The first experiments were made by Messrs. S. and B. in the University
of Toronto on a class of students numbering nearly three hundred, of
whom about one third were women. The instructors showed to the class
certain squares of cardboard of suitable size, and asked them to do
the following three things on different days: First, to reproduce from
memory, with pencil on paper, squares of the same size as those shown,
after intervals of one, ten, twenty, and forty minutes (this gives
results by the method of Reproduction); second, to say whether a new
set of squares, which were shown to them after the same intervals,
were the same in size as those which they had originally seen,
smaller, or larger (illustrating the method of Identification); third,
they were shown a number of squares of slightly different sizes, again
at the same intervals, and asked to select from them the ones which
they found to be the same size as those originally seen (method of
Selection).
The results from all these experiments were combined with those of
another series, secured from a large class of Princeton students; and
the figure (Fig. 8) shows by curves something of the result. The
figure is given in order that the reader may understand by its
explanation the "graphic method" of plotting statistical results,
which, with various complications, is now employed in psychology as
well as in the other positive sciences.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Memory curves: I. Method of Selection. II.
Method of Identification.]
Briefly described in words, it was found that the three methods agreed
(the curves are parallel)[8] in showing that during the first ten
minutes there was a great falling off in the accuracy of memory (slant
in the curves from 0 to 10); that then, between ten and twenty
minutes, memory remained relatively faithful (the curves are nearly
level from 10 to 20), and that a rapid falling off in accuracy
occurred after twenty minutes (shown by the slant in the lines from 20
to 40).
[Footnote 8: This figure shows curves for two of the methods only,
Selection and Identification.]
Further, the different positions of the curves show certain things
when properly understood. The curve secured by the method of
Reproduction (not given in the figure) shows results which are least
accurate, because most variable. The reason of this is that in drawing
the squares to reproduce the one remembered, the student is
influenced by the size of the paper he uses, by the varying accuracy
of his control over his hand and arm (the results vary, for example,
according as he uses his right or left hand), and by all sorts of
associations with square objects which may at the time be in his mind.
In short, this method gives his memory of the square a chance to be
fully assimilated to his current mental state during the interval, and
there is no corrective outside of him to keep him true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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