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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 J. M. Charcot, Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous
System, iii., 1889, Lect. xiii.; W. James, Principles of Psychology,
1890, i., chs. xiii., xv.; ii., chs. xviii., xix., xx.; C. H. H. Parry, The
Evolution of the Art of Music, 1896; article on Optical Illusions, in
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, ii., 1902; W. Wundt,
Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, 1896, Lect. xi.; Outlines
of Psychology, 1907, §§ 9, 10, 11; M. R. Fernald, The Diagnosis of
Mental Imagery, 1912; E. B. Titchener, Experimental Psychology, I., i.
and ii., 1901 (experiments on perception); Text-book of Psychology,
1910, 303 ff.
 CHAPTER VI

Association
Here is a kind of attraction which in the mental world will be found to
have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to show itself in as
many and as various forms.—David Hume

§ 31. The Association of Ideas.—The doctrine of the

‘association of ideas’ is one of the oldest and most influential in the
history of psychology. It begins, in a somewhat casual way, with
Aristotle. Suppose, Aristotle says, that we are trying to recall
something that has slipped our mind; what do we ordinarily do? We
hunt through a number of things, beginning with something that is
like what we want to recall, or contrary to it, or that was next it in
time, or adjacent to it in space. These other things, the like, the
contrary, the just before or just after, the adjoining, have the power
to suggest what we have forgotten. Aristotle gives the impression
that everybody acts in this way, as a matter of course; and no doubt
his hearers acquiesced; for the statement sounds reasonable. We
want, for instance, to remember a certain picture that we saw ten
years ago: how do we set to work? We start from something like it:
‘I remember that it reminded me of Van Eyck’; or from something
opposite: ‘I remember smiling to think how a Venetian would have
treated it’; or from something next it in time: ‘I remember coming to
it after three whole hours of Dutch genre’; or from something next it
in space: ‘I remember that it hung beside a Mabuse portrait.’ Seeing
how natural and obvious such remarks are, we can understand that
Aristotle’s single sentence had tremendous consequences for
psychology. It foreshadowed the four ‘laws of the association of
ideas,’ the laws of similarity, of contrast, of succession in time, and
of coexistence in space. According to the doctrine of association, one
idea ‘calls up’ another because it is like that other, or contrasts with
it, or was next to it in time or space; likeness and difference,
succession and adjacency, somehow give an idea the power to
recall, and render it liable in its turn to be recalled. The four laws
thus represent an attempt to explain the course of our ideas, and for
that reason they have always appealed to common sense.
But, for the same reason, the laws have not proved an unmixed
blessing to psychology. Aristotle, it is clear, was simply raising a
practical question; and practical questions are answered in terms of
meaning, not of process. Moreover, Aristotle was temperamentally a
logician, and he could not help throwing even this bit of everyday
practice into formal logical shape. Notice the arrangement in pairs:
like-contrary, coexistent-successive; that is logical. Notice also the
nature of the pairs. Like-contrary is the extreme way of saying like-
unlike; and when you mention succession, you mention the only kind
of non-coexistence that can come into account for psychology; so
that both pairs have the form ‘A and not-A’ (like and not-like,
coexistent and not-coexistent); and that is logical again. Aristotle’s
four rules are therefore not really empirical, in the sense that they
are directly derived from a study of experience; they rather show the
inveterate logician, who is bound to schematise and tabulate. Later
writers, swayed now by experience and now by logic, have both
increased and decreased the number of these ‘laws’ of association;
the general tendency has been to reduce them to two, or even to
one. Thus, we can make contrast, logically, a case of likeness; the
palace reminds us of the hovel, apparently by contrast; yet are not
