Associative memory

“ During the years from about nine to fifteen memory is in its most glorious period for storing away. In early life a fact is retained chiefly through its impress on the soft brain cells, for the power of association is little developed. In later life a fact is retained almost wholly through association with other facts, for the cells grow hard and an imprint therefore is faint. In the "Golden Memory Period" the fact has the double hold of impress and association, for the cells are still plastic and associative powers are developed. ”

“ Following this personal analysis we fell to discussing a third man, whom we both admired, an eminent physiologist, then connected with one of the great experimental laboratories of the world, who had made many deductions and discoveries in connection with the associative faculty of the brain and the mechanics of associative memory. ”

“ Now, if he allows himself to fall into a passive state of abstraction, simply concentrating his attention upon a particular past moment, and gives free rein to all the associative memories belonging to that moment that float into his mind, at the same time taking care to forego all critical reflection upon them, it will be found that the number of details that will be recalled will be enormously greater than can be recovered by voluntary memory. ”

“ In the earthworm associative memory is but slightly developed and the animal learns but little by experience and can make no application of past experiences to new conditions. In the dog associative memory is well developed; the animal learns by experience and can, to a limited extent, apply such memory of past experiences to new conditions. ”

“ With the advent of associative memory the mind comes more and more to deal with attributes of objects instead of merely with each single concrete object as it presents itself, and these attributes being common to many objects, come to represent definite ideas which can be manipulated by the mind. Language, of course, has been an [Pg 207] indispensable aid to man in this regard, for words become descriptions of facts and symbols of concepts, and thereby allow of abstract thought. ”

“ Torture of the Drill By practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new associative methods in our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to the actual scope and power of retention.
Yet many books on memory-training have wide circulation whose authors, showing no conception of the processes involved, seek to develop the general ability to remember by incessant practice in memorizing particular facts, just as one would develop a muscle by exercise. ”

“ This way of viewing the matter is a consequence of the assumption (which became necessary above, p. 109) of the formation of associative connections over more intervening members than could be comprehended in one clearly conscious act. These connections would be very fruitful in the explanation of many surprising phenomena of memory and recollection, but on account of the uncertainty of their experiential basis I refrain for the present from pursuing them further.
↑ Herbart, Lehrb. z. Psychol., Sect. 29. A similar “pleasing” view, as he calls it, was developed by Lotze, Metaphysik (1879) p. ”

“ This explanation by a 'faculty' is one thing which explanation by association has superseded altogether. If, by saying we have a faculty of memory, you mean nothing more than the fact that we can remember, nothing more than an abstract name for our power inwardly to recall the past, there is no harm done: we do have the faculty; for we unquestionably have such a power. But if, by faculty, you mean a principle of explanation of our general power to recall, your psychology is empty. The associationist psychology, on the other hand, gives an explanation of each particular fact of recollection ”

“ Each path is in fact an associated process, the number of these associates becoming thus to a great degree a substitute for the independent tenacity of the original impression. As I have elsewhere written: Each of the associates is a hook to which it hangs, a means to fish it up when sunk below the surface. Together they form a network of attachments by which it is woven into the entire tissue of our thought. The 'secret of a good memory' is thus the secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to retain. ”

“ Since each and every faculty we possess is either in whole or in part a resultant of the play of our associations, it would have been as natural, after treating of association, to treat of memory as to treat of interest and attention next. But, since we did take the latter operations first, we must take memory now without farther delay; for the phenomena of memory are among the simplest and most immediate consequences of the fact that our mind is essentially an associating machine. ”

“ However the associationist may represent the present ideas as thronging and arranging themselves, still, the spiritualist insists, he has in the end to admit that something, be it brain, be it 'ideas,' be it 'association,' knows past time as past, and fills it out with this or that event. And when the spiritualist calls memory an 'irreducible faculty,' he says no more than this admission of the associationist already grants. ”

“ This means that associationism has mixed and confounded all the different planes of consciousness, and that it persists in regarding a less complete as a less complex recollection, whereas it is in reality a recollection less dreamed, more impersonal, nearer to action and therefore more capable of moulding itself—like a ready-made garment—upon the new character of the present situation. ”

“ Every association that you weld to an idea or an impression, serves as a cross-reference in the index, whereby the thing is found by remembrance or recollection when it is needed. We call your attention to the fact that one’s entire education depends for its efficiency upon this law of association. It is a most important feature in the rational cultivation of the memory, while at the same time being the bane of the artificial systems. Natural associations educate, while artificial ones tend to weaken the powers of the mind, if carried to any great length. ”

“ But if we remember because of our associations, and if these are (as the physiological psychologists believe) due to our organized brain-paths, we easily see how the law of recency and repetition should prevail. Paths frequently and recently ploughed are those that lie most open, those which may be expected most easily to lead to results. The laws of our memory, as we find them, therefore are incidents of our associational constitution; and, when we are emancipated from the flesh, it is conceivable that they may no longer continue to obtain. ”

