64 PSTCHOLOOY. 



clearly with tlie moutli open ; others succeed after a fe^w 

 preliminary trials. The experiment proves how dependent 

 our verbal imagination is on actual feelings in lips, tongue» 

 throat, larynx, etc. 



" When we recall the impression of a word or sentence, if we do not 

 speak it out, we feel the twitter of the organs just about to come to 

 that po'nt. The articulating parts— the larynx, the tongue, the lips — 

 are all sensibly excited ; a suppressed. artictilaUon is in fact the mate- 

 rial of our recollection, the intellectual manifestation, the idea of 

 speech." * 



The open mouth in Strieker's experiment not only pre- 

 vents actual articulation of the labials, but our feeling of 

 its openness keeps us from imagining their articulation, 

 just as a sensation of glaring light will keep us from 

 strongly imagining darkness. In persons whose auditory 

 imagination is Aveak, the articulatory image seems to con- 

 stitute the whole material for verbal thought. Professor 

 Strieker says that in his own case no auditory image enters 

 into the words of which he thinks, t Like most psycholo- 

 gists, however, he makes of his personal peculiarities a rule, 

 and says that verbal thinking is normally and univer- 

 sally an exclusively motor representation. I certainly get 

 auditory images, both of vowels and of consonants, in 

 addition to the articulatory images or feelings on which 

 this author lays such stress. And I find that numbers of 

 my students, after repeating his experiments, come to this 

 conclusion. There is at first a difficulty due to the open 

 mouth. That, however, soon vanishes, as does also the 

 difficulty of thinking of one vowel whilst continuously 

 sounding another. What probably remains true, however, 

 is that most men have a less auditory and a more articu- 

 latory verbal imagination than they are apt to be aware of. 



* Ba'a : Senses and Intellect, p. 339. 



t Studien ilbei Sprachvorstellungen, 28, 31, etc. Cf. pp. 49-50, etc. 

 Against Strieker, see Stumpf, Ton psycho! , 155-162, and Revue Phi- 

 losophique, xx. 617. See also Paulban, Rev. Philosophique, xvi. 405 

 Strieker replies to Paulban in vol. xviri. p. 685. P. retorts in vol. xix 

 p. 118. Strieker reports that out of 100 persons questioned be found only 

 one who bad 7io feeling in bis lips when silently thinking the letters M B, 

 P; and out of 60 only two who were conscious of no internal articulation 

 whilst reading (pp. 59-60). 



