normally received from the vital organs of the ab- 
 domen and chest as well as from the muscles and skin, 
 or a nervous shock breaks down the connections in the 
 brain, so that he begins again with a comparatively 
 clean slate: there is no connection with his previous 
 experiences, and he is therefore a new person. 
 
 86. Summary. — We have seen in the last analysis 
 the possibility of a vast system of relations between 
 all mental processes. Insofar as this system is different 
 in each individual we term it the self as distinguished 
 from the mind which represents the general designa- 
 tion for mental phenomena occurring between birth 
 and death In any individual. The personality Is the 
 reflection of this self In the social and environmental 
 mirror and Is dependent on It, assuming different 
 phases on different occasions. When these phases be- 
 come so marked that they themselves become Isolated 
 units of organization, we have the conditions of 
 multiple or altered personality. Character was treated 
 as the sum total of traits assigned to an individual by 
 society and measurable by tests but not by the gross 
 methods commonly advertised In the press. Soul Is 
 disappearing from the serious writings of psychologists 
 because of Its religious and philosophical Implications, 
 and the attempts of psychic research to fathom the 
 meaning of the unknown are not yet crowned with 
 
102 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the success that science has a right to expect of ex- 
 perimental procedures. In closing, we took the posi- 
 tion that the the individual is not continuously con- 
 scious of himself as distinct from his environment; 
 that, when he is conscious of his own self, introspec- 
 tion shows the factors to consist largely of a back- 
 ground group of organic texture together with a re- 
 ference to his own past experiences afforded by mem- 
 orial and recognitive processes. 
 
 The writer may be granted the parting statement 
 that perhaps at this time, after a careful though neces- 
 sarily brief analysis of complex mental processes and 
 functions, the promise made in the opening sections 
 of the book has been fulfilled. At least the reader 
 possesses a clearer notion of the task of psychological 
 investigation, its point of view, and Its results. With 
 the description of mind now as complete as circum- 
 stances will permit, the definitions tentatively offered 
 at the beginning ought to be more clearly understood ; 
 but they ought also to give way to the content that 
 now stands of its own accord. They were but the 
 scaffolding erected before the structure that represents 
 our discussion, was completed. If the reader has 
 taken a renewed Interest In the phenomena of the 
 mind and Is able more to appreciate Its operation and 
 constitution, If he becomes keenly alive to things 
 mental In himself and In others, the purpose of this 
 brief book has been accomplished. 
 
THE SELF 103 
 
 RejviEw Questions 
 
 1. Distinguish between self, self -consciousness, soul, 
 
 personality, and character. 
 
 2. Explain multiple personality in terms of the phen- 
 
 omena of the normal mind. 
 
 3. Enumerate three ways in which your attitude to- 
 
 ward psychology may have changed as the result 
 of reading this text. 
 
 4. In what sense may the psychologist be legitimately 
 
 interested in psychic research? 
 
 5. In the light of your reading, how would you de- 
 
 scribe the science of psychology to an inquiring 
 friend ? 
 
APPENDIX A 
 rHE INDUSTRIAL, APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Applied Psychology.— After a brief review of the rudi- 
 ments of pS3^chology, it will doubtless be of interest to out- 
 line the practical service which psychology can render 
 mankind in his economic relationships and especially in 
 commerce and industry. We have lately learned more 
 emphatically than ever before the need of treating the human 
 mind as though it were of some consequence in life. Out of 
 the pure science of psychology, therefore, has grown up an 
 extensive field of investigation and of accomplished results 
 which might be designated "mental engineering." Applied 
 psychology, its more usual name, has many branches that 
 reach into the domains of legal practice and testimony, of 
 medical treatment^ jf educational procedure, of social wel- 
 fare, and even of artistic production. But probably the 
 greatest endeavor at present lies in the direction of meeting 
 industrial requirements and of improving business methods 
 in general. 
 
 For some time it has been the practice for men working 
 in other sciences to consult the psychologist concerning prob- 
 lems that had mental as well as physical aspects. But few 
 people are aware that for some years prior to the Great War 
 several large industries had psychologists on their pay roll 
 and financially supported psychological research. One of 
 the largest manufacturers of electric lamps and accessories 
 regularly employed a psychologist, together with a physicist 
 and a physiologist, to investigate problems of vision. A well 
 equipped laboratory was provided for this purpose. 
 
