Speaker 1: Association. In the preceding chapters, we have seen that in
order that a thing may be remembered, it must be
impressed clearly upon the mind in the first place, and
that in order to obtain a clear impression there must
be a manifestation of attention. So much for the recording
of the impressions, but when we come to recalling, recollecting,
or remembering the impressions, we are brought face to face
with another important law of memory, the law of association.
Association plays a part analogous to the indexing and cross
indexing of a book, a library, or another system, in
which the aim is to readily find something that has
been filed away or contained in some way in a
collection of similar things. As Kay says, in order that
what is in the memory may be recalled or trought
again before consciousness, it is necessary that it be regarded
in connection or in association with one or more other
things or ideas. And as a rule, the greater the
number of other things with which it is associated, the
greater the likelihood of its recall. The two processes are
involved in every act of memory. We must first impress,
and then we must associate. Without a clear impression being formed,
that which is recalled will be indistinct and inaccurate, and
unless it is associated with something else in the mind,
it cannot be recalled. If we may suppose an idea
existing in the mind by itself unconnected with any other idea,
its recall would be impossible. All the best authorities recognize
and teach the importance of this law of association in
connection with the memory Abercrombie says, next to the effect
of attention is the remarkable influence produced upon memory by association.
Carpenter says, the recording power of memory mainly depends upon
the degree of attention we give to the idea to
be remembered. The reproducing power, again, altogether depends upon the
nature of the associations by which the new idea has
been linked onto other ideas which have been previously recorded.
Ribo says, the most fundamental law which regulates psychological phenomena
is the law of association. In its comprehensive character, it
is comparable to the law of attraction in the physical world.
Mill says that which the law of gravitation is to astronomy,
that which the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology.
The law of association of ideas is to psychology. Stuart says,
the connection between memory and the association of ideas is
so striking that it has been supposed by some that
the whole of the phenomena might be resolved into this principle.
The association of ideas connects our various thoughts with each
other so as to present them to the mind in
a certain order. But it presupposes the existence of those
thoughts in the mind. In other words, it presupposes a
faculty of retaining the knowledge which we acquire. On the
other hand, it is evident that without the associating principle,
the power of retaining our thoughts and of recognizing them
when they occur to us, would have been of little use,
for the most important articles of our knowledge might have
remained latent in the mind, even when those occasions presented
themselves to which they were immediately applicable. Association of ideas
depends upon two principles, known respectively as one the law
of contiguity, and two the law of similarity. Association by
contiguity is that form of association by which an idea
is linked, connected, or associated with the sensation thought or
idea immediately preceding it, and that which directly follows it.
Each idea or thought is a link in a great
chain of thought, being connected with the preceding link and
the succeeding link. Association by similarity is that form of
association by which an idea, thought, or sensation is linked, connected,
or associated with idea, thoughts, or sensations of a similar
kind which have occurred previously or subsequently. The first form
of association is the relation of sequence, the second the
relation of kind. Association by contiguity is the great law
of thought as well as of memory. As k says,
the great law of mental association is that of contiguity,
by means of which sensations and ideas that have been
in the mind together or in close succession tend to
unite together or cohere in such a way that the
one can afterward recall the other. The connection that naturally
subsists between a sensation or idea in the mind and
that which immediately preceded or followed it is of the
strongest and most intimate nature. The two, strictly speaking, are
but one, forming one complete thought. As Taine says, to
speak correctly, there is no isolated or separate sensation. A
sensation is a state which begins as a continuation of
preceding ones and ends by losing itself in those following it.
It is by an arbitrary severing, and for the convenience
of language, that we set it apart. As we do.
Its beginning is the end of another, and its ending
the beginning of another. As Ribo says, when we read
or hear a sentence, for example, at the commencement of
the fifth word, something of the fourth word still remains.
