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Vol. XVI. NEW YORE, September 12, 1890. No. 397. 



CONTENTS: 



Cornell TJniversity and her 



Technical Departments 141 



The Time-Relations of Mental 

 Phenomena. Joseph Jastrow. . 142 



Notes and News 147 



Letters to the Editor. 

 A Study of California Soils 



C. H. Shinn 150 



I Book-Keviews. 



An American Geological Railway 



Guide : 



A Stem Dictionary of the English 



15] 



An Elementary History of the 



United States 153 



Ajiong the Publishers 152 



THE TIME-EELATIONS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. 



[Continued from p. 147.] 



The effect of the mode of re-action upon the re-action 

 time is the same here as in the simple re-action. Re-acting 

 by the voice in the incomplete form of re-action has been 

 found to be longer than re-acting by the finger; and when- 

 ever the re-action takes the form of speaking or naming, it 

 takes some time to place the organs in position and speak 

 the word. But a very special and important effect in adap- 

 tive re-actions is that of (5) the association betiveen move- 

 ment and stimulus. 



As the effect of a special or a general practice, certain 

 modes of re-acting to certain types of stimuli have become 

 natural, easy, and familiar, while in other cases (e.g., the 

 re-acting by pressing a key, — a process learned only for the 

 purposes of the experiment) the association is extremely 

 artificial. If we compare, in Miinsterberg's series, the ex- 

 periment in which the five fingers re-act to the numbers 

 "one," "two," "three," "four," "five" (XXIV.), with 

 that in which they re-act to the declensional forms of a Latin 

 noun (XXV.), we recognize that the former is a more natu- 

 ral association than the latter, and seem justified in at- 



tributing a good share of the increase in time to this differ- 

 ence. Again: to re-act by naming is a process in which we 

 have had considerable training, and it is quite evident that 

 the time needed for naming one of 26 different impressions 

 (XV.-XVllI., and XX.) is much shorter than would be 

 needed for re acting by 26 artiScial and irregular movements 

 of the hand. The difficulty in learning a foreign language, 

 or a telegraphic code, or a shorthand system of writing, is 

 largely the difficulty of forming associations between com- 

 plex stimuli and movements; and the great decrease in time 

 that is brought about when such associations have been 

 mastered emphasizes the importance of the factor now under 

 discussion, which, in turn, may be regarded as an expression 

 of the effect of practice. 



We may push the analysis a step farther. The process of 

 naming is much more closely associated with a word or a 

 letter than with a picture or a color; for the former are ar- 

 tificial symbols, merely becoming significant only when so 

 interpreted, while the latter reveal their meaning directly 

 without needing to be named or read. Accordingly, we find 

 that it takes longer to name a color (6010') or a picture 

 (545(7) than to name a letter (424(7) or a word (409(7), though . 

 the recognition of a color or a picture is a quicker process 

 than the recognition of a letter or a word (compare XV., 

 XVII., XIX., XX., and V., VI., VIL, X ). Furthermore, 

 if the time of naming or reading is thus mainly conditioned 

 by the strength of association involved, we may in turn 

 utilize this pi-ocess as an index of familiarity with the nam- 

 ing or reading, or, more briefly, with the language. Thus 

 Cattell, an American, reads English words more quickly 

 than German (XVIl. and XVIIT.), while with Berger, a 

 German, this relation is reversed. To name a picture in 

 German occupies Cattell for GMff; in English, 588(7. It 

 occupies Berger in German for 501(7; in English. 580(7. The 

 inference is the same (though the absolute time is much 

 shorter) if we read words in construction instead of isolated. 

 By this method Cattell finds that he can read an English 

 word in 138(7, a French in 167(7, a German in 250(7, an 

 Italian in 327(7, a Latin in 434(7, and a Greek word in 484(7, 

 this being the order of his familiarity with these languages. 

 The particular nature of the association may be revealed in 

 the study of these time-relations. Thus, while in all cases 

 it takes longer to read words from right to left than from, 

 left to right, this difference is relatively least in the least fa- 

 miliar languages; i.e., in those in which the bond of asso- 

 ciation between the words is least significant. For a like 

 reason letters are read much more quickly from above down- 

 wards (102(7) than from below upwards (264(7). 



(6) The Overlapping of Mental Processes. We pass 

 now to a point of critical importance in the application of 

 results gained in the laboratory, to the mental operations of 

 daily life. While in the former ease we are performing a 

 set task in isolation for purposes of investigation, in the lat- 

 ter case (i.e., in such operations as reading, copying, play- 

 ing upon instruments, and the like) we are performing a 

 continuous, more or less extended, series of re-actions, bound 

 together by bonds of common purpose and associations of 

 habit. It is not a mere aggregate, but an organization of 

 mental processes ; and this makes possible the performance 

 of the several factors of the process in part at the same time. 

 It leads to an "overlapping" of the mental elements. It is sl 