 The Consulting Psychologist. — But recently there have 
 been more numerous calls for expert assistance in industries 
 that began to realize the importance of taking mental factors 
 into account. Manufacturers of high-grade tinted stationery 
 saw the need of investigating problems of color discrimina- 
 tion, partial color blindness, and color weakness. In other 
 industrial establishments skilled movements have been care- 
 fully analyzed by the moving-picture process with the purpose 
 of selecting properly fitted individuals for the task or for the 
 instruction of those who were to become skilled in the work. 
 A group of professionally accredited psychologists have 
 
INDUSTRIAL, APPLICATIONS 105 
 
 organized a private corporation to undertake contracts es- 
 pecially for the mental examination and rating of the person- 
 nel of industrial concerns. Just as a firm of auditors will 
 make a financial investigation of a corporation, so these 
 psychologists v^ill take a mental inventory of the industrial 
 organization that requests it. 
 
 Examination o^ Personne:Iv. — This particular field of 
 investigation is now the forefront of applied psychology. 
 It grew out of the needs of classifying the various occupa- 
 tions in the army. There was a good start in this direction 
 before the war, but the last five years helped considerably to 
 set the young discipline firmly on its feet. The governmental 
 bulletin, ''Personnel" is now being continued by the National 
 Association of Employment Managers, and the entire method 
 has been adapted to meet the civilian situation. 
 
 The choice of vocations presents two large requirements. 
 There must be established a thoroughgoing vocational selec- 
 tion, or testing of candidates for any given trade or profes- 
 sion, or portion thereof, in order to reduce the wasteful and 
 discouraging effect of the "labor turnover", and to eliminate 
 "misfits". The technical requirements of the work must be 
 carefully analyzed and checked with adequately standardized 
 tests and the candidates selected substantially on this basis. 
 At intervals examinations are set to afford an opportunity 
 for subsequent rating. This applies to the entire personnel, 
 from executive to workman. A still more difficult problem 
 is that of vocational guidance, which involves the knowledge 
 of the important requirements of a great many different 
 trades and professions and the guidance of the individual 
 into the line of work for which he is best fitted. On account 
 of the enormous scope of this problem relatively less has 
 been so far accomplished; but the v/ork of testing men in a 
 single profession in several instances compares very favor- 
 ably with their actual success in the field. 
 
 Generai, Eeeiciency. — Also, in a large industrial organiza- 
 tion, or retail concern, there are problems of mental efficiency 
 which constantly demand attention, research, and solution. 
 The educational needs of industries that recruit individuals 
 from all walks of life and all parts of the globe, with many 
 diverging interests and widely different mental constitutions, 
 require psychological advice. There are also problems of 
 social service and adjustment among the various groups. The 
 
106 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 morale of business is o£ the same importance in time of peace 
 as the morale of an army in time of war ; as the psychologists 
 were needed in connection with the latter, so they are now 
 demanded in connection with the former. Many of the avoid- 
 able but frequently dangerous mistakes that occur in busi- 
 ness also have a mental basis. 
 
 SpECIai, ProbIvEms. — Finally we have to consider the special 
 problems of buying, advertising, selling, and management. Of 
 these perhaps advertising has invited the greatest attention 
 on the part of our psychological laboratories. The general 
 composition, position, size, frequency of appearance of ad- 
 vertising matter and many other related phases of the subject 
 have been experimentally investigated with success. Some 
 of our universities located in the larger industrial centers are 
 continually called upon to solve problems of this sort. The 
 results of positive and negative suggestion in advertising and 
 selling have been of great value as have also the experimental 
 investigation of special phases of memory, attention, and 
 sentiment. The field of selling and of buying presents mental 
 problems which the psychologist is now endeavoring to solve. 
 And the most difficult question is that of analyzing all the 
 complex factors which make the successful executive and 
 manager; but even here psychology has made a promising 
 beginning. 
 
 When it is realized that the entire staff of psychologists at 
 one of our more prominent educational institutions of the 
 country is devoting its entire time to the solution of mental 
 problems in the industrial field, it can be understood why a 
 brief discussion of the subject cannot here go into detail. But 
 the references on the subject to fields of applied psychology, 
 in the following biblography, beckon those who care to study 
 the matter with care. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 CLASSIFIED REFERENCES*) 
 The Principles of Psychology 
 
 1. Pii.i,SBURY, W. B. The Fundamentals of Psychology, 1916. 
 
 Macmillan. Pp. 562. 
 