the palace and the hovel alike, as human habitations? We can, still
more easily, reduce space to time. If the two pictures hung together
on the wall, they were seen at the same time. Simultaneity, however,
is one kind of contiguity in time; succession is another; and temporal
contiguity thus includes everything. The four laws have become two:
similarity, and contiguity in time.
Can we go further? Yes, if we go on arguing. The picture
reminded me of Van Eyck; it was like a Van Eyck; the association
seems to be an association by similarity. Yet it is practically certain
that the picture in question was, at some time or other, present in
my mind along with some picture by Van Eyck. It is practically
certain, in other words, that the two ideas were in temporal
contiguity; and every instance of association by similarity raises the
same sort of presumption. That being the case, we may discard the
law of similarity; and contiguity stands alone, the sole survivor of
the Aristotelian quartet. Only, this is all logic, a matter of
meanings, a translation of psychological fact; we have not got to the
facts themselves.
We shall come to psychology presently. Meantime you should try
to realise how well this doctrine of association works for practical
purposes, and how strong is the appeal it makes to the practical side
of our nature. It explains the appearance of every single idea that
has ever occurred to anybody; it offers to take us to the very heart
of psychology without need of training or preparation; it flatters us
into the belief that we have all our lives been talking and thinking
psychology without knowing it; it covers up the gap that separates
common sense from science. Small wonder that Hume compared the
law of association in psychology with the law of gravitation in
physics! All the great names in British psychology (and the fact
throws a good deal of light on the psychology of the nation itself)
are connected with the doctrine of association; a whole science has
taken its national colour from a single principle of explanation.
Association has also played its part, though less dominantly, in
France and Germany.
Realise all this; and realise also that the doctrine was of great
service in the days when psychology was in the making; it is not
only agreeable to common sense, it is not only historically important,
but it also did true psychological service. Let us admit all this: and
then we must add that the reign of associationism was over as soon
as ever psychology became scientific; as soon, that is, as the proper
task of psychology was recognised and formulated (p. 18). For let us
take an instance: what does the word ‘summer’ suggest to you? Very
likely it suggests ‘winter.’ How, then, is this association to be
explained psychologically? By contrast? But the ideas of summer and
winter may be exactly alike, both of them verbal-auditory-motor, or
both of them mental pictures; the contrast is a contrast of meaning,
not of mental process or pattern; the real summer, what we mean
by the word ‘summer,’ contrasts with the real winter, and not the
idea of summer with the idea of winter. By resemblance? But, if the
ideas of summer and winter are exactly alike, so are they also like
thousands of other ideas, verbal-auditory-motor or visual-imaginal;
there is no reason in their psychological likeness why the one should
suggest the other; and if they do suggest each other by
‘resemblance,’ the resemblance is again a likeness of meaning (they
are both seasons of the year) and not of mental constitution. Try the
matter out for yourself, in any concrete case of association, and you
will reach the same result; the ideas of associationism are not
psychological ideas. James sums things up for us: “Association,” he
says, “so far as the word stands for an effect, is between things
thought of; it is things, not ideas, which are associated in the mind.
And so far as association stands for a cause, it is between processes
in the brain; it is these which, by being associated in certain ways,
determine what successive objects shall be thought.” The brain
associates, and meanings are associated. We have already said
something of the psychology of meaning (pp. 26 ff., 117 ff.); what
can we now say of the associative functions of the brain?

