The Psychology of Learning

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE FUNCTIONS OF MEMORY Since the general principles of memorial functioning have been discussed in the preceding chapter we may now raise the question as to whether it is possible to distinguish a variety of special functions within the general function of memory. The study of consciousness...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE FUNCTIONS OF MEMORY Since the general principles of memorial functioning have been discussed in the preceding chapter we may now raise the question as to whether it is possible to distinguish a variety of special functions within the general function of memory. The study of consciousness never reveals the existence of a memory as such; it can only reveal the existence of particular modes of mental activity which possess memorial characteristics, ?such as the remembering of concrete objects, the associative learning of verbal texts, and the like. These modes of activity are classified under the heading of memory because they all possess certain characteristics in common which differentiate them from all other mental functions. It is now our problem to discuss these various sorts of memory activity which we too may call memories, and then to answer the question: In what sense may one speak of a general memory as an actual fact of consciousness, apart from and in addition to these several special memories? In classifying memories, as in every other sort of classification, it is possible to proceed in various ways, and to employ different principles of classification. From the point of view of means employed in the memorial acquisition of data we may differentiate three chief classes of memorial function, which may be called 1. the activity of noting impressions by means of observation alone, ?or observational learning;1 1 This species of memorial acquisition (das beobachtende Merken) can scarcely be called learning in any strict sense of the term. We shall usually refer to it as observational noting. The phenomena of rational learning will be discussed under the heading of associative learning; see Chapter VI, especially pages 290-313. Tr. 2. the activi.