 A large and systematic work with full references to 
 experimental data. The author aims to tell more of the 
 function of consciousness than of its composition or 
 structure. 
 
 2. TiTCHKNER, E. B. A Text-hook of Psychology, 1914 (last 
 
 ed.) Macmillan. Pp. 565. 
 
 The clearest and most complete description of mind 
 from the structural point of view. The author has 
 succeeded so well in citing and interpreting experimen- 
 tal data in support of his position that the reader has 
 no difficulty in comprehending the material. 
 
 3. Angei.1., J. R. Psychology, 1908 (4th rev. ed.). Henry 
 
 Holt. Pp. 468. 
 
 A very readable account from a general biological 
 point of view; a book of much influence especially in 
 colleges and normal schools of the central west. 
 
 4. Cai^kins, M. W. a First Book in Psychology, 1914 (4th 
 
 rev. ed.) Macmillan. Pp. 428. 
 
 The author consistently separates the structural from 
 the functional aspect of mind and writes in a very 
 fascinating style with many apt illustrations. The Ap- 
 pendix contains carefully selected references. 
 
 5. James^ W. The Principles of Psychology, 1890. (2 vols.) 
 
 Henry Holt. Pp. 1393. 
 
 A two-volume work, a classic in the American liter- 
 ature of psychology. 
 
 *) Note-. No reference to the periodical literature is made. The 
 bibliography is necessarily incomplete in many respects, but the author 
 will be glad to suggest further reading in any direction. None but 
 specialized books are cited in the last three groups, because the topics 
 are usually easily accessible as separate chapters in the general texts. 
 
108 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 6. Myers^ C. S. a Texf-book of Experimental Psychology 
 
 (with laboratory exercises), 1911 (2nd ed.). Longmans, 
 Green. Pp. 451. 
 
 These volumes give the student a very good idea of 
 English experimental psychology and at the same time 
 some laboratory work of not too complicated character. 
 
 7. Stout, G. S. A Manual of Psychology, 1915. (3rd rev. 
 
 ed.) Hinds, Noble & Eldridge. Pp. 769. 
 
 A detailed account from a leading English psychol- 
 ogist of an older school. 
 
 8. Seashore^ C. E. Elementary Experiments in Psychology, 
 
 1909. Henry Holt. Pp. 218. 
 
 A simple laboratory manual for which no apparatus 
 is required. 
 
 9. Warren, H. C. Human Psychology, 1919. Houghton, 
 
 Mifflin. Pp. 460. 
 
 The most recent presentation of the subject from the 
 point of view of an organism struggling with its en- 
 vironment. 
 
 10. Watson, J. B. Psychology from the Standpoint of a 
 
 Behaviorist, 1919. Lippincott. Pp. 429. 
 
 A systematic study of the human mind by ^'objective" 
 methods which aim to interpret the instinctive and ac- 
 quired reactions. 
 .11. WooDWORTH, R. S. Dynamic Psychology, 1918. Colum- 
 bia University Press. Pp. 210. 
 
 General Psychology 
 
 12. Angei.1., J. R. Chapters from Modern Psychology, 1913. 
 
 Longmans, Green. Pp. 308. 
 
 13. Hunter, W. S. General Psychology, 1919. Univ. of 
 
 Chicago. Pp. 347. 
 
 14. MuENSTERBERG, H. Psychology, General and Applied, 
 
 Appleton. Pp. 487. 
 
 Physiological Psychology 
 
 15. Ladd, G. T., & WooDwORTH, R. S. The Elements of 
 
 Physiological Psychology, 1911. Scribners. Pp. 704. 
 
 The most comprehensive work on the subject in 
 America. 
 
CI.ASSIFIED REFERENCES 109 
 
 16. DUNI.AP, K. An Outline of Psychobiology, 1917 (Znd ed.) 
 
 Johns Hopkins. Pp. 145. 
 
 17. McDouGAi.1., W. Physiological Psychology, 1905. Dent. 
 
 Pp. 172. 
 
 The simpliest account of the subject, and in small 
 compass. 
 
 18. Herrick, C. J. Introduction to Neurology, 1915. Saund- 
 
 ers. Pp. 355. 
 
