Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
Av. gain in object couplets, 19 per cent.
" " " movement couplets, 30 per cent.
The first question which occurs in examining the foregoing tables is
concerning the method of treating the indirect associations, _i.e._,
obtaining the per cents. The number of couplets correctly recalled may
be divided into two classes: those in which indirect associations did
not occur, and those in which they did occur. Those in which they did
not occur furnish us exactly what we want, for they are results which
are entirely free from indirect associations. In them, therefore, a
comparison can be made between series using objects and activities and
others using images. On the other hand, those correctly recalled
couplets in which indirect associations _did_ occur are not for our
purposes pure material, for they contain not only the object-image
factor but the indirect association factor also. The solution is to
eliminate these latter couplets, _i.e._, subtract them both from the
number correctly recalled and from the total number of couplets in the
set for a given subject. By so doing and by dividing the first
remainder by the second the per cents, in the tables were obtained.
There is one exception to this treatment. The few couplets in which
indirect associations occurred but which were nevertheless
_incorrectly_ recalled are subtracted only from the total number of
couplets in the set.
The method by which the occurrence of indirect associations was
recorded has been already described. It is considered entirely
trustworthy. There is usually little doubt in the mind of a subject
who comprehends what is meant by an indirect association whether or
not such were present in the particular series which has just been
learned. If none occurred in it the subjects always recorded the fact.
That an indirect association should occasionally be present on one day
and absent on a subsequent one is not strange. That a second term
should effect a union between a first and third and thereafter
disappear from consciousness is not an uncommon phenomenon of
association. There were thirteen such cases out of sixty-eight
indirect associations in the _A_, _B_ and _C_ sets. In the tables they
are given as present because their effects are present. When the
reverse was the case, namely, when an indirect association occurred on
the second, ninth or sixteenth day for the first time, it aided in
later recall and was counted thereafter. There were eight such cases
among the sixty-eight indirect associations.
Is it possible that the occurrence of indirect associations in,
_e.g._, two of the four couplets of a series renders the retention of
the other two easier? This could only be so when the intervals between
two couplets in learning were used for review, but such was never the
case. The subjects were required to fill such intervals with
repetitions of the preceding couplet only.
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