Part 20 (2/2)
ably.[1] The most influential is the sense of location itself, inasmuch as every point at which something significant occurred not only is the content of an a.s.sociation, but is also the occasion of one. It is, moreover, to be remembered that reproduction is a difficult task, and that all unnecessary additional difficulties which are permitted to accrue, definitely hinder it. Here, too, there is only a definite number of units of psychical energy for use, and the number which must be used for other matters is lost to the princ.i.p.al task. If, e. g., I recall an event which had occurred near the window of a definite house, I should have considerable difficulty to recall the form of the house, the location of the window, its appearance, etc., and by the time this attempt has barely begun to succeed, I have made so much effort that there is not sufficient power left for the recollection of the event we are really concerned with. Moreover, a mistake in the recollection of extraneous objects and the false a.s.sociations thereby caused, may be very disturbing to the correctness of the memory of the chief thing. If, however, I am on the spot, if I can see everything that I had seen at the time in question, all these difficulties are disposed of.
[1] Cf. Schneikert in H. Gross's Archiv, XIII, 193.
We have still to count in the other conditions mentioned above. If acoustic effects can appear anywhere, they can appear in the locality where they first occurred. The same bell ringing, or a similar noise, may occur accidentally, the murmur of the brook is the same, the rustle of the wind, determined by local topography, vegetation, especially by trees, again by buildings, varies with the place. And even if only a fine ear can indicate what the difference consists of, every normal individual senses that difference unconsciously. Even the ”universal noise,” which is to be found everywhere, will be differentiated and characteristic according to locality, and that, together with all these other things, is extraordinarily favorable to the a.s.sociation of ideas and the reproduction of the past. Colors and forms are the same, similar orders may occur, and possibly the same att.i.tudes are awakened, since these depend in so great degree upon external conditions. Now, once these with their retrospective tendencies are given, the recollection of any contemporary event increases, as one might say, spontaneously. Whatever may especially occur to aid the memory of an event, occurs best at the place where the event itself happened, and hence, one can not too insistently advise the examination of witnesses, in important cases, only in loco rei sitae. Incidentally, the judge himself learns the real
situation and saves himself, thereby, much time and effort, for he is enabled in a few words to render the circ.u.mstantial descriptions which have to be composed with so much difficulty when the things are not seen and must be derived from the testimonies of the witnesses themselves.
Whoever does not believe in the importance of conducting the examination at the place of an event, needs only to repeat his examination twice, once at the court, and again at the place-then he certainly will doubt no more. Of course the thing should not be so done that the event should be discussed with the witness at the place of its occurrence and then the protocol written in the house of the mayor, or in an inn half an hour away-the protocol must to the very last stroke of the pen be written then and there, in order that every impression may be renewed and every smallest doubt studied and corrected. Then the differences between what has pa.s.sed, what has been later added, and what is found to-day can be easily determined by sticking to the rule of Uphues, that the recognition of the present as present is always necessary for the eventual recognition of the past. Kant has already suggested what surprising results such an examination will give: ”There are many ideas which we shall never again in our lives be conscious of, unless some occasion cause them to spring up in the memory.” But such a particularly powerful occasion is locality, inasmuch as it brings into play all the influences which our senses are capable of responding to.[1]
[1] Jost: <u:>ber Ged
Of course the possibility of artificially-stimulated memory disappears like all memory, with the lapse of time. As a matter of fact, we know that those of our experiences which concern particular persons and things, and which are recalled at the sight of those persons and things, become, later on, when the connections of images have been broken, capable only of awakening general notions, even though the persons or things are as absolutely present as before. But very unfavorable circ.u.mstances must have been at work before such a situation can develop.
It is characteristic, as is popularly known, that memory can be intensified by means of special occasions. It is H<o:>fler's opinion that the Spartan boys were whipped at the boundary stones of their country in order that they might recall their position, and even now-a-days our peasants have the custom, when setting up new boundary stones, of grasping small boys by the ears and hair in
order that they shall the better remember the position of the new boundary mark when, as grown men, they will be questioned about it. This being the case, it is safer to believe a witness when he can demonstrate some intensely influential event which was contemporaneous with the situation under discussion, and which reminds him of that situation.
Section 54. (c) The Peculiarities of Reproduction.