 Animal Psychology 
 
 19. Washburn, M. F. The Animal Mind, 1917 (2nd ed.) 
 
 Macmillan. Pp. 386. 
 
 20. Watson, J. B. Behavior, An Introduction to Comparative 
 
 Psychology, 1914. Henry Holt. Pp. 439. 
 The representative book on "Behaviorism." 
 
 Educational Psychology 
 
 21. ThorndikE, E. L. Educational Psychology (Briefer 
 
 Course), 1915. Columbia Univ. Pp. 442. 
 
 22. ThorndikE, E. L. Educational Psychology (3 vols.), 
 
 1913. Columbia Univ. Pp. 1187. 
 
 Probably the most thoroughgoing presentation of the 
 subject. 
 
 23. BAGI.EY, W. C. The Educative Process, 1915. Macmillan. 
 
 Pp. 358. 
 One of the most generally used books on the subject. 
 
 24. Starch, D. Educational Psychology, 1919. Macmillan, 
 
 Pp. 473. 
 
 Child Psychology 
 
 25. Waddle, C. W. An Introduction to Child Psychology. 
 
 1918. Houghton, Mifflin. Pp. 317. 
 
 26. KiRKPATRiCK, E. A. The Individual in the Making, 1911. 
 
 1918. Houghton, Mifflin. Pp. 317. 
 
 27. PrEyer, W. The Mind of the Child (trans.), (2 vols.), 
 
 1890. Appleton. Pp. 663. 
 
 Differential Psychology 
 
 28. Whipple, G. M. Manual of Mental and Physical Tests 
 
 (2 vols.), 1915. Warwick & York. Pp. 694. 
 
no BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 29. Terman^ L. M. The Measurement of Intelligence^ 1916. 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin. Pp. 362. 
 
 30. Thorndike, E. L. Mental and Social Measurements, 
 
 1904. Science Press. Pp. 212. 
 
 31. Franz, S. I. Handbook of Mental Examination Methods, 
 
 1919. (2nd rev. ed.) Macmillan. Pp. 193. 
 
 Vocational Psychology 
 
 32. H01.UNG worth, H. L. Vocational Psychology, 1916. Ap- 
 
 pleton. Pp. 308. 
 
 33. Seashore, C. E. The Psychology of Musical Talents 
 
 1919. Silver Burdett. Pp. 288. 
 
 34. MuENSTERBERG, H. Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, 
 
 1913. Houghton, Mifflin. Pp. 321. 
 
 35. Scott, W. D. Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, 
 
 1914. Macmillan. Pp. 339. 
 
 36. Link, H. C. Employment Psychology, 1919. Macmillan. 
 
 Pp. 440. 
 
 Advertising and Selling 
 
 Z7, Adams, H. F. Advertising and Its Mental Laws, 1916. 
 Macmillan. Pp. 333. 
 
 38. HoLUNGWORTH, H. ly. Advertising and Selling, 1913. 
 
 Appleton. Pp. 314. 
 
 39. Scott, W. D. The Psychology of Advertising, 1908. 
 
 Small;^ Maynard. Pp. 269. 
 
 40. Scott, W. D. The Theory and Practice of Advertising, 
 
 1913. Small, Maynard. Pp. 240. 
 
 41. Starch, L. Advertising, 1914. Scott, Foresman. Pp. 281. 
 
 Social Psychology 
 
 42. McDouGAi^L, W. An Introduction to Social Psychology, 
 1914. John Luce. Pp. 431. 
 
 43. WALI.AS, G. The Great Society, A Psychological An- 
 
 alysis, 1917. Macmillan. Pp. 383. 
 
 44. WuNDT, W. Elements of Folk Psychology (trans.), 1916. 
 
 Macmillan. Pp. 532. 
 
CI.ASSIFIED REFERENCES 111 
 
 45. Bai^dwin^ J. M. Social and Ethical Interpretation in 
 
 Mental Development, 1906. Macmillan. Pp. 606. 
 
 Psychology of Religion 
 
 46. L^UBA, J. H. A Psychological Study of Religion, 1912. 
 
 Macmillan. Pp. 371. 
 
 47. Starbuck, E. D. The Psychology of Religion, 1903. 
 
 Scribners. Pp. 423. 
 
 48. Stratton, G. M. The Psychology of the Religious Life, 
 
 1911. Allen. Pp. 376. 
 
 Abnormal Psychology 
 
 49. CoRiAT, I. H. Abnormal Psychology, 1910. Moffat, Yard. 
 
 Pp. 325. 
 