Association by contiguity may be separated into two subclasses, contiguity
in time and contiguity in space. In contiguity in time time,
there is manifested the tendency of the memory to recall
the impressions in the same order in which they were received,
the first impression suggesting the second, and that the third,
and so on. In this way, the child learns to
repeat the alphabet and the adult the succeeding lines of
a poem. As Priestley says, in a poem, the end
of each preceding word being connected with the beginning of
the succeeding one, we can easily repeat them in that order,
but we are not able to repeat them backwards till
they have been frequently named in that order. Memory of
words or groups of words depends upon this form of
contiguous association. Some persons are able to repeat long poems
from beginning to end with perfect ease, but are unable
to repeat any particular sis, sentence, or verse without working
down to it from the beginning. Contiguity in space is
manifested in forms of recollection or remembrance by position. Thus,
by remembering the things connected with the position of a
particular thing, we are enabled to recall the thing itself.
As we have seen in a preceding chapter. Some forms
of memory systems have been based on this law. If
you will recall some house or room in which you
have been, you will find that you will remember one
object after another in the order of the relative positions
or contiguity in space or position. Beginning with the front hall,
you may travel in memory from one room to another,
recalling each with the objects it contains according to the
degree of attention you bestowed upon them. Originally, k says
of association by contiguity. It is on this principle of
contiguity that mnemonical systems are constructed as when what we
wish to remember is associated in the mind with a
certain object or locality, the ideas associated will at once
come up, or when each word or idea is associated
with the one immediately preceding it, so that when the
one is recalled, the other comes up along with it,
And thus long lists of names or long passages of
books can be readily learnt by heart. From the foregoing,
it will be seen that it is of great importance
that we correlate our impressions with those preceding and following.
The more closely knitted together our impressions are, the more
closely will they cohere, and the greater will be the
facility of remembering or recollecting them. We should endeavor to
form our impressions of things so that they will be
associated with other impressions in time and space. Every other
thing that is associated in the mind with a given
thing serves as a loose end of memory, which, if
once grasped and followed up, will lead us to the
thing we desire to recall to mind. Association by similarity
is the linking together of impressions of a similar kind,
irrespective of time and place. Carpenter expresses it as follows.
The law of similarity expresses the general fact that any
present state of consciousness tends to revive previous states which
are similar to it. Rational or philosophical association is when
a fact or statement on which the attention is fixed
is associated with some fact previously known to which it
has a relation, or with some object which it is
calculated to illustrate. And as Kay says, the similars may
be widely apart in space or in time, but they
are brought together and associated through their resemblance to each other. Thus,
a circumstance of today may recall circumstances of a similar
nature that occurred, perhaps at very different times, and they
will become associated together in the mind, so that afterwards
the presence of one will tend to recall the others.
Abercrombie says of this phase of association, the habit of
correct association, that is, connecting facts in the mind according
to their true relations and to the manner in which
they tend to illustrate each other, is one of the
principal means of improving the memory, particularly that kind of
memory which is an essential quality of a cultivated mind,
namely that which is founded not upon incidental connections, but
on true and important relations. As Beattie says, the more
relations or likenesses that we find or can establish between objects,
the more easily will the view of one lead us
to recollect the rest. And as k says, in order
to fix a thing in the memory, we must associate
it with something in the mind already. And the more
closely that which we wish to remember resembles that with
which it is associated, the better it is fixed in
the memory, and the more readily it is recalled. If
the two strongly resemble each other, or are not to
be distinguished from each other, then the association is of
the strongest kind. The memory is able to retain and
replace a vastly greater number of ideas if they are
associated or arranged in some principle of similarity, than if
they are presented merely as isolated facts. It is not
by the multitude of ideas, but the want of arrangement
among them, that the memory is burdened and its powers weakened.
As Arnot says, the ignorant man may be said to
have charged his hundred hooks of knowledge to use a
rude simile with single objects, while the informed man makes
each hook support a long chain to which thousands of
kindred and useful things are attached. We ask each student
of this book to acquaint himself with the general idea
of the working features of the law of association as
given in this chapter, for the reason that much of
the instruction to be given under the head of the
several phases and classes of memory is based upon an
application of the law of association in connection with the
law of attention. These fundamental principles should be clearly grasped
before one proceeds to the details of practice and exercise.
One should know not only how to use the mind
and memory in certain ways, but also why it is
to be used in that particular way. By understanding the
reason of it, one is better able to follow out
the directions