The differences in memory which men exhibit are not, among their other human qualities, the least. As is well known, this difference is expressed not only in the vigor, reliability, and promptness of their memory, but also in the field of memory, in the accompaniment of rapid prehensivity by rapid forgetfulness, or slow prehensivity and slow forgetfulness, or in the contrast between narrow, but intense memory, and broad but approximate memory.
Certain special considerations arise with regard to the field of greatest memory. As a rule, it may be presupposed that a memory which has developed with especial vigor in one direction has generally done this at the cost of memory in another direction. Thus, as a rule, memory for numbers and memory for names exclude each other. My father had so bad a memory for names that very frequently he could not quickly recall my Christian name, and I was his own son. Frequently he had to repeat the names of his four brothers until he hit upon mine, and that was not always a successful way.[1] When he undertook an introduction it was always: ”My honored m-m-m,”-”The dear friend of my youth m-m-m.” On the other hand, his memory for figures was astounding. He noted and remembered not only figures that interested him for one reason or another, but also those that had not the slightest connection with him, and that he had read merely by accident. He could recall instantaneously the population of countries and cities, and I remember that once, in the course of an accidental conversation, he mentioned the production of beetroot in a certain country for the last ten years, or the factory number of my watch that he had given me fifteen years before and had never since held in his hand. He often said that the figures he carried in his head troubled him. In this regard the symptom may be mentioned that he was not a good mathematician, but so exceptional a card player that n.o.body wanted to play with him. He noticed
every single card dealt and could immediately calculate what cards each player had, and was able to say at the beginning of the game how many points each must have.
[1] Cf. S. Freud Psychopathologie des Alltagsleben.
Such various developments are numerous and of importance for us because we frequently are unwilling to believe the witness testifying in a certain field for the reason that his memory in another field had shown itself to be unreliable. Schubert and Drobisch cite examples of this sort of thing, but the observations of moderns, like Charcot and Binet, concerning certain lightning calculators (Inaudi, Diamandi, etc.), confirm the fact that the memory for figures is developed at the expense of other matters. Linn'> tells that Lapps, who otherwise note nothing whatever, are able to recognize individually each one of their numberless reindeer. Again, the Dutch friend of flowers, Voorhelm, had a memory only for tulips, but this was so great that he could recognize twelve hundred species of tulips merely from the dry bulbs.
These fields seem to be of a remarkably narrow extent. Besides specialists (numismatists, zoologists, botanists, heralds, etc.) who, apart from their stupendous memory for their particular matters, appear to have no memory for other things, there are people who can remember only rhymes, melodies, shapes, forms, t.i.tles, modes, service, relations.h.i.+ps, etc. V. Volkmar has devoted some s.p.a.ce to showing this. He has also called attention to the fact that the semi-idiotic have an astounding memory for certain things. This has been confirmed by other students. One of them, Du Potet,[1] who is perhaps the expert in the popular mind of the Austrian Alps, has made it especially clear. As in all mountainous regions there are a great number of those unfortunate idiots who, when fully developed, are called cretins, and in their milder form are semi-human, but do not possess intelligence enough to earn their own living. Nevertheless, many of them possess astounding memories for certain things. One of them is thoroughly conversant with the weather prophecy in the calendar for the past and the present year, and can cite it for each day. Another knows the day and the history of every saint of the Catholic church. Another knows the boundaries of every estate, and the name, etc., of its owner. Another knows each particular animal in a collective herd of cattle, knows to whom it belongs, etc. Of course not one of these unfortunates can read. Drobisch mentions an idiotic boy, not altogether able to speak, who, through the untiring efforts of a lady, succeeded finally in
learning to read. Then after hasty reading of any piece of printed matter, he could reproduce what he had read word for word, even when the book had been one in a foreign and unknown tongue. Another author mentions a cretin who could tell exactly the birthdays and death-days of the inhabitants of his town for a decade.
[1] Du Potet: Journal du Magnetisme, V. 245.
It is a matter of experience that the semi-idiotic have an excellent memory and can accurately reproduce events which are really impressive or alarming, and which have left effects upon them. Many a thing which normal people have barely noticed, or which they have set aside in their memory and have forgotten, is remembered by the semi-idiotic and reproduced. On the contrary, the latter do not remember things which normal people do, and which in the latter frequently have a disturbing influence on the important point they may be considering. Thus the semi-idiotic may be able to describe important things better than normal people. As a rule, however, they disintegrate what is to be remembered too much, and offer too little to make any effective interpretation possible. If such a person, e. g., is witness of a shooting, he notices the shot only, and gives very brief attention to what precedes, what follows, or what is otherwise contemporary. Until his examination he not only knows nothing about it, but even doubts its occurrence. This is the dangerous element in his testimony. Generally it is right to believe his kind willingly. ”Children and fools tell the truth,” what they say bears the test, and so when they deny an event there is a tendency to overlook the fact that they have forgotten a great deal and hence to believe that the event had really not occurred.
