A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the ship which bore the Princess of Orange; and I connect the invention of printing and the discovery of America with the late fifteenth century by regarding both as manifestations of the renaissant spirit of adventure. The fourth rule for memorizing follows from a principle of association: that an experience occurring frequently in different connections is the more likely to recur. If the professor of economics and the professor of German and the professor of ethics alike quote Nietzsche in their lectures, I am likely to be reminded of Nietzsche more often than if he were favored by one only of my teachers. It follows that one should emphasize existing connections and form new connec¬ tions of the fact-to-be-remembered with other facts likely to recur and to suggest it. This rule, though important, needs to be guarded. For, first, the greater the variety of facts in¬ directly or directly connected, the greater the likelihood that, in a given situation, an undesired image — or no image — will recur. If the nonsense syllable mej appears in the fifth place of a series which I am trying to learn, the fact that it has held second place in yesterday’s series and eighth place in a last week’s series makes it likely that, on trying to repeat to-day’s list, I assign mej to second or eighth, not to fifth, place, or that I am altogether doubtful of its position. The formation, in the second place, of artificial connections is commonly of very questionable value, for such connections lack the very condi¬ tions of associative recurrence. It is futile, for example, to transfer one’s ring to the middle finger for the sake of re¬ minding oneself to wind the clock. Clock-winding and ring- on-third-finger are not normally connected in my experience, but occur together seldom, and there is therefore little likeli¬ hood that the sight of the ring, a few hours hence, will recall
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