The basis of memory / by W.R. Bousfield.

  • William Robert Bousfield
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The basis of memory / by W.R. Bousfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    original. The other, after reading many times, may be able to write out some kind of proof, very likely with an accurate copy of the diagram and the lettering of it, but perhaps with the omission of some important step. And if the shape of the diagram is varied or the lettering changed he will be quite at sea. Both have received the same physical engrams, in the case of one boy many times repeated. But what counts is not the engrams but the meaning which they have con¬ veyed. Such illustrations clearly show that the essential thing in memory is not the words but ideas. When we recall the sequence of ideas, we may by chance clothe them in the same words or in different words. But what we really recall is the ideas with their meaning, and we cannot imagine that any mechani¬ cal record of ideas can be created by sensory impressions in mere cerebral structure. We cannot rationalize or picture any process by which anything but sensations can affect brain cells, or by which brain cells should reproduce
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