SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—]J. 435 
IV. The significance of the order of development. 
V. Suggestions towards a theory of laughter. Laughter an original 
expression of pleasure—with physiological and social value—at the earliest 
and later stages. Such laughter continues in adulthood, but laughter also 
becomes particularly attached to a situation in which energy is suddenly 
set free, as in the sudden linking of divergent apperceptive masses (by the 
pun). ‘This is exemplified also in various types of laughter observed in 
infancy; for example, laughter at the unusual, the incongruous, in mild 
surprise. Such setting free of energy is analogous to that when mental 
elements isolated by repression (complexes) are linked up with other ele- 
ments. Laughter in response to laughter may be a special case of suggestion 
needing no separate explanation ; but the great suggestibility of laughter 
points to a special value as a means of social blending. Laughter at dis- 
comfort of another often due to incongruity, strengthened sometimes by 
release of repressions. But McDougall’s theory seems the more funda- 
mental one for such types of laughter. 
Joint Discussion with Section I (Physiology) on Hearing and aids to 
hearing (Section I room) (11.0). See under Section I, p. 430. 
Dr. M. M. Lewis.—The conceptual speech of infants : individual and 
social factors (11.30). 
Observations show that the growth of a child’s conceptual use of words 
depends much more upon his own activity and his social environment than 
has hitherto been suggested. ‘The main factors are: 
(1) The child’s growth of discrimination among the situations which he 
encounters results in the wider or narrower use of a word according 
to the objective, affective or functional features of these situations. 
(2) The instrumental function of language: the child uses words de- 
claratively (in the effort to draw attention to things) or manipulatively 
(in trying to cause others to satisfy his needs). 
(3) Social selection : a constant interplay of activity between the child 
and those about him acts selectively upon his varied uses of a word. 
As a result of the operation of these factors, the application of a word 
undergoes changes, until its meaning begins to conform to adult usage. 
Thus actual observation of children bears out recent views of the nature of 
concepts and of the growth of conceptual thinking, derived from pathology 
(Head), ethnology (Malinowski), and the analysis of cognition (Spearman). 
Concepts are found to be determined by the activity of individuals attempt- 
ing to satisfy their needs in communal intercourse. 
Prof. T. H. Pear.—Mental imagery and style in writing (12.15). 
The mental ‘ apparatus’ used in remembering may affect not only a 
person’s general attitude towards life, but his way of expressing this attitude 
in writing, speaking, music, drama, and the arts. The distinction between 
‘thing-thinkers’’ and ‘ word-thinkers.’ Galton’s researches into mental 
imagery now appear to have been directed towards the persons least likely 
to possess it. ‘The use of visual imagery by modern writers. The view 
that the image’s function is the utilisation of the past in the solution of diffi- 
culties set by the present. This might be called ‘ thinking-out,’ and is 
characteristic of scientific thinking. Does it, however, include ‘ thinking-of,’ 
and apply to the thinking of artists, poets, and musicians ? 
