Part 19 (1/2)
REMARKS. It is interesting to follow the child's acquisitions of language distinctions relating to s.p.a.cial orientation. Other distinctions of this type are those between up and down, above and below, near and far, before and behind, etc. As Bobertag has pointed out, the child first masters such distinctions as up and down, above and below, before and behind, etc., and arrives at a knowledge of right and left rather tardily.
How may we explain the late distinction of right and left as compared with up and down? At least four theories may be advanced: (1) Something depends on the frequency with which children have occasion to make the respective distinctions. (2) It may be explained on the supposition that kinaesthetic sensations are more prominently involved in distinctions of up and down than in distinctions of right and left. It is certainly true that, in distinguis.h.i.+ng the two sides of a thing, less bodily movement is ordinarily required than in distinctions of its upper and lower aspects. The former demands only a s.h.i.+ft of the eyes, the latter often requires an upward or downward movement of the head. (3) It may be due to the fact that the appearance of an object is more affected by differences in vertical orientation than by those of horizontal orientation. We see an object now from one side, now from the other, and the two aspects easily blend, while the two aspects corresponding to above and below are not viewed in such rapid succession and so remain much more distinct from one another in the child's mind. Or, (4), the difference may be mainly a matter of language. The child undoubtedly hears the words _up_ and _down_ much oftener than _right_ and _left_, and thus learns their meaning earlier. Horizontal distinctions are commonly made in such terms as _this side_ and _that side_, or merely by pointing, while in the case of vertical distinctions the words _up_ and _down_ are used constantly. This last explanation is a very plausible one, but it is very probable that other factors are also involved.
The distinction between right and left has a certain inherent and more or less mysterious difficulty. To convince one's self of this it is only necessary to try a little experiment on the first fifty persons one chances to meet. The experiment is as follows. Say: ”I am going to ask you a question and I want you to answer it as quickly as you can.” Then ask: ”Which is your right hand?” About forty persons out of fifty will answer correctly without a second's hesitation, several will require two or three seconds to respond, while a few, possibly four or five per cent, will grow confused and perhaps be unable to respond for five or ten seconds. Some very intelligent adults cannot possibly tell which is the right or left hand without first searching for a scar or some other distinguis.h.i.+ng mark which is known to be on a particular hand.
Others resort to incipient movements of writing, and since, of course, every one knows which hand he writes with, the writing movements automatically initiated give the desired clue. One bright little girl of 8 years responded by trying to wink first one eye and then the other.
Asked why she did this, she said she knew she could wink her left eye, but not her right! One who is resourceful enough to adopt such an ingenious method is surely not less intelligent than the one who is able to respond by a direct instead of an intermediate a.s.sociation.
It seems that normal people never encounter a corresponding difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng up and down. The writer has questioned several hundred without finding a single instance, whereas a great many have to employ some intermediate a.s.sociation in order to distinguish right and left. It is the ”p's and q's” that children must be told to mind; not the ”p's and b's.” The former is a horizontal, the latter a vertical distinction.
Considering the difficulty which normal adults sometimes have in distinguis.h.i.+ng right and left, is it fair to use this test as a measure of intelligence? We may answer in the affirmative. It is fair because normal adults, notwithstanding momentary uncertainty, are invariably able to make the distinction, if not by direct a.s.sociation, then by an intermediate one. We overlook the momentary confusion and regard only the correctness of the response. Subjects who are below middle-grade imbecile, however long they have lived, seldom pa.s.s the test.
This test found a place in year VI of Binet's 1908 scale, but was s.h.i.+fted to year VII in the 1911 revision. The Stanford statistics, and all other available data, with the exception of Bobertag's, justify its retention in year VI. It is possible that the children of different nations do not have equal opportunity and stimulus for learning the distinction between right and left, but the data show that as far as American and English children are concerned we have a right to expect this knowledge in children of 6 years.
VI, 2. FINDING OMISSIONS IN PICTURES
PROCEDURE. Show the pictures to the child one at a time in the order in which they are lettered, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_. When the first picture is shown (that with the eye lacking), say: ”_There is something wrong with this face. It is not all there. Part of it is left out. Look carefully and tell me what part of the face is not there._” Often the child gives an irrelevant answer; as, ”The feet are gone,” ”The stomach is not there,” etc. These statements are true, but they do not satisfy the requirements of the test, so we say: ”_No; I am talking about the face.