§ 32. Associative Tendencies: Material of Study.—We want

to find out how those processes in the brain which are the correlates
of our ideas go together, get connected or associated. The brain is a
machine; and it is not only complicated, but it is also plastic, that is,
it is subject to change and modification. The complexity of the
machine makes it necessary for us to work with simple stimuli and
by strict methods; only if we work with simple stimuli shall we get to
the bare essentials of the associative functions; and only if we work
by strict methods shall we obtain results which other investigators
can repeat and verify. Even so, the plasticity of the machine makes it
impossible for us to lay down hard and fast laws of connection; we
can speak only of connective tendencies or of associative
tendencies; what actually happens, in any particular case, is likely
to be the joint result of many tendencies, weak and strong,
conflicting and concurring.
The task before us is, therefore, not easy; but it is
straightforward; and that is the next best thing. We want to find out
how associative tendencies in the brain are set up; and to do this we
must, evidently, find some way of creating a bond between one
nervous process and another; we must devise experiments in which
we make or construct brain-connections. We need not look far
afield; for we make such connections whenever we learn anything
new; so that we have only to learn under experimental conditions,
and the task is accomplished. But what shall we learn? what stimuli
shall we employ in the experiments? ‘Words,’ you will say; and words
have many advantages for learning; but they have, in this case, the
supreme disadvantage that they are ingrained meanings. Words
therefore will not do; but something very like them will. The
question of the stimuli to be employed was, in fact, answered for us,
thirty years ago, by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus,
who—by one of those happy thoughts that come after long and
intensive occupation with a subject—hit upon the notion of the
meaningless syllable. Ebbinghaus made up over 2000
meaningless ‘words,’ all consisting of a vowel or diphthong between
two consonants; syllables standing in the same relation to his own
language that leb, rit, mon, yup, kig, wes, der, zam, for instance,
bear to English. See the advantage of this kind of material for the
work we have in view! The syllables are just like words, in that they
may be seen, heard, or felt in the throat; they are unlike words, and
vastly superior to them, in that they have no habitual associates;
they lack context and meaning; every syllable in a series may be
considered to have the same chances of making connections as
every other. The material is so rich and varied that endless
experiments can be made; it is so simple and uniform that the
results of one experiment may be compared directly with the results
of another; it may be drawn from any language, and so may be used
in the laboratories of any country. Moreover, it is absolutely under
control; it is just the kind of material that we need when we are tied
down to strict and accurate method; we can vary at will the manner
of presentation to the learner, the number of syllables in a series,
the rate at which they follow one another, and so on; and the report
required from the learner himself is easy and natural; there are no
long descriptive phrases; he has only to say or to write the syllables
he has learned. Lastly, we may proceed from experiments with this
meaningless material to experiments with real words, words that
mean; and we may hope in that way to pass beyond the bare
essentials of the brain’s associative function, and to get a clue to the
complex interplay of associative tendencies in real life. All in all, it is
not too much to say that Ebbinghaus’ recourse to meaningless
syllables, as means to the study of associative tendencies, marks the
most considerable advance, in this chapter of the psychological
system, since the time of Aristotle.