Similar experiences are yielded in the case of the memory of children. Children and animals live only in the present, because they have no historically organic ideas in mind. They react directly upon stimuli, without any disturbance of their idea of the past. This is valid, however, only for very small children. At a later age children make good witnesses, and a well-brought-up boy is the best witness in the world. We have only to keep in mind that later events tend in the child's mind to wipe out earlier ones of the same kind.[1] It used to be said that children and nations think only of the latest events. And that is universally true. Just as children abandon even their most precious toys for the sake of a new one, so they tell only the latest events in their experience. And this is especially the case when there are a great many facts-
e. g., repeated mal-treatment or thefts, etc. Children will tell only of the very last, the earlier one may absolutely have disappeared from the memory.
[1] F. Kemsies Ged<u:>ern. Ztsch. f. p
Bolton,[1] who has made a systematic study of the memory of children, comes to the familiar conclusion that the scope of memory is measured by the child's capacity of concentrating its attention. Memory and acute intelligence are not always cognate (the latter proposition, true not for children alone, was known to Aristotle). As a rule girls have better memory than boys (it might also be said that their intelligence is generally greater, so long as no continuous intellectual work, and especially the creation of one's own ideas, is required). Of figures read only once, children will retain a maximum of six. (Adults, as a rule, also retain no more.) The time of forgetting in general has been excellently schematized by Ebbinghaus. He studied the forgetting of a series of thirteen nonsense syllables, previously learned, in such a way as to be able to measure the time necessary to re-learn what was forgotten. At the end of an hour he needed half the original time, at the end of eight hours two-thirds of that time. Then the process of loss became slower. At the end of twenty-four hours he required a third, at the end of six days a fourth, at the end of a month a clear fifth, of the time required at first.
[1] T E. Bolton: The Growth of Memory in School Children. Am. Jour. Psych. IV.
I have tested this in a rough way on various and numerous persons, and invariably found the results to tally. Of course, the measure of time alters with the memory in question, but the relations remain identical, so that one may say approximately how much may be known of any subject at the end of a fixed time, if only one ratio is tested. To criminalists this investigation of Ebbinghaus' is especially recommended.
The conditions of prehensivity of particular instances are too uncertain and individual to permit any general identifications or differentiations. There are certain approximating propositions- e. g., that it is easier to keep in mind rhymed verse than prose, and definite rows and forms than block ma.s.ses. But, on the one hand, what is here involved is only the ease of memory, not the content of memory, and on the other hand there are too many exceptions -e. g., there are many people who retain prose better than verse. Hence, it is not worth while to go further in the creation of such rules. Forty or fifty years ago, investigations looking toward them
had been pursued with pleasure, and they are recorded in the journals of the time.
That aged persons have, as is well known, a good memory for what is long past, and a poor one for recent occurrences is not remarkable. It is to be explained by the fact that age seems to be accompanied with a decrease of energy in the brain, so that it no longer a.s.similates influences, and the imagination becomes dark and the judgment of facts incorrect. Hence, the mistakes are those of apperception of new things,-what has already been perceived is not influenced by this loss of energy.
Again, it should not rouse astonishment that so remarkable and delicately organized a function as memory should be subject to anomalies and abnormalities of all kinds. We must take it as a rule not to a.s.sume the impossibility of the extraordinary phenomena that appear and to consult the expert about them.[1] The physician will explain the pathological and pathoformic, but there is a series of memory-forms which do not appear to be diseased, yet which are significantly rare and hence appear improbable. Such forms will require the examination of an experienced expert psychologist who, even when unable to explain the particular case, will still be able to throw some light on it from the literature of the subject. This literature is rich in examples of the same thing; they have been eagerly collected and scientifically studied in the earlier psychological investigations. Modern psychology, unfortunately, does not study these problems, and in any event, its task is so enormous that the practical problems of memory in the daily life must be set aside for a later time. We have to cite only a few cases handled in literature.
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