Look again and tell me what is left out of the face._” If the correct response does not follow, we point to the place where the eye should be and say: ”_See, the eye is gone._” When picture _b_ is shown we say merely: ”_What is left out of this face?_” Likewise with picture _c_.
For picture _d_ we say: ”_What is left out of this picture?_” No help of any kind is given unless (if necessary) with the first picture. With the others we confine ourselves to the single question, and the answer should be given promptly, say within twenty to twenty-five seconds.
SCORING. Pa.s.sed if the omission is correctly pointed out in _three out of four_ of the pictures. Certain minor errors we may overlook, such as ”eyes” instead of ”eye” for the first picture; ”nose and one ear”
instead of merely ”nose” for the third; ”hands” instead of ”arms” for the fourth, etc. Errors like the following, however, count as failure: ”The other eye,” or ”The other ear” for the first or third; ”The ears”
for the fourth, etc.
REMARKS. The test is one of the two or three dozen forms of the so-called ”completion test,” all of which have it in common that from the given parts of a whole the missing parts are to be found. The whole to be completed may be a word, a sentence, a story, a picture, a group of pictures, an object, or in fact almost anything. Sometimes all the parts of the whole are given and only the arrangement or order is to be found, as in the test with dissected sentences.
Further discussion of the completion test will be found in connection with test 4, year XII. For the present we will only observe that notwithstanding a certain similarity among the tests of this type, they do not all call into play the same mental processes. The factor most involved may be verbal language coherence, visual perception of form, the a.s.sociation of abstract ideas, etc. To pa.s.s Binet's test with mutilated pictures requires, (1) that the parts of the picture be perceived as const.i.tuting a whole; and (2) that the idea of a human face or form be so easily and so clearly reproducible that it may act, even before it comes fully into consciousness, as a model or pattern, for the criticism of the picture shown. The younger the child, the less adequate, in this sense, is his perceptual familiarity with common objects. In standardizing a series of ”absurd pictures,” the writer has found that normal children of 3 years often see nothing wrong in a picture which shows a cat with two legs or a hen with four legs. Such children would, of course, never mistake a cat for a hen. Their trouble lies in the inability to call up in clear form a ”free idea” of a cat or a hen for comparison with the perceptual presentation offered by the picture. Middle-grade imbeciles of adult age have much the same difficulty as normal children of 4 years in recognizing mutilations or absurdities in pictures of familiar objects.
Binet first placed this test in year VII, changing it to year VIII in the 1911 revision. In other revisions it has been retained in year VII, although all the available statistics except Bobertag's warrant its location in year VI.
VI, 3. COUNTING THIRTEEN PENNIES
PROCEDURE. The procedure is the same as in the test of counting four pennies (year IV, test 3). If the first response contains only a minor error, such as the omission of a number in counting, failure to tally with the finger, etc., a second trial is given.
SCORING. The test is pa.s.sed if there is _one success in two trials_.
Success requires that the counting should tally with the pointing. It is not sufficient merely to state the number of pennies without pointing, for unless the child points and counts aloud we cannot be sure that his correct answer may not be the joint result of two errors in opposite directions and equal; for example, if one penny were skipped and another were counted twice the total result would still be correct, but the performance would not satisfy the requirements.
REMARKS. Does success in this test depend upon intelligence or upon schooling? The answer is, intelligence mainly. There are possibly a few normal 6-year-old children who could not pa.s.s the test for lack of instruction, but children of this age usually have enough spontaneous interest in numbers to acquire facility in counting as far as 13 without formal teaching. Certainly, inability to do so by the age of 7 years is a suspicious sign unless the child's environment has been extraordinarily unfavorable. On the other hand, feeble-minded adults of the 5-year level usually have to have a great deal of instruction before they acquire the ability to count 13, and many of them are hardly able to learn it at all. So much does our learning depend on original endowment.
Binet originally placed this test in year VII, but moved it to year VI in 1911. All the statistics, without exception, show that this change was justified. Bobertag says that nearly all 7-year-olds who are not feeble-minded can pa.s.s it, a statement with which we can fully agree.
VI, 4. COMPREHENSION, SECOND DEGREE
PROCEDURE. The questions used in this year are:--
(a) ”_What's the thing to do if it is raining when you start to school?_”
(b) ”_What's the thing to do if you find that your house is on fire?_”
(c) ”_What's the thing to do if you are going some place and miss your train (car)?_”