§ 33. The Establishment of Associative Tendencies.—The

use of meaningless syllables has brought with it a whole armoury
of technical methods for the study of the associative tendencies. We
have here no space to treat of these methods in detail; fortunately,
the results that we shall mention speak for themselves; and it may
be added that all the methods of experiment are, in principle,
changes rung upon one simple model, in which the observer sits
down before a series of syllables, reads them through, so-many
times over, in a state of attention, and then, either immediately or
after an interval of time, repeats them ‘from memory.’ We proceed,
then, to answer the question: How are associative tendencies
established in the brain?
Their establishment depends, first and most obviously, upon the
number of syllables in the series presented to the observer. While he
can recite correctly, after a single reading, a series of 6 or 7, a longer
series simply throws him into confusion. The first and last terms
have a definite advantage; they may, indeed, be the only syllables
that can be repeated after a single reading of a 12-term series.
Secondly, the tendencies are strengthened by repetition. The first
reading is more important than any other single reading; after that,
there is for a while little if any improvement; then the results take a
sudden step up; and thenceforward progress is fairly steady until the
limit of the experiment is reached. Thirdly, the tendencies are
furthered by a grouping of the syllables. The observer learns a series
more quickly if, for instance, he throws it into a rhythm. Fourthly, it
is important to distribute the readings in time. Two readings a day
for 12 days give better results than four a day for 6 days, or eight a
day for 3 days, although the total number remains the same. Fifthly,
the rate of reading has its effect; the syllables must not follow one
another too fast or too slowly. There are great differences between
individual learners; but we may say in general that the syllables
should at first be presented at a moderate rate (perhaps two in the
second), and that the rate should be slowly increased as the
readings proceed. Sixthly, not only repetition itself, but also the
manner of repetition, makes a difference. Meaningless syllables are
learned somewhat better if the whole series is read through, over
and over, from end to end, than if they are taken a few at a time, in
small lots. Lastly, recitation or reading aloud is ordinarily more
effective than silent reading; largely, perhaps, because the separate
pronouncing of every syllable equalises attention; every term of the
series is brought out sharply and clearly, and there is no chance to
slur.
Here, however, we must remember the differences of imaginal
type (p. 138); and it is true that a markedly visual learner will profit
less by recitation than an auditory-motor learner. These experiments
have, indeed, revealed other typical differences between individuals,
such as those of slow and quick, and of receptive and ingenious
learning. Some of us, it seems, are naturally quick, and some are
naturally slow learners, just as some work best at night and others
in the morning. Some observers, again, accept the series of
syllables, passively and without question; others embroider and
interpret the meaningless forms in all manner of ways; mon
becomes man, and kig king, and wer where, and so on. We know
nothing at present of the correlated differences in the nervous
system.
The results just given may be compared with those obtained
when meaningful stimuli are employed. Thus, 8 or 9 one-syllable
words, and 10 to 12 one-place numbers, can be recited after a
single reading. Meaningful material, which is grouped or unified by
its topic, may be learned ten times as quickly as meaningless
syllables. It may also be presented more rapidly; iambic and trochaic
verses, for instances, may be taken at double the rate of the
syllables. Dates of historical events, and the words of a foreign
language, are best learned like the meaningless syllables; and
connected meaningful material, like a poem or an oration, should
very decidedly be read as a whole, from end to end, in the
successive repetitions. If there are brief passages of unusual
difficulty, they may, of course, be gone over by themselves, in the
intervals between the total readings; the general rule, however, is to
learn by wholes. This appears, in fact, to be the procedure generally
followed by bards and tellers of folktales; and actors who play many
rôles in quick succession are able to ‘wing a part,’ as the phrase
goes, by reading it through several times over at brief intervals.
Children who memorise a poem in sections, a stanza now and a
stanza to-morrow, waste a great deal of time.
Let us now come back to the meaningless syllables, and ask
what is the net result of all the influences that we have listed.
Suppose, in other words, that a series of syllables has been
presented at a certain rate, thrown into a certain rhythm, repeated a
certain number of times with fitting distribution in time, recited at
every repetition: what is the final outcome, as regards the
establishment of associative tendencies in the brain? It is this: that a
strong connection has been set up between the successive terms of
the series, in the order of their presentation; and that weaker
connections have been set up between every term and every other
term, whether the terms are near or remote in the series, and
whether they are taken forwards or backwards. Let us illustrate by
reference to the alphabet. If the alphabet represents a series of
meaningless syllables, then there is a strong connection between a
and b, b and c, ... y and z; but there are also weaker connections
between a and d, ... v and z; and further, there are connections
backward between z and y, z and x, ... d and a. The series of
syllables has thus impressed the brain with a very complex
meshwork of associative tendencies, stronger in some places (direct
forward connection) and weaker in others (remote and backward
connection), but still functionally interconnected through all its parts.