 50. Hart^ B. The Psychology of Insanity, 1914. Putnams. 
 
 Pp. 176. 
 
 51. Fox, C. D. The Psycho pathology of Hysteria, 1913. 
 
 Badger. Pp. 437. 
 
 52. Jastrow, J. The Siih conscious. 1906. Houghton, Mifflin. 
 
 Pp. 549. 
 
 Psychotherapeutics 
 
 53. Mub:nstkrbkrg, H. Psychotherapy, 1909. Moffat, Yard. 
 
 Pp. 401. 
 
 54. SiDis, B. The Causation and Treatment of Psychopathic 
 
 Diseases, 1916. Badger. Pp. 418. 
 
 55. White:, W. A. & 'Jtiu.ttt, S. E. The Modern Treatment 
 
 of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 1913. (2 vols.) 
 Pp. 1683. 
 
 History of Psychology 
 
 56. KxKMM^ O. A History of Psychology (trans.) 1914. 
 
 Scribners. Pp. 380. 
 
 57. Dessoir, M. Outlines of the History of Psychology 
 
 (trans.) 1912. Macmillan. Pp. 278. 
 
 Attention 
 
 58. Pii,i,SBURY, W. B. Attention, 1908. Macmillan. Pp. 346. 
 
112 BREVITY BOOK ON PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 59. TiTCHENER, E. B. Lectures on the Elementary Psychology 
 
 of Feeling and Attention, 1908. Macmillan. Pp. 404. 
 
 Memory 
 
 60. Meumann^ E. The Psychology of Learning (trans.) 
 
 Appleton. Pp. 393. 
 
 61. Watt, H. J. The Economy and Training of Memory, 
 
 1919. Longmans, Green. Pp. 128. 
 
 62. Ebbinghaus, H. Memory (trans.), 1913. Columbia 
 
 Univ. Pp. 123. 
 
 Thought 
 
 63. TiTCHENER, E. B. The Experimental Psychology of the 
 
 Thought Processes, 1909. Macmillan. Pp. 318. 
 
 64. P11.1.SBURY, W. B. The Psychology of Reasoning, 1910. 
 
 Appleton. Pp. 306, 
 
 65. BiNET, A. The Psychology of Reasoning (trans.), 1899. 
 
 Open Court. Pp. 191. 
 
INDEX 
 
 113 
 
 Abstract idea 91 
 Action ^ ^ 79 
 simple impulsive 81 
 Actional consciousness 85 
 Adaptation 25 
 Advertising 10, 62, 106 
 Affection 50 
 After-image 24,45 
 memory 45, 69 
 of movement 38 
 Amnesia 101 
 Anticipation IZ 
 Applied Psychology 104 
 Association 66 
 diagnostic 11 
 laws of 67 
 methods of inves- 
 tigating 76 
 types of 74 
 Attention 24 
 defined 58 
 function of 63 
 range of 60 
 stages of 61 
 Auditory sensation 13 
 Automatograph 53 
 Behavior 6, 79 
 Bitter 21 
 Blind-spot 17 
 Body 7 
 Character 98 
 Clearness 24 
 Cold 18 
 Color-blindness 18 
 mixture 17 
 zones 18 
 'Common' sense 19 
 Concept 91 
 Conscious attitude 90 
 Consciousness 4 
 Contrast 26 
 Disposition 55 
 Duration 24 
 Emotion 53 
 Ergograph 53 
 Extensity 24 
 Feeling 5r 
 sense- feeling 5" 
 
 Habit formation 82 
 
 Halucination 45, 47 
 
 Hue 16 
 
 Idea 45 
 
 abstract 91 
 
 individual differences 
 
 in 46 
 
 Ideational type 46 
 
 Illusion 38 
 
 Image 42 
 
 after- (see "after") 
 
