75 



ficult. This latter finding is corroborated by the fact brought 

 out in Watt's experiments, that reaction time when a task is 

 set is shorter than when without a task. 



It may be of interest also, in the present connection, to 

 note some facts in the training of memory as given by Watt 

 in his book "The Economy and Training of Memory". 1 

 One of the factors which has greatest influence on the memory, 

 Watt says, is the will to remember, or, in the language of the 

 context, the setting oneself the task to remember. He speaks 

 as follows: "It has often been noticed that things may be 

 read or repeated an indefinite number of times without being 

 committed to memory, if only the attention is directed at 

 each repetition to some other end than that of learning. One 

 experimenter on memory, for instance, had occasion, in the 

 course of his work, to make those persons on whom he was 

 experimenting learn series of words or meaningless syllables 

 by reading these aloud from his note-book, till they could 

 repeat "them by heart. Even after accomplishing this with 

 a number of persons, he found that he himself was unable to 

 repeat any of the series by heart, although he had read them 

 aloud so often. His attention had, of course, been directed 

 towards careful, even, and correct reading, and not towards 

 memorizing." 



Psychologists are not alone in maintaining the above 

 facts, as may be seen in the following quotations taken from 

 a treatise on the diseases of the nervous system, by Dr. L. F. 

 Barker." In dealing with 'Anomalies of Attention' he states: 

 "The importance of disorders of attention in psychiatry is 

 coming to be very generally recognized. The power of di- 

 recting thought toward a definite task (Aufgabe) (vigility), 

 and of maintaining this task despite intercurrent stimuli 

 (tenacity}, are essential in all intellectual operations." 3 In 

 another section Dr. Barker refers to the importance attaching 

 to "the examination of the processes of ideation; that is, to 

 the formation and association of ideas", and in speaking of 

 the velocity of such association, he says: "In normal man the 

 kind of reproduction of ideas and the duration depend not 

 only upon the reproduction tendency present in the individual, 

 but also upon the effect of concentration upon the task set. 

 Consciousness is, in a way, set, determined, or prepared in the 

 sense of a specific task." 4 



Published by Edward Arnold, London, p. 76. 



2 L. F. Barker, "Introduction to Diseases of the Nervous System from 

 Osier's Modern Medicine, Vol. VII, pp. 17-82. 

 5 O.C. p. 46. 

 4 O.C. pp. 47-8. 



