The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for BeginnersPyle, William Henry
Science
The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners
Pyle, William Henry
Educational psychology; Psychology
In the foregoing experiment, the students improved in accuracy also. At
the beginning of the work, they made 115 errors in the half hour. At the
end of the practice, with much faster speed, they were making only
327 errors in a half hour. The actual number of errors had increased
280 per cent. The increase in errors was therefore exactly half as much
as the increase in speed. This, of course, was a considerable increase
in accuracy, for while the speed had increased to 5.6 times what it had
been at the beginning, the errors had increased only 2.8 times. The
subjects in this experiment paid much more attention to speed than they
did to accuracy. If they had emphasized accuracy, they would have been
doing almost perfect work at the end of the practice, and their speed
would have been somewhat less. Practice, then, not only develops speed
but also develops accuracy.
There are also other results. At the beginning of work with the
typewriter, there is much waste of energy and much fatigue. The waste of
energy comes from using unnecessary muscles, and the fatigue is partly
due to this waste of energy. But even apart from this waste of energy,
an habituated act is performed with less fatigue. The various muscles
concerned become better able to do their work. As a result of
habituation there is, then, greater speed, greater accuracy, less waste
of energy, and less fatigue.
If we look not at the changes in our work but at the changes in
ourselves, the changes in our minds due to the formation of habits, we
find still other results. At the beginning of practice with the
typewriter, the learner's whole attention is occupied with the work.
When one is learning to do a new trick, the attention cannot be divided.
The whole mind must be devoted to the work. But after one has practiced
for several weeks, one can operate the typewriter while thinking about
something else. We say that the habituated act sinks to a lower level of
consciousness, meaning that as a habit becomes more and more fixed, less
and less attention is devoted to the acts concerned.
Increased skill gives us pleasure and also gives us confidence in our
ability to do the thing. Corresponding to this inner confidence is outer
certainty. There is greater objective certainty in our performance and a
corresponding inner confidence. By objective certainty, we mean that a
person watching our performance, becomes more and more sure of our
ability to perform, and we ourselves feel confidence in our power of
achievement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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