Like all experiments, these open up further questions quite as much
as they answer those toward which they are aimed. To repeat something
of what has already been said, I feel that what it has established is
(1) that introspection develops distinct grades of certainty in the
case of every individual, (2) that the particular characteristics of
the feeling of certainty vary markedly among individuals; (3) that the
feelings of certainty associated with the different senses are not, as
feelings of certainty, to be distinguished from each other; (4) that
the judgments of the highest degree of certainty which are made about
the constitution of any visual field just seen will not be confined to
the group in that field toward which the attention is directed; and
(5) that such fixing of the attention will, nevertheless, materially
alter the subject-matter of such judgments of greatest certainty. The
rather vague statement that the percentage of error is not surely less
with the judgments of a group because attention is fixed on that group
may perhaps be added as a sixth conclusion. The most interesting and
promising of the problems which the experiments seem to me to raise
are: (1) the problem, are there such definite types of the feeling
of certainty that people may be classified according to their types,
and, if so, what are the types and what their relation to other
psychological characteristics of the individual? (2) the problem, what
will be the result of careful and trained introspection as to the
relation of so-called logical and psychological certainty and in what
fields do these appear for different individuals? (3) the problem,
how can a test for grading the probable percentage of error in the
judgments of different grades of certainty made by any one person be
constructed? and (4) the problem, how are such facts as those given
in Table IV to be connected with the effort required for attention,
the type of certainty of each subject, etc.? Other problems could, of
course, be suggested, but these, I feel, mark the steps that naturally
follow the experiments described here.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.]
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 101: Stern: Beiträge zur Psychologie der Aussage, vol. 1, p.
46, 1904.]
INHIBITION AND REËNFORCEMENT
BY LOUIS A. TURLEY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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