Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of EducationOntario. Department of Education
Science
Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education
Ontario. Department of Education
Education; Educational psychology
Without it the pupil is coldly indifferent toward literature and will
never cultivate an enthusiasm for it.
FACTORS IN APPERCEPTION
=Retention and Recall.=--The facts already noted make it plain that
apperception involves two important factors. First, apperception implies
retention and recall. Unless our various experiences left behind them
the permanent effects already noted in describing the retentive power of
the nervous organism and the consequent possibility of recall, there
could be no adjustment to new impressions on the basis of earlier
experiences.
=Attention.=--Secondly, apperception involves attention. Since to
apperceive is to bring the results of earlier experience to bear
actively upon the new impression, it must involve a reactive, or
attentive, state of consciousness; for, as noted in our study of the
learning process, it is only by selecting elements out of former
experience that the new impression is given definite meaning in
consciousness. For the child to apperceive the strange object as a
"bug-in-a-basket," demands from him therefore a process of attention in
which the ideas "bug" and "basket" are selected from former experience
and read into the new impression, thereby giving it a meaning in
consciousness. A reference to any of the lesson topics previously
considered will provide further examples of these apperceptive factors.
CHAPTER XXVII
IMAGINATION
=Nature of.=--In our study of the various modes of acquiring individual
notions, attention was called to the fact that knowledge of a particular
object may be gained through a process of imagination. Like memory,
imagination is a process of re-presentation, though differing from it in
certain important regards.
1. Although imagination depends on past experiences for its images,
these images are used to build up ideal representations of objects
without any reference to past time.
2. In imagination the associated elements of past experience may be
completely dissociated. Thus a bird may be imagined without wings, or a
stone column without weight.
3. The dissociated elements may be re-combined in various ways to
represent objects never actually experienced, as a man with wings, or a
horse with a man's head.
Imagination is thus an apperceptive process by which we construct a
mental representation of an object without any necessary reference to
its actual existence in time.
=Product of Imagination, Particular.=--It is to be noted that in a
process of imagination the mind always constructs in idea a
representation of a _particular_ object or individual. For instance, the
ideal picture of the house I imagine situated on the hill before me is
that of a particular house, possessing definite qualities as to height,
size, colour, etc. In like manner, the future visit to Toronto, as it
is being run over ideally, is constructed of particular persons, places,
and events. So also when reading such a stanza as:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account