§ 34. The Interference and Decay of Associative

Tendencies.—If a set of associative tendencies, such as we have
just described, is left to itself, and neither disturbed nor renewed, it
gradually disappears; the loss is at first very rapid, then proceeds
more slowly, and thereafter goes on only at a snail’s pace. To make
the matter concrete, we may think of the meshwork of tendencies as
a meshwork of channels, deeper and shallower, in the substance of
the brain; then the rule is that the channels tend to fill up,—the
shallow ones speedily, the deeper ones at first quickly and then
more and more slowly,—until everything is smooth again. This is a
mere figure, but it carries the meaning that we desire. The same
thing happens with the tendencies set up by meaningful material;
they too slowly die away; but it is doubtful if they ever wholly
disappear; in their case the brain, if it has been thoroughly
impressed, seems never wholly to ‘forget.’ Ebbinghaus learned some
stanzas of Byron’s Don Juan, for experimental purposes, and did not
look at them again for 22 years; yet he relearned those stanzas in
93 per cent. of the time required to learn new stanzas; a saving of 7
per cent. Some stanzas that he had learned more thoroughly were
not read again for 17 years; these were relearned with a saving of
nearly 20 per cent. He had no memory whatever of the verses
formerly learned; but his brain ‘remembered’; the associative
tendencies had not completely disappeared.
As a rule, however, a particular set of tendencies is not allowed
to die a natural death; it is interfered with by others. All associative
tendencies need a certain time to establish themselves, to settle
down; and if this time is not granted, but stimulus treads on the
heels of stimulus, there is no impression of the meshwork, and no
connections are formed; we have seen that a series of excessive
length simply throws the learner into confusion. A recently acquired
connection may even be abolished, as most of us know to our cost,
by interruption of the train of thought; you have just got to your
point, to the insight, the phrasing, the argument, that will clinch
things; you are distracted by some irrelevant matter; and when you
come back to your work, the point has gone. So nicely balanced and
so easily disturbed are the associative tendencies, that you may
never recover it; no wonder that the constructive worker, in
literature, in science, in affairs, ‘hates to be interrupted’!
With meaningful material, interference may arise in other ways.
Take the alphabet again; a is connected with b through the frequent
repetition of abc, but is also connected with z by the phrase ‘a to z.’
If, then, a appears; and if the b-tendency and the z-tendency are of
approximately equal strength; then there may be no connection at
all; the two tendencies cancel or inhibit each other. A question may
leave you dumb, not because you have no answer, but because you
have so many different answers that no one of them can force
through to expression. This sort of interference, which comes at the
end of the associative process, is called terminal inhibition; there
is another kind, coming at the beginning of the process, which we
may call initial inhibition. If a is already connected with b, then it
is difficult to connect it with k; b gets in the way. You have some
particular fault of style, or you have fallen into the habit of spelling
wrongly some particular word; you want to correct the fault, to spell
aright. But every time that you are off guard, the mistake recurs; the
existing connection a-b heads off the desired connection a-k.
 Fortunately, there are compensations. If a group of tendencies,
for instance, does escape interference, then the brain settles down
of itself. Schoolboys, with a keen sense for economy of effort, learn
their lessons only partway overnight, and find that a hasty review
next morning is enough to fix them; the associative tendencies work
while their owners sleep. The practised speaker, knowing that he has
to talk on a certain subject at a certain date, marshals his present
ideas in half-an-hour of concentrated attention, and then drops the
whole thing; his brain incubates it for him; and when the appointed
day comes near, he finds that his associative tendencies have
practically prepared his address. Besides, the tendencies may
converge, as well as interfere; we have seen how continued
attention opens the mind to relevant facts and closes it against the
irrelevant (p. 98). If they did not, it would be impossible for us to
follow the thread of a paragraph, to say nothing of a chapter or of a
whole book. Convergence thus offsets interference. We shall meet
it in various forms later (§§ 42, 45, 65); meantime we leave the
brain, and pass to the mental processes themselves. How are they
connected?

