Memory and the Learning Process
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM
By Darwin Oliver Lyon. Baltimore: Warwick and York, 1917. Pp. 179+indices and plates. Largely a technical description of a series of experiments on memory, this book contains, besides, much suggestive and valuable material for workers in either education or psychology. The results of the experiments have been published elsewhere from time to time, but are here brought together to form the basis for a discussion of the learning process from an educational point of view. “It might be supposed that in the field of memory?a field so admirably open to experimental research?the psychologist would hold full sway, but that this is far from being the case is evidenced by the large following that the author of the numerous memory ‘systems’ have been able to acquire from a public that ought to know better. The success that these men have gained is, however, not alone due to the practical advantages that their students hoped may follow the adoption of their master’s rules, but also to the fact that the experimental psychologist himself has thus far been unable to lay down rules that, to an impatient public, seem of any great importance. It is possible that this inability of the psychologist to give here any positive aid is due to the relatively small amount of experimental work that has been done on such problems as memory-improvement, economy in learning, mnemonic systems, etc., but the reason more probably lies in the hard fact that?as will be explained later?memory, as a faculty of the mind, is unimprovable.”
The author starts with the correct notion that memory is not a distinct and separate faculty of the mind, but is based on imagery, and depends upon many other abilities as well as native retentiveness. Some of these are interest, volition, power and rapidity of association, quickness of perception, and acuteness of the senses. His analysis of the various congenital abilities which determine memory, has not been carried very far, nor arranged in either a genetic or a logical order, but to do this would have required a much larger volume, and perhaps we are not quite ready for such a book. For instance he says, “Psychologists are now quite unanimous in saying that one’s native retentiveness is unchangeable, and that no amount of training can modify it. It is a physiological quality, and as it is given us at birth, so it remains. It may fluctuate with health and change with age, but this is all that can be said of it. Education can alter it but slightly, if at all. To be born, therefore, with a high retentive capacity is one of the greatest of blessings, for retention is the sine qua non of human mental activity. It is probably the most important power of the mind so far as education and culture are concerned.” Yet following this, “To be a good sympathizer one must have had experience; he must be a good observer; he must be a good thinker; he must possess a good imagination, and he must have a good memory. The last is really the basis of the other four.” But this is either using “imagination” in an erroneous sense, or else is a mistake, because the ability to have images is prerequisite to any memory at all.
The problem of the relation of time taken for learning to amount retained, is divided into three problems:
“1. The relation of time taken for learning to amount directly retained. “2. The relation of time taken for learning to duration (permanence of retention) of the material retained.
“3. The relation of either of these to the method used in the memorizing.” All three are touched upon in the book, but most of the experiments concern the third.
The materials used were digits, nonsense syllables, words, poetry, and passages of prose. The methods were varied to suit the purpose of the experiments, and an account of them would be out of place here. In fact, it is impossible to write an adequate review of the book in any reasonable space. The conclusions alone would take several pages of this magazine. They relate to all the problems involved in the general study of memory.
The materials, the methods of procedure, the subjects tested, and all the details of the experiments are clearly and fully explained. The accounts of previous experiments in this field are fairly complete, so that the footnotes constitute a valuable bibliography with references to over eighty names. The last chapter is on the educational value of psychological research.
Discussing experimental psychology in its relation to the science of education (which probably does not yet exist), Mr. Lyon is over-modest in his statement of the importance of experimental psychology. If there ever is a science of education, it will have to be based upon the results of such researches as the one under consideration, and while it is true that “psychology still remains in large part a science of probabilities based upon experimental data, the validity of which is frequently doubtful,” it is only by careful experimentation and more careful analysis of the results, that we will make much advancement from the formal methodology based on a priori principles. H. J. H.
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