“ But even of this affinity, which takes the double form of contiguity and of similarity, associationism can furnish no explanation. The general tendency to associate remains as obscure for us, if we adhere to this doctrine, as the particular forms of association. Having stiffened individual memory-images into ready-made things, given cut and dry in the course of our mental life, associationism is reduced to bringing in, between these objects, mysterious attractions of which it is not even possible to say beforehand, as of physical attraction, by what effects they will manifest themselves. ”

“ But this mysterious power that binds our life together has its own vagaries and interruptions. It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own and volunteers or refuses its informations at its will, not at mine. One sometimes asks himself, Is it possible that it is only a visitor, not a resident? Is it some old aunt who goes in and out of the house, and occasionally recites anecdotes of old times and persons which I recognize as having heard before, and she being gone again I search in vain for any trace of the anecdotes? ”

“ Association, then, is not the primary fact: dissociation is what we begin with, and the tendency of every memory to gather to itself others must be explained by the natural return of the mind to the undivided unity of perception.
But here we discover the radical vice of associationism. Given a present perception which forms'Similarity' and 'contiguity' do not account for anything, unless they are themselves accounted for. by turns, with different recollections, several associations one after another, there are two ways, as we said, of conceiving the mechanism of this association. ”

“ Since this simple illustration may be made infinitely complex by means of the millions of fibers which connect every center in the cortex with every other center, and since, in passing from one experience to another in the round of our daily activities, these various areas are all involved in an endless chain of activities so intimately related that each one can finally lead to all the others, we have here the machinery both of retention and of recall—the mechanism by which our past may be made to serve the present through being reproduced in the form of memory images or ideas. ”

“ There is no more pre-eminent example for exhibiting the fertility of the laws of association as principles of psychological analysis. Memory, moreover, is so important a faculty in the schoolroom that you are probably waiting with some eagerness to know what psychology has to say about it for your help. ”

“ If you are in an occupation in which the work is done by mechanical helps, then you should exercise the memory by learning verses, or other things, in order to keep it in active practice. Do not allow your memory to atrophy.
POINT VII. Establish as many associations for an impression, as possible.
If you have studied the preceding chapters, you will recognize the value of this point. Association is memory’s method of indexing and cross-indexing. Each association renders it easier to remember or recollect the thing. Each association gives you another string to your mental bow. ”

“ Now, it is sufficient that only one of these stimuli should reach the brain, in order to call into life, in virtue of the habitual association of the memory-images, the remaining stimuli of the same group as well. ”

“ The chief art of strengthening visual, as well as every other form of memory, lies in multiplying associations; the healthiest memory being that in which all the associations are logical, and toward which all the senses concur in their due proportions. It is wonderful how much the vividness of a recollection is increased when two or more lines of association are simultaneously excited. ”

“ It is learning by rote—mere repetition—mere brainless or thoughtless repetition—a mode of learning that is not lasting—and always causes or promotes mind-wandering.
What is Assimilative memory? It is the habit of so receiving and absorbing impressions or ideas that they or their representatives shall be ready for revival or recall whenever wanted. It is learning through relations—by thinking—from grasping the ideas or thoughts—the meaning and the comprehension of the subject matter. This mode of learning promotes attention and prevents mind-wandering. ”

“ It is enough for my purpose to point out that when we say a man remembers an object we do not mean merely to indicate the presence in his imagination of a resembling picture, but to include a certain relation between this picture and an original percept.
It is not easy to describe what is present in an act of memory. When I am thinking of another man as calling to mind something from his past experience, I bring before my own mind two pictures, one representing his original percept, and one his present memory-image. ”

“ On such a basis, for instance, we formulate some general laws of association of ideas, and as soon as we have such laws laid down, we consider the appearance of such a memory image by association as sufficiently explained. We feel that it gives us sufficient basis to predict that in the future this idea will stir up in us the other idea. Psychology has formulated plenty of such general statements, and they serve well for a first orientation. ”

“ The latter chain of memories, let it be remarked, performs its office entirely independently of that upon which the recollection of the debate is constructed; and it may therefore be reasonably maintained that there exists beyond the cognisance of the individual, both consciousness and memory; and if the essential components of the ego are found in these two last-mentioned factors, then every person conceals within himself the germs of a second personality. ”

“ The subject of association must also receive its proper share of attention, for it is by means of association that the stored away records of the memory may be recovered or re-collected. As Blackie says: “Nothing helps the mind so much as order and classification. Classes are few, individuals many: to know the class well is to know what is most essential in the character of the individual, and what burdens the memory least to retain.” And as Halleck says regarding the subject of association by relation: “Whenever we can discover any relation between facts, it is far easier to remember them. ”

“ Nay, when in one single man there are periodic returns of two disconnected memories, the faculty still keeps its nature and proclaims its identity. And psychology explains how this is so. Memory depends on reproduction from a basis that is present—a basis that may be said to consist in self-feeling. ”

“ In vain do we seek its trace in anything actual and already realized: we might as well look for darkness beneath the light. This is, in fact, the error of associationism: placed in the actual, it exhausts itself in vain attempts to discover in a realized and present state the mark of its past origin, to distinguish memory from perception, and to erect into a difference in kind that which it condemned in advance to be but a difference of magnitude. ”