As memorizing is one sort of learning, what we have found in the preceding chapter regarding the learning process should throw light on our present problem. We found animals to learn by doing, and man by doing and also by observation or observation combined with doing. Observation is itself a form of doing, a mental reaction as distinguished from a purely passive or receptive state; so that learning is always active. Observation we found to be of great assistance, both by way of hastening the learning process, and by way of making what is learned more available for future use. Our previous studies of learning thus lead us to inquire whether committing to memory may not consist partly in rehearsing what we wish to learn, and partly in observing it. Learning by rote, or by merely repeating a performance over and over again, is, indeed, a fact; and observant study is also a fact.

Let us see how learning is actually done, as indicated by laboratory experiments. The psychologist experiments a great deal with the memorizing of nonsense material, because the process can be better observed here, from the beginning, than when sensible material is learned. Suppose a list of twenty one-place numbers is to be studied till it can be recited straight through. The learner may go at it simply by "doing", which means here by reading the list again and again, in the hope that it will finally stick. This pure rote learning will perhaps do the job, but it is slow and inefficient. Usually the learner goes to work in quite a different way. He observes various facts about the list. He notices what numbers occur at the beginning and end, and perhaps in other definite positions. He may group the digits into two-place or three-place numbers, and notice the characteristics of these. Any familiar combinations that {334} may occur, such as 1492, he is likely to spy and remember. Lacking these, he can at least find similar and contrasting number-groups.

For example, the list

5 7 4 0 6 2 7 3 5 1 4 0 9 2 8 6 3 8 0 1,

which at first sight seemed rather bare of anything characteristic, was analyzed in a way partly indicated by the commas and semicolons,

5, 74, 0; 62, 73; 5140; 9, 286; 380, 1,

and memorized easily. These observed facts transformed the list from a shapeless mass into something having definite characteristics, and the observed characteristics stuck in mind and held the rest together.

Lists of nonsense syllables, such as

wok pam zut bip seg ron taz vis lab mer koj yad

are apt to be learned largely by observation of similarities and contrasts, by reading meanings into the syllables, and by grouping into pairs and reading rhythmically. Grouping reduces the twelve syllables to six two-syllabled nonsense words, some of which may suggest meaningful words or at least have a swing that makes them easy to remember. Perhaps the first syllable of every pair is accented, and a pause introduced after each pair; such devices assist memorizing.

The rhythmical and other groups that are found or made by the learner in memorizing nonsense lists are, in effect, "higher units", and have much the same value as the higher units of telegraphy or typewriting. One who learns many lists in the course of a laboratory experiment develops a {335} regular system of grouping. First he reads the list through, in groups of two, three or four items, noticing each group as a whole; later, he notices the items in each group and how they are related to each other. He also notices the interrelations of different groups, and the position of each group in the total series. All this is quite different from a mere droning along through the items of the list; it is much more active, and much more observant.

Very interesting are the various ways in which the learner attacks a list of nonsense syllables, numbers, or disconnected words. He goes to work something like the cat trying to escape from a strange cage. He proceeds by a sort of trial and error observation; he keeps looking for something about the list that will help to fix it. He sees something that promises well for a moment, then gives it up because he sees something better. He notices positions, i.e., connects items with their position in the list. He finds syllables that stand out as peculiar in some way, being "odd", "fuzzy", smooth, agreeable, disagreeable, or resembling some word, abbreviation or nickname. He notes resemblances and contrasts between different syllables. He also finds groups that resemble each other, or that resemble words.

Besides what he actually finds in the list, he imports meanings, more or less far-fetched, into the list. He may make a rhythmical line of verse out of it; he may make a story out of it. In short, he both explores the list as it stands and manipulates it into some shape that promises to be rememberable.

His line of attack differs according to the particular test that is later to be made of his memory. Suppose he is shown a number of pictures, with the understanding that later those now shown are to be mixed with others, and that he must then pick out those now shown--then he simply examines each picture for something characteristic. But {336} suppose each picture is given a name, and he must later tell the name of each--then he seeks for something in the picture that can be made to suggest its name. Or suppose, once more, that the pictures are spread out before him in a row, and he is told that they will later be mixed and he be required to rearrange them in the same order in which they are now shown--then he seeks for relationships between the several pictures. His process of memorizing, always observant, exploratory and manipulatory, differs in detail according to the memory task that he expects later to perform.

For another example, suppose an experiment is conducted by the method of "paired associates". The subject is handed a list of pairs of words, such as

He must learn to respond with the second word of each pair when the first word of the pair is given. What he does, in learning this lesson, is to take each pair of words as a unit, and try to find something in the pair that shall make it a firm unit. It may be simply the peculiar sound or look of a pair that he notes, or it may be some connection {337} of meaning. Perhaps the pair suggests an image or a little story. After a few readings, he has the pairs so well in hand that he can score almost one hundred per cent., if tested immediately.

But now suppose the experimenter springs a surprise, by asking the subject, as far as possible, to recite the pairs in order, or to tell, after completing one pair, what was the first word of the next pair. The subject can do very little at this, and protests that the test is not fair, since he "paid no attention to the order of the pairs, but concentrated wholly on each pair separately". Had he expected to recite the whole list of pairs in order, he would have noticed the relationship of successive pairs, and perhaps woven them into a sort of continued story.

In memorizing connected passages of prose or poetry, the "facts observed" are the general sense and drift of the passage, the meanings of the parts and their places in the general scheme, the grammatical structure of the sentences and phrases, and the author's choice of particular words. Memorizing here is the same general sort of observant procedure as with nonsense material, greatly assisted by the familiar sequences of words and by the connected meaning of the passage, so that a connected passage can be learned in a fraction of the time needed to memorize an equally long list of unrelated words. No one in his senses would undertake to memorize an intelligible passage by the pure rote method, for this would be throwing away the best possible aid in memorizing; but you will find students who fail to take full advantage of the sense, because, reading along passively, they are not on the alert for general trends and outlines. For fixing in mind the sense of a passage, the essential thing is to see the sense. If the student gets the point with absolute clearness, he has pretty well committed it to memory.{338}

Short-circuiting.

The peculiarities of words or syllables in a list or passage that is being memorized, the relationships observed among the parts, and the meanings suggested or imported into the material, though very useful in the early stages of memorizing, tend to drop out of mind as the material becomes familiar. A pair of syllables, "lub--mer", may have first been associated by turning them into "love mother", but later this meaning fades out, and the two syllables seem simply to belong together in their own right. A pair of words, like "seldom--harbor", that were first linked together by the intermediary thought of a boat that seldom came into the harbor, become directly bound together as mere words. A short-circuiting occurs, indirect attachments giving way to direct. Even the outline and general purpose of a connected passage may fade out of mind, when the passage becomes well learned, so that it may be almost impossible for a schoolboy, who has learned his little speech by heart, to deliver it with any consciousness of its real meaning. A familiar act flattens out and tends to become automatic and mechanical.