§ 35. The Connections of Mental Processes.—So far as the

elementary processes are concerned, this question has already been
answered in our discussion of perception. We found that there were
two modes of sensory connection, two ways in which sensations
may go together. In qualitative perceptions, such as the perception
of a musical note, there is a blend or fusion of qualities; we can, to
be sure, analyse the compound tone, after practice, into
fundamental and overtones; yet it still comes to us as unitary, as a
single impression; it stands only at one remove, so to speak, from
the simplicity of sensation itself. The tastes of coffee and lemonade,
with their blending of taste and smell, of touch and temperature; the
organic feels of hunger and thirst and nausea; the kinæsthesis
aroused by grasping and pulling, by lifting the arm and swinging the
foot; all these experiences are fusions, more or less intimate, more
or less complex, of sensory qualities. They too can be analysed; but
the analysis is not easy; the qualities cling together, seem in a way
to merge into one another. In spatial perceptions, on the other hand,
in such perceptions as the sight of my desk with its litter of writing
materials, the elementary processes stand out side by side; brown
contrasts with blue, dark with light; here, we might say, is no
confluence, but rather concourse. In the perception of rhythm we
have the same separateness of sensations, only that it is now
temporal instead of spatial; and in the perception of change (p. 132)
we find both modes of connection, separate qualities or intensities
passing into one another by that peculiar blur or fusion which we
have called the index of change. This second type of connection,
whether it is the side-by-side of space or the end-to-end of time,
may be named conjunction.
The associative tendencies which we have been more recently
discussing are set up by series of meaningless syllables, that is to
say, by discrete stimuli. It is clear, then, that the connection of the
correlated mental processes is of the conjunctive type; we have said
nothing of the brain-processes which underlie sensory fusion. We
can, indeed, say nothing of them; we have no knowledge of their
nature. It has been suggested that qualitative perception is
correlated with a synergy of the brain-processes, that is, with a
cooperation so close that every process taking part in it loses
something of its individuality. That is possible; we cannot say more.
When we leave the elementary processes for complex
experiences, for perceptions and ideas, and ask how these are
connected, we cannot return any completely satisfactory answer.
Experiments may be made; thus, a familiar visual stimulus (word or
simple picture) may be shown for a few seconds to the observer,
with the instruction that he receive it passively and report the
consequent course of his mental processes. Under these
circumstances, it invariably happens that the stimulus is immediately
named. After that, apparently, any one of three typical things may
happen. First, the named perception is supplemented by a sense-
feeling. A word printed in very small letters on a large background
aroused the feeling of loneliness; a word printed in red, a feeling of
excitement; the word ‘blinding,’ the disagreeable feeling of a dazzling
light. Then the feeling gives way to an idea, which supplants the
meaning of the stimulus. Secondly, the named perception is resolved
into the idea of some object previously seen. An outline drawing of a
face may be replaced by the idea of a friend, whose features are, so
to say, read into the drawing; or the word ‘Tell,’ printed on a blue
ground, may be replaced by the idea of the familiar picture of
William Tell springing from a boat to the rocks; the blue of the
background becomes the blue sky of the painting. Thirdly, and only
occasionally, the named perception is followed by an idea which
comes separate and detached; we have the traditional pattern of the
‘successive association.’ These three types of connection (there are,
of course, intermediate forms) do not furnish a satisfactory answer
to our question, mainly because the experiments are not properly
under control; the observer comes to them with all sorts of
associative tendencies at work; and unless we make a very large
number of observations, we cannot be sure that our results are
either representative or exhaustive.
At the same time, such experiments help us; they show, for
instance, that the doctrine of association—quite apart from its logical
leanings, or perhaps just by reason of them—regarded the course of
ideas in too ‘intellectual’ a way; the sense-feelings, and other
feeling-blends that we shall mention later, play a larger part in our
thinking than the associationists dreamed of. They show, too, that
the ‘successive association’ is not the commonest, but rather the
least common, form of mental connection. Listen to a quotation from
Hobbes! “In a discourse of our present civil war,” he writes, “what
could seem more impertinent [less to the point] than to ask, as one
did, what was the value of the Roman penny? Yet the coherence to
me was manifest enough. For the thought of the war introduced the
thought of delivering up the king to his enemies; the thought of that
brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again
the thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason.
And thence easily followed that malicious question: and all this in a
moment of time, for thought is quick.” Hobbes has worked out the
logical coherence, the coherence of meaning; but he is very far from
a psychology of the situation. What actually took place in the mind
of the questioner we shall never know; we may be very sure,
however, that his mental processes did not follow one another in
logical order, as Hobbes imagines. There was a convergence of
associative tendencies, which expressed itself in the question; there
need not have been any succession of ideas at all.

