TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION I. 687 
appears small and doubtful, the balance of advantage inclining towards the 
boys. 
(5) That the pedagogical proficiency of the schools has but slight and indirect 
bearing upon the results of tests like these. 
4. Analysis of the Mental Processes involved in Spelling. 
By Miss 8. §. Farruurst. 
‘Spelling’ means two things; (a) The fact that a certain word is ‘correctly’ 
and usually represented by certain letters, the dictionary spelling. This fact is 
objective to any given speller. (b) The actual psychical processes involved in 
reacting to a certain stimulus by reproducing the constituent letters of a 
word-whole in speech or writing. Spelling in this sense is largely a matter of 
acquired habit. 
Imaginal type and spelling efficency.—There is no direct relation between 
these two characteristics. The determinant of efficiency is some factor working 
within imaginal type. 
Visual and speech factors.—It is probable that the relative importance of 
these cannot be determined quantitatively, because of the difficulty of isolation. 
Presentation of material by sight or articulation alone does not isolate, because 
of the presence of supplementary imagery. Verbal imagery tends more to 
heterogeneity than concrete. The difficulty of control, of suppression of any 
particular form at will, is very great. Not only do observers find difficulty in 
suppressing their own preferred type of imagery, but observers generally find 
greater trouble in suppressing vocalisation than visualisation—the tendency to 
articulate on seeing a word is irresistible, and appears to be essential to the 
apprehension of the visual form. The unit of spelling is usually the syllable, 
which finds direct expression as such, and is treated as a whole. Syllabic 
grouping of letters is primarily a matter of articulation—the syllable is a speech- 
whole. Grouping extends frequently to the visual form—‘ the letters seem to 
be in blocks.’ There is also visual synthesis apart from syllabic grouping. 
‘Imageless’ spelling.—This may occur in two ways: (a) In which the word 
is so familiar as to be spelt immediately and almost unconsciously. (b) In 
which it is a case of ‘imageless’ knowledge of the facts of spelling. There 
is the distinction between knowledge of the facts of spelling, and mere 
reference to imagery, both in learning and in recall. With the imageless 
observer the process is one of acquiring and referring to knowledge of facts 
about the spelling, whether directly or by mnemonics. Whatever the general 
term ‘imageless’ may ultimately turn out to be under more delicate analysis, 
the distinction is a real one; and the problem of the imageless thinker, hitherto 
neglected as regards the spelling memory, exists here as elsewhere. 
The writing-motor element.—In the total word-complex, this element appears 
to have a value different from and less important (for adults) than that of the 
speech-movement. There is never a tendency to write a word on hearing it, 
comparable in intensity to the impulse to pronounce it on seeing it. If the 
impulse is present it is always completely controllable. In learning by writing, 
the articulatory element is pressed into service also as a rule. The actual value 
of the writing-motor element is obscured by the adventitious aids to attention, 
to the visual memory, and to the fusion of visual and auditory elements that it 
affords. In the recall of a word, observers can rarely detect any qualitative 
difference due to whether the word was written or not in learning. If such 
qualification occurs, it is usually incidental merely—the writing-motor element 
pure and simple has not been found to act as the conscious medium of memory, 
as the articulatory elements may act. It is more subordinate to the visual 
memory than the latter. 
5. The Conditions which arouse Mental Imagery in Thought. 
By Cuarues Fox, M.A. 
Certain selected propositions of varying orders of difficulty were dictated to 
fifteen adult subjects, who were instructed to give a full account of what they 
could observe in their consciousness during the process of realisation of the 
meaning of the propositions. The instructions were directed mainly to the 