 hypnagogic 45 
 
 quality of 44 
 
 quantity of 23 
 
 simple 42 
 
 Imagination 12 
 
 Instincts 54, 81 
 
 "Instruction" 12, 84, 86, 90 
 
 Intensity 23 
 
 Interest 55 
 
 Introspection 5, 6 
 
 Josfs law 70 
 
 Judgment 92 
 
 Language 90 
 
 Learning curve 71, 82 
 
 Local sign 35 
 
 Meaning 13, 29, 74, 89, 93 
 
 Melody 36 
 
 Memory 68 
 
 after-image 45, 69 
 
 improvement of 71 
 
 Mental arrangement 57, 66 
 
 Mental attitude 90 
 
 Mental phenomena 3 
 
 Method ^ 5, 52, 76 
 
 of expression 52 
 
 of impression 52 
 
 Mind 3, 4, 7, 95 
 
 Mixture 17, 25 
 
 Mood 55 
 
 Movement 6, 20, 79 
 
 types of 80 
 
 Noise IS 
 
 Odor 
 Pain^ 
 Passion 
 
 22 
 18 
 
 55 
 
114 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Perception 
 
 30 
 
 organic 
 
 81 
 
 of movement 
 
 Z1 
 
 secondary 
 
 81 
 
 qualitative 
 
 31 
 
 simple 
 
 80 
 
 spatial 
 
 32 
 
 Retrospection 
 
 6 
 
 stereoscopic 
 
 ZZ 
 
 Rhythm 
 
 36 
 
 stroboscopic 
 
 37 
 
 Salesmanship 
 
 106 
 
 temporal 
 
 35 
 
 Salt 
 
 21 
 
 Personal equation 
 
 83 
 
 Saturation 
 
 16 
 
 Personality 
 
 95 
 
 Self 
 
 95 
 
 altered or multip] 
 
 ie 97 
 
 Personnel 
 
 105 
 
 Self-consciousness 
 
 100 
 
 Plethysmograph 
 
 52 
 
 Sensation 
 
 12 
 
 Pneumograph 
 
 52 
 
 articular 
 
 20 
 
 Pressure 
 
 
 auditory 
 
 13 
 
 cutaneous 
 
 18 
 
 gustatory 
 
 21 
 
 muscular 
 
 20 
 
 kinaesthetic 
 
 19, 20 
 
 Psychic research 
 
 99 
 
 number of 
 
 13 
 
 Psychological 
 
 
 olfactory 
 
 22 
 
 laboratories 
 
 2, 7 
 
 organic 
 
 19 
 
 Psychology 
 
 
 static 
 
 20 
 
 abnormal ^ 
 
 9 
 
 tactual 
 
 18 
 
 of advertising 10, 
 
 62, 106 
 
 tendinous 
 
 20 
 
 animal 
 
 9 
 
 visual 
 
 15 
 
 applied 
 
 104 
 
 Sentiment 
 
 54 
 
 of business 10, 
 
 104-106 
 
 Soul 
 
 3, 99 
 
 child 
 
 9 
 
 Sound localization 
 
 32 
 
 comparative 
 
 9 
 
 Sour 
 
 21 
 
 definition of 
 
 ^'^ 
 
 Sphygmograph 
 
 52 
 
 differential 
 
 9 
 
 Stereoscope 
 
 33 
 
 educational 
 
 9 
 
 Stroboscope 
 
 37 
 
 ethnic 
 
 9 
 
 Subconsciousness 
 
 59 
 
 genetic 
 
 9 
 
 Synaesthesia 
 
 45 
 
 of individual differences 9 
 
 Sweet 
 
 21 
 
 methods of 
 physiological 
 racial 
 scope of 
 social 
 
 5, 52 
 9 
 9 
 8 
 9 
 
 Tachistoscope 
 
 Taste 
 
 Temperament 
 
 60 
 21, 22 
 
 55 
 
 Thought 
 
 89 
 
 Psychopathology 
 
 9 
 
 imageiess 
 Tint 
 Tone 
 
 89 
 
 15 
 
 13, 14 
 
 Psychotherapeutics 
 Reaction 
 
 9 
 
 mixed 
 
 84 
 
 Vocational guidance 
 
 10, 105 
 
 muscular 
 
 84 
 
 Vocational selection 
 
 10, 105 
 
 sensory 
 
 84 
 
 Volition 
 
 86 
 
 time of 
 
 83 
 
 Voluntary action 
 
 86 
 
 Reasoning 
 
 91 
 
 Vowels 
 
 IS 
 
 Recognition 
 
 n 
 
 Warmth 
 
 18 
 
 Reflex 
 
 
 Weber's law 
 
 23 
 
 conditioned 
 
 81 
 
 Will 
 
 86 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111 
 
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