§ 36. The Law of Mental Connection.—We have spoken at

some length of the establishment of associative tendencies in the
brain, of their decay with time, and of their mutual interference. Can
we sum up our knowledge of them in a single general statement?
And can we then translate this general statement into
psychological language, and so reach a formula of mental
connection that may stand in place of the logical laws of association?
Let us try.
We must proceed very carefully, even if our care drives us into
clumsiness of expression. We cannot, for instance, leave out the fact
that the meaningless syllables are given in the state of attention. It
appears, indeed, that attention is necessary to association; we may
doubt if any amount of repetition—to take that example—would set
up an associative tendency, were it not for attention. Repetition, we
remember, is one of the determinants of attention (p. 94); so that
the repeated experience is likely to become vivid in the very nature
of the case; but if it does not, if for any reason our attention is
diverted or we fail to notice the stimulus, repetition has no
associative power. How many of us would like to recall the carpet or
wall-paper of the room we slept in as children! Thousands of times
we saw the colours and the patterns; but our adult memory is an
absolute blank; those repeated stimuli never ‘impressed’ us.
We cannot either leave out the fact that the meaningless
syllables are bracketed all together, so to speak, by a certain
situation, namely, the situation created by the experiment. The
observer comes to them, in accordance with this situation, intending
to learn them, to memorise them: a fact of very great importance!—
and a fact that needs to be dwelt on for a little, if we are to see our
way clearly in what follows. We said on p. 149 that meanings are
associated. Yet we have been studying the formation of associative
tendencies in the brain, the associating organ, by the help of—
meaningless syllables! Is there not a flat contradiction here between
theory and practice? No, that is really not the case; and the key to
the riddle lies in this fact of the ‘situation’ which we are now
discussing. The syllables are meaningless as syllables; they are thus
set apart from ordinary syllables that are meaningful; and it is this
difference from words, combined with their likeness to words in
other respects, that makes them useful to the experimenter (p.
151). For since they are themselves meaningless, we can put upon
them a constant meaning of our own; we can introduce them into
any situation of our own making; and the meaning that we give
them, in the study of the associative tendencies, is the meaning of
‘an experimental series to be learned under certain instructions’: a
meaning which is definite, and which remains the same throughout
the experiments. You see, then, that the ‘situation’ is important.
Attention, as we know, means reinforcement of certain nervous
processes and inhibition of others (p. 107); and the intention to
learn implies the activity of directive nerve-forces (p. 96), the
existence of a special set or disposition of the brain. Let us keep
these things in mind; and let us call the brain-processes that are
correlated with mental processes ‘psychoneural’ processes. Then we
may say: When a number of psychoneural processes, all of which
are reinforced and all of which stand alike under the directive
influence of a nervous disposition, occur together under certain
favourable conditions, then associative tendencies are established
among them, such that the recurrence of any one tends to involve,
according to circumstances, the recurrence of the others. The phrase
‘under favourable conditions’ refers to the effect of repetition of the
series, of their distribution in time, and so forth; and the phrase
‘according to circumstances’ means that heed must be paid to the
lapse of time since learning, to the working of initial or terminal
inhibition, and so forth.
 So much for a generalised law of associative tendency, derived
from the work with meaningless syllables! That is a law of nervous
action; now let us turn to psychology, and see if we can formulate
a law of mental connection. We shall be dealing with perceptions
and ideas; and we shall be dealing with them as experiences, made
up of core and context (p. 117).
Attention is again necessary. Intention, on the other hand, seems
not to be necessary; there need be no special purpose behind the
experiences, as the intention to learn is behind the experiments with
meaningless syllables; attention is enough. The idea of a surgical
operation, for instance, may be permanently connected with the idea
of the surgeon who performed it, although the intervention of that
particular surgeon was quite casual and unexpected. The reason is
that attention brings a situation, its own situation, with it; the
determinants of primary attention are, as we put it on p. 97, the
‘great biological stimuli,’ things that an organism must take notice of,
if it is to persist as a living organism at all; and the determinants of
derived primary attention are also what we may call ‘situational’
affairs, things that appeal in certain circumstances to certain sides of
our nature, things that interest or ‘impress’ us. So attention, too,
implies a set or disposition of the nervous system; common sense is
so far in the right—though its words are misleading—when it talks of
a ‘concentration of the mind,’ of ‘pulling oneself together,’ and the
like; and this general set is sufficient, without the presence of a
distinct purpose. Our law will read, then, somewhat to this effect: If
a number of vivid perceptions or ideas, whose situational context is
the same, occur together under favourable conditions, then the later
appearance in the same situational context of any one will tend to
be accompanied, according to circumstances, by the reappearance
(as ideas) of the others.
That is correct, so far as it goes; though, as we shall see in a
moment, it does not go quite far enough. Meanwhile, you must
clearly realise that the processes which compose the perceptions
and ideas are extremely variable. We have already discussed this
matter; we have seen that the perception of an object and the idea
of the same object do not by any means correspond, term for term,
like original and copy; the form of our ideas depends, in the first
instance, upon our imaginal type, and secondarily upon the special
circumstances under which they appear (pp. 139 f.). When,
therefore, we speak of ‘the later appearance of an idea in the same
situational context,’ we really mean the appearance of that complex
of mental processes which, under the law of imaginal type and
under the special circumstances of the moment, has taken the place
of the original complex. In the next chapter we shall be discussing
the ‘memory-image,’ and you will then be shown how radically an
idea may be transformed; so radically, that it may be likened rather
to a translation than a copy of the perception, rather to a rendering
into another language than a reproduction. If you want a catch-
phrase, to hold this fact of change in mind, think of association as a
marriage by proxy; the marriage-bond, the situational context,
remains the same, but the parties are represented by very variable
mental complexes.

Now for the law once more! The formula does not go far enough;
for while it covers the movement of ideas within a single situational
context, it does not show how we may pass, as we undoubtedly do,
from one situational context to another. Here a diagram will,
perhaps, make things plain. Suppose that we start out with an idea
a, composed of core and context, and lying within the wider
situational context of the right-hand oval. The appearance of a is
followed, let us assume, by the reappearance of b, which lies within
the same situational context. The idea b may be followed, in its turn,
by c. But since b belongs also to a second situation, represented by
the left-hand oval, it may be followed instead by the idea x; and in
that event we shall have travelled from the one situational context to
the other. Whether c or x comes up is a matter which depends
entirely upon the relative strength of the associative tendencies at
the moment. The diagram, it is needless to say, is immensely over-
simplified; we have placed a, c, and x within one situational context
only, and we have made the ideas follow one another in single file;
but it shows how our formulation of the law must be extended, if we
are to ‘get in’ all the facts. We must add: If certain of these
reappearing ideas belong also to a different situational context, they
will tend to be accompanied, again according to circumstances, by
the ideas which formerly occurred together (as perceptions or ideas)
within that context. In point of fact, most ideas belong to very many
different situations, so that the interweaving of the associative
tendencies may be highly complicated.
These paragraphs will strike you as both difficult and clumsy;
but, if you review the course of the whole chapter, you will perhaps
agree that our attempt at formulation has been worth while. We
began with Aristotle’s four rules, and found that they are logical and
practical, and also that they may logically be reduced to one, the
‘law of association by contiguity.’ That law did not satisfy us; we
agreed with James that the brain associates and that meanings are
associated. So we went to the brain; and by the aid of meaningless
syllables we traced the history of the associative tendencies. Coming
back to psychology proper, we distinguished the fusion and the
conjunction of mental processes, and noted that the experimental
method does not yet permit us to follow the patterns of mental
connection in the large; though the experiments already made
furnish additional proof that the old ‘laws’ of association are
psychologically valueless. Now, to conclude, we have sought, first, to
bring all that we know of the associative tendencies under a single
formula; and then, building upon that formula and upon our partial
knowledge of the patterns of mental connection, to write a
psychological law that shall replace the logical law of contiguity. We
have had to safeguard and qualify, and to leave loose ends for
individual variation; but at any rate we have something positive
whereby to support our criticism of the doctrine of association.

§ 37. Practice, Habit, Fatigue.—The establishment of an

associative tendency may be looked upon as the establishment of a
habit of brain-function; the learning of series of syllables improves
with practice; and continued learning gives rise to fatigue. It is
natural, therefore, that we should here pause to say something
about these three things in their relation to psychology.
All practice begins in the state of attention; but practice, once
started, may go on when attention is distracted from the matter in
hand. We give a great deal of attention to our first finger-exercises
on the piano; presently, if we have continued them long enough, we
may practise Chopin on the clavier while we are reading a book or
thinking out a problem; the fingers do the practising for themselves.
If we follow the course of practice, from day to day, we find that
improvement is not steady; we gain very quickly at first, then come
to a point at which we remain stationary for a while, then make
another and slower gain, then rest at a second plateau or level of
practice, and so on. It is doubtful, however, whether this stepwise
advance is characteristic of practice itself, that is, of the nervous
change produced by repeated stimulation of the same nerve-
elements; it seems rather to be due to changes in our method of
working, to the sudden discovery of some new trick of procedure, or
the sudden release from some hampering peculiarity of method. We
cannot speak in positive terms since, unfortunately for psychology,
the investigators of practice have been more concerned with
outward results and practical value than with description of the
correlated mental processes.
In psychological experiments, the practised observer has a
threefold superiority over the unpractised: his attitude to the stimuli,
in successive observations, is more nearly uniform; his attention is
sustained at a higher level; and his discrimination is more refined.
This means that the focal mental processes are few in number; that
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